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This is nothing new. Many IT departments at security-sensitive companies have been doing this for a while with their own gear. It's quite common for enterpris
by chrissnell 9y ago
This is nothing new. Many IT departments at security-sensitive companies have been doing this for a while with their own gear. It's quite common for enterprised-managed laptops to scan for SSIDs and report this information back to HQ. This is primarily done to assist in the tracking of stolen laptops.
Many will quietly connect to open APs when they're discovered and use DNS requests to tunnel this information back, thus attempting to work around captive portals. They might, for example, send an A-record query like this:
chrissnell-laptop-DEADBEEFC0W.security.bigcorp.com
where DEADBEEFC0W is the ESSID of a discovered nearby AP and security.bigcorp.com is a specialized DNS server configured to record this data.
- shallot_router 9y agoThis is a big issue with the CIA tool leaks. The really interesting part is who they're using the tools against and how often; the tools themselves, devoid of context, aren't really very interesting. If they're using this to track a dozen intelligence officials in Saudi Arabia, it's very different optics from if they're using this to track, say, tens of thousands of "red-flagged" families in the US. (Especially since the CIA technically shouldn't be performing any sort of surveillance within the US.) The NSA leaks, or at least part of them, were a much bigger deal because they revealed warrantless, widespread, persistent drag-net surveillance of US citizens. So far, the CIA leaks have not revealed anything relating to surveillance of US citizens or even any civilians living anywhere. The CIA may very well (still) be evil, but these leaks do not even begin to prove it, so far.