Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#21

Post by impossiblefork »

brudgers wrote: post #2

If your threat model includes nation states, you are outgunned. A nation state can probably buy the building across the street if that's the value of hacking your system. Of course there are almost certainly cheaper options,but that's the level of time and budget you are up against...teams of motivated and well resourced experienced professionals working against you full time.

If you can't secure computers against state attackers, then you have to stop using computers and to simply talk in places where there are not phones, computers etc.

If you're afraid about directional microphones out in the woods there are countermeasures for that too, but security is very possible even against the very most well-funded attackers.

Furthermore, I don't think even internet-connected secure computers are so hard that they can't be built. Limit what you do, so that you can write the program short enough that you can afford to have theoretical guarantees-- maybe write it to run on a computer with Harvard architecture to avoid buffer overflows, and you can probably build one on an FPGA, even as a hobbyist.

State attackers aren't magic.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#22

Post by chgs »

impossiblefork wrote: post #21
brudgers wrote: post #2

If your threat model includes nation states, you are outgunned. A nation state can probably buy the building across the street if that's the value of hacking your system. Of course there are almost certainly cheaper options,but that's the level of time and budget you are up against...teams of motivated and well resourced experienced professionals working against you full time.

If you can't secure computers against state attackers, then you have to stop using computers and to simply talk in places where there are not phones, computers etc. If you're afraid about directional microphones out in the woods there are countermeasures for that too, but security is very possible even against the very most well-funded attackers. Furthermore, I don't think even internet-connected secure computers are…

Until state attackers pick up your developers kids and bring them home from school, and then nicely ask him to put in a back door.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#23

Post by Yeul »

impossiblefork wrote: post #21
brudgers wrote: post #2

If your threat model includes nation states, you are outgunned. A nation state can probably buy the building across the street if that's the value of hacking your system. Of course there are almost certainly cheaper options,but that's the level of time and budget you are up against...teams of motivated and well resourced experienced professionals working against you full time.

If you can't secure computers against state attackers, then you have to stop using computers and to simply talk in places where there are not phones, computers etc. If you're afraid about directional microphones out in the woods there are countermeasures for that too, but security is very possible even against the very most well-funded attackers. Furthermore, I don't think even internet-connected secure computers are…

I read once that when America refurbishes an embassy somewhere in the world they bring in their own construction company. Otherwise you end up with mics in the walls.

Used to think the Chinese were paranoid with their bans on iPhones and Tesla's...

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#24

Post by impossiblefork »

Yeul wrote: post #23
impossiblefork wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't secure computers against state attackers, then you have to stop using computers and to simply talk in places where there are not phones, computers etc. If you're afraid about directional microphones out in the woods there are countermeasures for that too, but security is very possible even against the very most well-funded attackers. Furthermore, I don't think even internet-connected secure computers are…

I read once that when America refurbishes an embassy somewhere in the world they bring in their own construction company. Otherwise you end up with mics in the walls. Used to think the Chinese were paranoid with their bans on iPhones and Tesla's...

Yeah, that seems completely unavoidable otherwise.

I've always seen it as pretty strange to carry around other people's computers or using external services-- so I've always seen things like phones, Google Maps, etc. as things that it is strange that any country that isn't the US allows people to use.

I don't think one absolutely needs to make everything oneself, but I can't imagine that it's sensible that everybody use external services, so that so much information ends up in one place.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#25

Post by impossiblefork »

chgs wrote: post #22
impossiblefork wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't secure computers against state attackers, then you have to stop using computers and to simply talk in places where there are not phones, computers etc. If you're afraid about directional microphones out in the woods there are countermeasures for that too, but security is very possible even against the very most well-funded attackers. Furthermore, I don't think even internet-connected secure computers are…

Until state attackers pick up your developers kids and bring them home from school, and then nicely ask him to put in a back door.

But how would they know how the developer is? This is the neat part of not putting things where people can find them out.

Also, if you really keep it short, you can always check that he hasn't by reading it. You could also just never update it, and it let become ancient and well-tested.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#26

Post by ewuhic »

rurban wrote: post #16
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean hostapd? I'm not aware of any builtin kernel/modules doing AP stuff.

Right, hostapd. It has the radius functionality builtin you'd need for proper wifi enterprise functionality

Getting hostapd to work is ass in itself.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#27

Post by Spooky23 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #25
chgs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until state attackers pick up your developers kids and bring them home from school, and then nicely ask him to put in a back door.

But how would they know how the developer is? This is the neat part of not putting things where people can find them out. Also, if you really keep it short, you can always check that he hasn't by reading it. You could also just never update it, and it let become ancient and well-tested.

Lots of espionage and surveillance within government and contractors.

Lots of body shop contractors are fake people anyway. Pretty easy to imagine placing a compromised person in a low sensitivity area, then moving laterally.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#28

Post by westmeal »

mu53 wrote: post #20
rapjr9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then the source code of the nation states is hacked and anyone can pull off nation state style attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7 The nation states still have a money/people/breaking+entering advantage, but the cyberattack code is now something everyone has to protect against. Also some companies are important enough that they have to protect against nation state attacks, like pipeline operators, chem…

You say criminals, but I think you meant intelligence agencies

Pretty much the same thing.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#29

Post by impossiblefork »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27
impossiblefork wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how would they know how the developer is? This is the neat part of not putting things where people can find them out. Also, if you really keep it short, you can always check that he hasn't by reading it. You could also just never update it, and it let become ancient and well-tested.

Lots of espionage and surveillance within government and contractors. Lots of body shop contractors are fake people anyway. Pretty easy to imagine placing a compromised person in a low sensitivity area, then moving laterally.

But why you hire consultants to solve core security problems?

Furthermore, surely it would just be one guy who knows OS and FPGA stuff and another guy to check it?

What I'm arguing for is that a sensible solution to security problems is to avoid complexity, so that things can be obviously secure.

Carefully defined interfaces designed to be clear, impossible to misinterpret and which are designed to be parsed and implemented without doing anything requiring some kind of fiddly parsing that can lead difficulties, and small enough that someone can implement them in an afternoon; and then you combine that with a machine inherently robust to things like buffer overflows such as Harvard architecture type things, and it's easy even for a single engineer to program something like that up on an FPGA.

Re: Spies Jumped from One Network to Another via Wi-Fi in an Unprecedented Hack

#30

Post by ElevenLathe »

mu53 wrote: post #20
rapjr9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then the source code of the nation states is hacked and anyone can pull off nation state style attacks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7 The nation states still have a money/people/breaking+entering advantage, but the cyberattack code is now something everyone has to protect against. Also some companies are important enough that they have to protect against nation state attacks, like pipeline operators, chem…

You say criminals, but I think you meant intelligence agencies

A distinction without a difference.
Post reply on HN