NSA Owns Everything (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#201

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #134

dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

>why is it still ridiculed to say it might be happening? This thread is full of opportunities for me to contribute, but this is the comment that is the most important. I've spent a long time sifting through conspiracy theories, and I came to a conclusion at one point that the most important thing in the world the oligarchs and TPTB have at their disposal is control and influence of various degrees on the mass media i…

> people up who at a later point said "I don't want to know, that's too dark..."

Just a point about this part. That sentence is a nearly universal symptom of helplessness.

Those people are not denying the problem, will not fight you, but are tired of hearing about problems they can't do anything about. That is bad if the helplessness is false (propaganda does make people believe they can't do anything while they can), and you'll get a much better response by fighting the helplessness itself than in trying to push your original message.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#202

Post by JackFr » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #157

JackFr wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point is there a compelling heuristic we can use to determine if Snowden is an idealistic whistleblower or simply a Russian intelligence asset? The facts seem to support both interpretations.

The facts absolutely do not support either interpretation. The only reason Snowden is in Russia is that the US canceled his passport.

They revoked his passport because he's a fugitive, formally charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act. I think the reason he's Russia is that they don't have an extradition treaty with the United States.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#203

Post by Liquix » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

jmholla wrote: post #150

Liquix wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is everything really compromised? Given the documents and budgets which have leaked so far - it seems more sensible to assume that all hardware & software is compromised until proven otherwise. From the limited information provided so far we can see that if you use any Intel CPU, any Seagate/Hitachi/Fujitsu/Samsung hard drive, any version of windows, most commercially available routers, notepad++, or VLC - the NSA…

Forgive my ignorance, but notepad++ and VLC?

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_26968090.html

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v733-fix-cia-hacking-npp-...

My bad, that one was the CIA.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#204

Post by justicezyx » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #104

The difference between a theory, a conspiracy theory and the truth are best described by varying levels of evidence. A theory is not currently accepted as the truth, but it might be the truth. A conspiracy theory is something that has been proven to be untrue, but people still believe it and pass it on. The truth is the internally consistent and fact supported state of the world as it was and as it is. There were man…

> burn their career to provide the proof

Not particularly nitpicking.

However, Snowden risked his whole life. He was pretty sure that he will be sentenced as traitor, and putting him life on the line.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#205

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #10

SlavikCA wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does "running fully free software" helps alleviate "compromised x86"?

Wrap up that fully free software with LibreBoot and you're good to go!

Wrap with LibreBoot, replace all the non-free firmware, check your hardware on a microscope against embedded backdoors, oh, and don't forget to verify your stack's source and your building environment.

But, well, you can stop at your CPU's manufacturer website, where you will find ME/PSP, well documented as a backdoor. It will save you the trouble of verifying the hardware and firmware.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#206

Post by raincom » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

There are some dialogical strategies people use to avoid any discussion. One such is "conspiracy theory". Next time, when TPTB don't want to have a discussion, they will have their media buddies call their opponents conspiracy theorists. That way, there will never have any dialogue, thereby preventing any accountability of TPTB.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#207

Post by fsflover » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

daffy wrote: post #124

fsflover wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about Coreboot, not Libreboot. The latter has no blobs whatsoever.

Does that mean that a firmware backdoor is impossible or very unlikely?

Yes, it should be harder.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#208

Post by pmachinery » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #196

pmachinery wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you were right it doesn't matter. Coming to the comments to split semantics while obviously missing the point of the entire article is adding incredible noise. I didn't 'come to the comments to split semantics', nor did I say anything at all about the rest of the article. I simply replied to an already existing discussion about the meaning of a phrase. Describing that one short post as "incredible noise" is…

> I didn't 'come to the comments to split semantics', nor did I say anything at all about the rest of the article. I simply replied to an already existing discussion about the meaning of a phrase. Yeah, only one person needs to start the semantics-splitting topic and the rest of the lazy uninformative pseudo-discussion just flows from there, with every other guy adding one short harmless post. That’s how we get compl…

> Yeah, only one person needs to start the semantics-splitting topic and the rest of the lazy uninformative pseudo-discussion just flows from there, with every other guy adding one short harmless post.

