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Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

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Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#51

Post by theboss »

ITT, people who have never been to DC. Dulles is one of the main airports everything flys into for DC. As for as I know, it is the biggest.

Dulles has a lot of government contractors and big companies in the area, but that's about it.

What would be suspicious is if it went from Dulles to Langley, from Langley to Ft. Meade, from Ft. Meade to Quantico, and from Quantico to Alexandria....but Dulles to Alexandria is really standard.

edit: It isn't like it got back on a plane and went back to Seattle to be delivered to this girl. It looks like they straight delivered it to the wrong city. The government has pretty good OpSec when it comes to things like this. You think they would straight up route her package through Ft. Meade if they were planning to install malware on her computer?

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#52

Post by mikeash »

busterarm wrote: post #47
mikeash wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Why is an administrative non-profit at all interesting here?

Did you actually read the three paragraphs on the first linked page?

The ones that say their research activities occur in California and New Jersey?

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#53

Post by rwg »

mindslight wrote: post #22
rwg wrote: post #9

HEY, KIDS! Do YOU know what time it is?! [wild audience applause] THAT'S RIGHT, it's time for WHICH IS MORE LIKELY? ! [intro music] Today on Which is More Likely? , we're looking at a replacement Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard that was shipped to Alexandria, Virginia, instead of Seattle, Washington. What a blunder! [slide whistle sound effect] Now put your thinking caps on and ponder, WHICH IS MORE LIKELY? ! • The largest…

> The third-party seller who uses Amazon to accept orders screwed up and gave Amazon the wrong tracking number. This should be easy to find out. Check if the tracking number on the website differs from what's printed on the package itself, and if so what the tracking for it looks like.

Yep. But the package hasn't arrived, so all we can do is make wild-assed hand-wavy conjecture. Or something.

Of note, when searching Amazon for "NEW and ORIGINAL IBM Lenovo Thinkpad Keyboard 42T3209 42T3177", I find one seller ("u fix it", who "Ships from TN") selling that item. Assuming that's the seller Andrea bought the keyboard from, that clearly doesn't jive with the tracking information, which shows the item shipping from California.

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#54

Post by mikeash »

theboss wrote: post #51

ITT, people who have never been to DC. Dulles is one of the main airports everything flys into for DC. As for as I know, it is the biggest. Dulles has a lot of government contractors and big companies in the area, but that's about it. What would be suspicious is if it went from Dulles to Langley, from Langley to Ft. Meade, from Ft. Meade to Quantico, and from Quantico to Alexandria....but Dulles to Alexandria is real…

Yep, the last few lines of the package tracking could have come from about 90% of the packages I had delivered to my house in the past few years, until I moved out of Alexandria.

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#55

Post by mikeash »

DangerousPie wrote: post #25

You only phrase your headline as a question if the answer is No, but you really want it to be Yes.

It fits. The answer is almost certainly No (an honest mistake is far more likely, and nefarious activity wouldn't look like this anyway), and you can tell from the way they write (e.g. vastly exaggerating the import of the tracking info) that they deeply want this to be true.

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

theboss wrote: post #51

ITT, people who have never been to DC. Dulles is one of the main airports everything flys into for DC. As for as I know, it is the biggest. Dulles has a lot of government contractors and big companies in the area, but that's about it. What would be suspicious is if it went from Dulles to Langley, from Langley to Ft. Meade, from Ft. Meade to Quantico, and from Quantico to Alexandria....but Dulles to Alexandria is real…

[deleted]

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#57

Post by Geee »

jhgg wrote: post #3

I'm a bit confused here. On the bottom right, it says that the package contained a replacement keyboard, and not an actual laptop.

The keyboard can be modified, for example, with SURLYSPAWN, a 'Keystroke monitor technology that can be used on remote computers that are not internet connected'. It's probably one of the most used NSA devices, being cheap($30) and easily installable.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/NSA_SURLY...

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

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#58

Post by busterarm »

mikeash wrote: post #52
busterarm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the three paragraphs on the first linked page?

The ones that say their research activities occur in California and New Jersey?

Yes, one part of what they do is in NJ/CA. Alexandria is where they're based. I'm not leaping to any conclusion; it just seems remotely possible and they're based there. You're the one saying there's nothing interesting in Alexandria.

Given what the company researches, their history and mission, it seems like exactly the sort of place where this wild theory suggested by the OP could be a reality.

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#59

Post by maxjus »

mschuster91 wrote: post #8
ljd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when that keyboard gets plugged into the motherboard of the laptop, it'll have an opportunity to install malware in the form of device drivers.

Worse: laptop keyboards are usually connected to a special embedded firmware (IIRC on my Clevo laptop it's called EC, short for embedded controller), which handles the FN+x key combos like LCD brightness, volume control, keyboard backlight (Lenovo!), WiFi/BT/cellphone-data connectivity, webcam enabling (!) and other detailed functions. Now, if this EC chip is vulnerable, a malicious keyboard can have direct DMA acces…

>direct DMA access

Direct direct memory access access?

Re: Did this Tor developer become a victim of NSA's laptop interception program?

#60

Post by mikeash »

busterarm wrote: post #58
mikeash wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones that say their research activities occur in California and New Jersey?

Yes, one part of what they do is in NJ/CA. Alexandria is where they're based. I'm not leaping to any conclusion; it just seems remotely possible and they're based there. You're the one saying there's nothing interesting in Alexandria. Given what the company researches, their history and mission, it seems like exactly the sort of place where this wild theory suggested by the OP could be a reality.

The headquarters of a company like this isn't interesting. Headquarters are administrative centers. It's not where you send a laptop to have a bug installed.
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