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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?

#131

Post by tptacek »

mverwijs wrote: post #123
tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You weren't just naive. You were anomalously naive. It's funny you should mention PGP: the 1990s were the time of the crypto-wars, which were in part sparked by PGP. Remember "this t-shirt is a munition"? You couldn't even sell products with crypto in them without jumping through hoops.

> You were anomalously naive. Now that type of thinking I find naive.

If you had to break the last 20 years into three time periods: (!) "post Snowden", (2) "post-9/11", and (3) "post PGP", sensitivity to government surveillance would rank 1-3-2. The NSA was a bigger deal in the 1990s than it was in the 2000s, even after the AT&T "Room 101" disclosure.

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

#132

Post by ufmace »

rwg wrote: post #89
icambron wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I like this game. Let's play again: WHICH IS MORE LIKELY?! * The world's largest online retailer that does $54M in sales per day has a bug in its procurement system that randomly transposes tracking codes. ORRRRRRRR! * The intelligence agency whose massive scope and pervasive operational shortcomings were recently exposed by one low-level operative had a slip-up in applying a well-publicized tactic to an obviousl…

The intelligence agency whose massive scope and pervasive operational shortcomings were recently exposed by one low-level operative had a slip-up in applying a well-publicized tactic to an obviously high value target. A few comments: • This "low-level operative" was a system administrator who used social engineering to obtain other people's authentication credentials and gain access to material to which he wasn't aut…

I would speculate that they might be interested in submitting a patch that compromises the Tor network in some subtle way that only they can exploit, and doing it in her name. Maybe added on to some other big change she submitted, in the hope that nobody will notice it.

Seems the Tor project is using Git for all of their projects, so doing something like that would probably require pwning whatever system she's creating commits on. I will say that putting a bug or something in her keyboard doesn't seem like a terribly efficient way of doing this.

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

#133

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

mikeash wrote: post #128
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA HQ, Ft Meade is 30 miles from Alexandria, Va.

And since Alexandria isn't 30 miles wide, we can conclude that NSA HQ is not "in Alexandria".

Oh! Duh! Mystery solved. How could I have been so obtuse?

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

#134

Post by tptacek »

ufmace wrote: post #132
rwg wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intelligence agency whose massive scope and pervasive operational shortcomings were recently exposed by one low-level operative had a slip-up in applying a well-publicized tactic to an obviously high value target. A few comments: • This "low-level operative" was a system administrator who used social engineering to obtain other people's authentication credentials and gain access to material to which he wasn't aut…

I would speculate that they might be interested in submitting a patch that compromises the Tor network in some subtle way that only they can exploit, and doing it in her name. Maybe added on to some other big change she submitted, in the hope that nobody will notice it. Seems the Tor project is using Git for all of their projects, so doing something like that would probably require pwning whatever system she's creati…

The Tor project was started by the US Navy, and receives 80% of its funding from the US Government. This is how you think they get them?

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

#135

Post by tptacek »

atmosx wrote: post #99
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…

You are either stupid or subversive. By now we all know Keith Alexander’s view of hackers (socially disabled, semi-autistic kids sitting behind a laptop at 4 a.m. wearing a batman suit and gloves) and his view on technical matters is equal with Comodo’s [2] leader. As for NSA having skilled personnel??? Sure - some of them are skilled - but they don’t take decisions[1]. The stupid guys do (again, K. Alexander is an e…

"Subversive"? What does that even mean?

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

#136

Post by comex »

rwg wrote: post #122
SamReidHughes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Internally, the keyboard and TrackPoint speak PS/2. While they could log keystrokes to an on-board chip and transmit keystrokes via radio, there aren't any especially interesting things the NSA can do to her laptop via a modified keyboard. They certainly won't be rooting it that way. This is a joke, right? A keyboard and a keylogger would give you everything you need to root a computer.

My point was that the modified keyboard alone couldn't do it. It's not a FireWire device that can read/write things from/to memory however it pleases, insta-pwning a computer as soon as it's connected (unless something like VT-d is being used to contain DMA transfers). It's not even a USB device that could abuse some poorly written driver to gain access. If a hypothetical modified keyboard is logging keystrokes, some…

Devil's advocate: you don't necessarily need all the data - the keystrokes are plenty valuable information on their own.

Alternatively, such a keyboard could try to do something clever when a shell is focused, although it's risky.

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

#137

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

VonGuard wrote: post #130

Why would the NSA fuck with a TOR developer, when the federal government contributes a great deal of TOR code and actually runs exit nodes as a matter of research?

>Why would the NSA fuck with a TOR developer,

Why wouldn't they? At the very least a TOR developer might find themselves in the same room with interesting people.

> when the federal government contributes a great deal of TOR code

The US gov isn't a single monolithic entity with a singular purpose and every person working in lock-step.

> and actually runs exit nodes as a matter of research?

I wouldn't trust a gov't run TOR node. It may be fine for dissidents in uninteresting countries, but not for anyone who wants to keep their privacy safe from the US gov't.

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

#139

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

nova22033 wrote: post #121

I live in Ashburn, VA. I've had a package routed through Ashburn, GA. Someone got confused between Washington(the state) and Washington(DC)...? Occam's razor people...

So, Alexandria, VA and Seattle, WA are spelled the same?

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

#140

Post by futurist »

tptacek wrote: post #135
atmosx wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are either stupid or subversive. By now we all know Keith Alexander’s view of hackers (socially disabled, semi-autistic kids sitting behind a laptop at 4 a.m. wearing a batman suit and gloves) and his view on technical matters is equal with Comodo’s [2] leader. As for NSA having skilled personnel??? Sure - some of them are skilled - but they don’t take decisions[1]. The stupid guys do (again, K. Alexander is an e…

"Subversive"? What does that even mean?

Here you go: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=subversive
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