6 ms·
it's news because the cops and feds have fought extremely hard to prevent the public from understanding what these can do, how frequently they are used, and who
by cryoshon 10y ago
it's news because the cops and feds have fought extremely hard to prevent the public from understanding what these can do, how frequently they are used, and who has them.
they don't want this info out, therefore it's high intel value to the public and must be disseminated.
technical manuals hardware provide avenues for discovering defenses and vulnerabilities, which we're in dire need of.
- dogma1138 10y agoWe have different priorities then, I see no value in this information other than for my own personal technical interests. I also see no correlation between the technical information and what we can all agree on that is important - how, when, and on whom are they used. Spreading a manual which is controlled under ITAR does nothing, infact it's utterly counter productive because it gives the government more reason to bunker and deny FOIA requests. As far as defenses go there is plenty of information about how IMSI catchers and various other interception techniques work, I had no problems getting technical datasheets for about 10 of those including from vendors like HP (well now Keysight since it' was Agilent/HP > Keysight). You can buy those things from freaking Alibaba and there are now plenty of chinese companies that clone and develop their own interception gear and sell it online they just ask you to confirm you have the legal authority to possess the equipment. Talks about this like the SS7 talk in CCC also didn't seem to be hindered due to lack of technical material from vendors, so yeah these manuals not to mention they story they tried to make around them aren't really news in my books, but hey different strokes.