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Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

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Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#81

This whole thing makes me very suspicious of Apple's and Microsoft's whole disk encryption technologies. I can't help but wonder if back doors have been inserted into the products.

Microsoft has a free program (for Law Enforcement) called COFFEE which, among other things, bypasses Bitlocker full-disk encryption.

You can find the Torrent at Wikileaks: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Microsoft_COFEE_%28Computer_Onlin...

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#83
post #31

This whole thing makes me very suspicious of Apple's and Microsoft's whole disk encryption technologies. I can't help but wonder if back doors have been inserted into the products.

Of course there are back doors, like the well known NSAKEY one [1] in Windows. Apple also seem to have backdoors into encryption on both Mac and iOS [2]. If you want your data to be reasonably secure against someone who casually steals it then they're fine but if you want to be secure against government employees, or even well connected corporations, then Apple & Microsoft solutions are not very useful. [1] https://e…

The key that the wiki mentions isn't for spying, its for verifying digital signatures on third party cryptography service provider packages. It was named as such because CSP packages that are exported outside of USA have to receive export approval, something the NSA performed. So the NSAkey was named because it was a digital signature proving that a package had either received proper review or didn't need it (If it was for US only).

Not saying that NSA isn't spying, just that the key mentioned is not used for that purpose.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#84
post #4

Puts this in an entirely different light, doesn't it: Even when ostensibly not functioning, the Xbox One can run in a low-powered state, ready to be snapped on at a moment's notice. That's something Microsoft was showing off last week as an asset. The only on-switch Microsoft showed for waking the machine from its low-power state was a voice command... "Xbox On." The Xbox One could only hear that if the Kinect was al…

>Even when ostensibly not functioning, the Xbox One can run in a low-powered state, ready to be snapped on at a moment's notice.

The same is true for most phones and tablets, and for laptops including Macbooks and Chromebooks(which is worse in some aspects since it has paltry storage forcing you to store everything in the cloud).

Phones are worse since people carry them everywhere including bathrooms and bedrooms. Not to mention Google Glass. Not sure why they're not a big deal but the Xbox One is.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#85
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an always on microphone, with fixed hardware and software, phoning home at regular intervals has a big target sign painted on it.

Yeah it's insane to think that anyone would own some kind of device that has a microphone and camera accessible by a third party, right? I mean what's next, they're going to make these things small enough that we can carry them everywhere?

As long as you control the device, there's nothing to fear.

Grab the source, build it and install it yourself. If your device doesn't support it, buy one that does. If you can't do it yourself, get used to be screwed in this brave new Orwelian world.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#86
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA is skating on very thin constitutional ice, but honestly they haven't really done anything that even qualifies as evil. The KGB did this kind of spying, but they did for the express purpose of sending dissenters to gulag. I haven't seen so much as a credible accusation that the NSA are doing anything other than their duly authorized mission.

This is the same as the British Stamp Act from the American Revolutionary War. If the Stamp Act was an argument for revolution because it was evil, this is too.

The difference is that the colonists had no recourse. "No taxation without representation" and all that. Without sending delegates to parliament, they had no channels to complain through, so rebellion was the only option. We could end the NSA completely by voting for candidates who support that.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#87
post #38

I feel so stupid and so ashamed of myself for all the time I have thought of everything Richard Stallman had to say about privacy and security concern as a "neck-beard, tin-foil hat, nutjob". He was right all along, it was us who didn't care enough to understand what he was saying and its importance.

He was was some might call an extremist in his views. It is slowly becoming common sense. I guess that's why we see him as a visionary. He discarded many chances at fortunes to do what he believed to be right.

Not many like that left. I know I sold out already.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#88
post #4

Puts this in an entirely different light, doesn't it: Even when ostensibly not functioning, the Xbox One can run in a low-powered state, ready to be snapped on at a moment's notice. That's something Microsoft was showing off last week as an asset. The only on-switch Microsoft showed for waking the machine from its low-power state was a voice command... "Xbox On." The Xbox One could only hear that if the Kinect was al…

It's a low level, hardware only capability. It'll even work when the Xbox isnt connected to the internet. You're making an unfounded statement that simply because the XO can listen for an "on" command while hibernating that it's being used to listen and transmit everything it sees and hears. This is explicitly not true and again, just your personal unfounded fear-mongering assertion.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if the device was designed with surveillance in mind.

It was, targeted advertising, or at least that's the excuse. http://consumerist.com/2013/07/08/the-xbox-one-will-use-kine... http://bgr.com/2012/06/12/microsoft-xbox-kinect-targeted-adv...

Well considering targeted advertising is fundamentally based on surveillance, it's pretty much the same thing.

Re: Microsoft helped the NSA bypass encryption, new Snowden leak reveals

#90
Maybe I'm missing the source, but where's the source? These people keep writing stories about what's being revealed and "according to secret documents" this and that is shown. So where are these leaked documents?

If these media outlets are holding on to them to dribble and drab them out to make a buck, there's a huge problem with that. Everything should be out on a torrent or wikileaks for all to see.

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