Maybe you should learn how to scroll instead of reveling in the very thing you're complaining about, otherwise people might take you for a hypocrite who is only making matters worse.

> garbage threads like this. Did I participate in the thread? Yes.

And how was your cake?

> “Nor did I say anything at all about the rest of the article” — that should probably have tipped you off in a small way about the value of your addition.

Do you think all comments are required to address every word of an article? Maybe someone should tip you off that not everything posted here is going to be written with your personal satisfaction in mind.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#209

Post by justanotheranon » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #131

In terms of your experts being wrong, reality is, you likely didn't want your experts to tell you about this stuff at all. If you added state actors to a threat model even after Snowden, there were corporate managers in random companies who would shut down the conversation, end the conference call, or leave the room and you'd find out indirectly that someone somewhere had found problem with your contract and it was b…

i have seen this. in interviews for infosec dev roles, i would mention that i have read the entirety of the Snowden leaks, every page, as well as the TAO EQGRP source code leaked by the Shadowbrokers. I had thought mentioning this would demonstrate i am really interested in the subject of exploitation and defense and what is really going on in the invisible world of cyberwar.

but what i found out is most people conducting interviews don't want to know and they don't want to hire nor work with anyone who does want to know the big T Truth. I have been able to tell the interview conversation tone just shut down after I mention Snowden or the Shadowbrokers. All of the interviewers were ex-DoD and/or ex-Intelligence. I could tell they would not be proceeding to hire me because they got very quiet and quickly transitioned to the "let's wrap this up" phase of the conversation.

it greatly puzzled me for a long time why would the class of civillian infosec workers be affraid of the knowledge of how NSA had ran circles around them in the dark and why would these workers on the front lines of security want to NOT know how to defend themselves and their customers?

maybe ex-DoD folks are scared of Snowden, because they were always forbidden from reading Snowden leaks, since they would be violating their classification authority by learning about top secrets for which they were not cleared to know. i find that funny and scary in an Emperor's New Clothes sense, that us unwashed civillians on the streets can know more about cyberwar than DoD's own cyberwarriors, because we can study public information, while DoD indoctrinated workers have to pretend the Snowden leaks and Shadowbrokers never happened. there is probably also a factor of shame and face saving that makes DoD infosec types choose to be willingly ignorant. Snowden and the Shadowbrokers were the biggest embarassments to NSA.

imagine you are NSA. you are untouchable, you have as good as an infinite black budget and you are above all laws. you have pulled off the biggest victory in intelligence history--for 12 years after the Patriot Act, you have been hacking everyone and spying on everyone and nobody has figured it out and nobody can prove a thing. then along comes Snowden and the Shadowbrokers and your whole cover is blown. that's gotta make anyone who drink the Pentagon's kool-aid pretty personally mad. so anyone else who comes along and is blabbing about things they read in Snowden leaks will be treated like an outcast and shunned for adding insult to injury.

Re: NSA Owns Everything (2015)

#210

Post by jrexilius » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #9

dleslie wrote: post #5

The basic premise is false. > "Why did we never see it coming?" Many people saw it coming. I was warning about the possibility of dragnet surveillance, the existence of ECHELON, the use of the American security apparatus to steal trade secrets, the surveillance of non-American politicians, et al... For many, many years before Snowden. And I'm just some rando on the internet who follows the mainstream news! We were ca…

It's not that nobody saw them coming it's that nobody cared enough to produce better technology. When a few key entities are central points of information distribution it is very simple to monitor everything. End-to-end encryption is helpful, but it isn't enough, becaues no effort is required to know where to find everything. If you really want to lower the probability of state monitoring you need end-to-end encrypti…

Very much this. Anyone who has tried to sell better defensive products to the market knows that the issue is not with the difficulty of doing things better, it's the interest and will of the market.