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Protecting Against Leakers

schneier.com

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Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#11

Post by ams6110 »

As a system administrator, he needed access to many of the agency's computer systems -- and he needed access to everything on those machines.

He certainly did NOT need this access to administer systems. It still boggles my mind that the sensitive data on those systems was not encrypted so administrators could not read it.

In any well-run IT organization, the DBAs cannot read the credit card numbers stored in the database and the systems administrators cannot read user passwords. But they can still administer the database and the the servers.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#12

Post by edanm »

jacquesm wrote: post #7

> More surprising than Snowden's ability to get away with taking the information he downloaded is that there haven't been dozens more like him. Is an assumption on Schneier's part. For all we know there were dozens or more. They may not have released the data or they may have sold it to some foreign agency instead.

I assume he means specifically whistleblowers, not any traitor.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#13

Post by stefs »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #8
ig1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every company has confidential information. When a company administrator sells the internal address book to a recruiter or when a salesperson makes a copy of the prospects database before joining a competitor - that's leaking too.

It would be interesting to consider a world that is truly without secrets, even of obscurity. It's possible we might get there. I think the way companies and so forth do their work could end up being adjusted to cope.

i recommend stephen baxter and arthur c. clarkes "the light of other days". as far as i remember it focusses more on the social than the economical impact of absolute transparency, but i still strongly recommend this excellent book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#14

Post by guelo »

Part of Assange's philosophy is that secretive unjust organizations will operate less efficiently and become less effective as they lock down their internal flow of information in response to leaks. Looks like things are going according to plan.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#15

Post by icebraining »

Decstasy wrote: post #5

Every nation need secrets but not in that way it is currently handled. There must be a kind of balance like a committee which decides in every single case "should this information be classified or not". When this procedure would be consistently applied there might wont be a prism program. Leakers should get a chance to contact this committee and get exemption from punishment. I hope all of you know what I mean - I kn…

That's a lot of power granted to some committee. Who verifies that it's working well, and its members aren't actually selecting what to publish for their own benefit? What guarantees would a leaker have that the committee will protect her/him?

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#16

Post by jacquesm »

edanm wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #7

> More surprising than Snowden's ability to get away with taking the information he downloaded is that there haven't been dozens more like him. Is an assumption on Schneier's part. For all we know there were dozens or more. They may not have released the data or they may have sold it to some foreign agency instead.

I assume he means specifically whistleblowers, not any traitor.

They may still become whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are only whistleblowers once they blow the whistle, before then they're thieves.

Some would like them to remain thieves after they've done their thing and I'm sure that some thieves eventually consider becoming whistleblower but in the interval between taking the data and exposing it there is no real difference that you could outwardly discern between the two cases.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#17

Post by jacquesm »

ams6110 wrote: post #11

As a system administrator, he needed access to many of the agency's computer systems -- and he needed access to everything on those machines. He certainly did NOT need this access to administer systems. It still boggles my mind that the sensitive data on those systems was not encrypted so administrators could not read it. In any well-run IT organization, the DBAs cannot read the credit card numbers stored in the data…

DBA's and system administrators can usually use their privileges to install tools or change settings in such a way that they gain access to the raw data. Whether it goes undetected or not is another matter.

In the end someone or some process has access and a sysadmin / DBA could pretend to be that someone or that process.

Once you have physical access to a box it is game-over, the only thing that might still trip you up is an auditing system that is not part of that box.

You shouldn't make it easy either, but if someone configures a system they are in a position to bypass the security on that system. It all ends with trust.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#18

Post by naterator »

guelo wrote: post #14

Part of Assange's philosophy is that secretive unjust organizations will operate less efficiently and become less effective as they lock down their internal flow of information in response to leaks. Looks like things are going according to plan.

If we take Schneier's example of the bank president and the ATM, you could easily argue that is a flawed philosophy. Every day I go to the ATM, money comes out. Like clockwork, very efficient.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#19

Post by rdl »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
ams6110 wrote: post #11

As a system administrator, he needed access to many of the agency's computer systems -- and he needed access to everything on those machines. He certainly did NOT need this access to administer systems. It still boggles my mind that the sensitive data on those systems was not encrypted so administrators could not read it. In any well-run IT organization, the DBAs cannot read the credit card numbers stored in the data…

DBA's and system administrators can usually use their privileges to install tools or change settings in such a way that they gain access to the raw data. Whether it goes undetected or not is another matter. In the end someone or some process has access and a sysadmin / DBA could pretend to be that someone or that process. Once you have physical access to a box it is game-over, the only thing that might still trip you…

You can set things up so there's no way for any single to bypass logs or other audit controls. A trivial way is to have all logins go via an administration host which logs separately , and never give admin rights on that machine to people with admin on the protected systems.

Re: Protecting Against Leakers

#20

Post by rdl »

naterator wrote: post #18
guelo wrote: post #14

Part of Assange's philosophy is that secretive unjust organizations will operate less efficiently and become less effective as they lock down their internal flow of information in response to leaks. Looks like things are going according to plan.

If we take Schneier's example of the bank president and the ATM, you could easily argue that is a flawed philosophy. Every day I go to the ATM, money comes out. Like clockwork, very efficient.

Multi-party controls and generally complex technical controls add minimal overhead relative to benefit in large organizations working on static systems; they're horrible in small companies working on rapidly changing products. (Imagine a tiny startup where you have a 4 week change control process for every modification...)
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