4 ms·

> Yet everyone jumps to "back door" because that sounds more fun I guess. IME is (by construction) a backdoor. It's primary purpose is as a management tool, bu

by cyphar 9y ago

> Yet everyone jumps to "back door" because that sounds more fun I guess. IME is (by construction) a backdoor. It's primary purpose is as a management tool, but all management tools are by necessity backdoors. The only distinction between the two is whether the person using the backdoor has ownership over the machine. > In fact, to the extent there is evidence of government involvement here, it's in the opposite direction: the NSA appears to have demanded an "off switch" for the ME. It also shows that the NSA is in communication with Intel and is capable of getting them to implement something that large corporations like Google were unable to convince them to do. Which should be concerning, because it makes you wonder what else the NSA might've asked as well. Also these really aren't conspiracy theories anymore. We know that the NSA and CIA do these sorts of things thanks to the information we learned from Snowden and other whistleblowers.

linkregister 9y ago
No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? Historically, Australia has heavily interfered in PNG affairs. Should you be accused of espionage or subversion if you decide to hike a portion of the Kokoda Trail? Would it be appropriate for Indigenous People to accuse you of attempting to steal their children, a practice that occurred until the 1970s?
- m-p-3 9y ago
  It's hard not to assume the worst, especially when you have no concrete reports on their capabilities. And when assessing the threat it creates, you can't really ignore the possibilities by that lack of knowledge.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    But you have tons of concrete reports from the Snowden leaks and prior leaks. Dual_EC RNG is the worst example anyone can think of, something that has been red-flagged since 2007. Assuming a supposedly* adversarial agency has unlimited resources and ability will only cause you to focus on that threat instead of more immediate ones. Or worse, make you needlessly complacent when there is so much that can be done to harden against APTs and other, more immediate threats. * supposedly because if you're a U.S. citizen, the government works for you. If you're outside of FVEY (AU,CA,UK,US,NZ) and are a government official, military member, have interesting technical infrastructure, or operate an interesting company, then yes you should include NSA in your threat model.
- traineater 9y ago
  > No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? It shows they'll do anything within their power, legal or illegal, in order to get at more people's data. Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? > Historically, Australia has heavily interfered in PNG affairs. Should you be accused of espionage or subversion if you decide to hike a portion of the Kokoda Trail? > Would it be appropriate for Indigenous People to accuse you of attempting to steal their children, a practice that occurred until the 1970s? Bizarre points in support of your initial comment I think.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    They have zero context for an American, but the parent poster was Australian. If I had used American analogies, the point would have been lost. You're right that anyone else should be mystified.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - linkregister 9y ago
    > Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? I think you give them too much credit and unnecessarily slander Intel, which has little reason to go along with NSA (no large DoD contracts, almost all consumer and B2B market). Also, you overestimate the amount of resources NSA has. If they have enough money to overcome Intel's appetite for risk, then why doesn't the NSA just run every single internet and hardware service out there? Your threat model needs to have bounds. It's worthless if you expect the adversary to have unlimited resources.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      Overestimate the amount of resources? Wikipedia: > In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts."[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians. Let's assume they have 30 000 employees and the large majority of them are highly educated, that would make it into one of the largest organization on Earth in terms of intellect capital. In terms of actual budget it's obviously classified but estimations are probably around 10 billions USD per year. https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.html https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.h... That's not a small budget by any feat, and we know they operate huge data centers for surveillance, so they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency.
- trisimix 9y ago
  Dude youre acting like snowden leaked that shit in the fifties.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? You can only conservatively assume the worst since they operate in complete secrecy with pretty much a blank check from the Federal Government, and prevent anyone from disclosing what they actually do. And take in account that even the Snowden revelations were not the full picture, there are documents that were still not released from what he passed on to journalists. And it's in their agency's interest to go above and beyond what the Law, and to lie about it like they did before the Congress hearing. They will do every malicious thing given the opportunity because that's their core mission. Unless you assume they are grossly incompetent at it.

by cyphar 9y ago

linkregister 9y ago

No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? Historically, Australia has heavily interfered in PNG affairs. Should you be accused of espionage or subversion if you decide to hike a portion of the Kokoda Trail? Would it be appropriate for Indigenous People to accuse you of attempting to steal their children, a practice that occurred until the 1970s?

m-p-3 9y ago
It's hard not to assume the worst, especially when you have no concrete reports on their capabilities. And when assessing the threat it creates, you can't really ignore the possibilities by that lack of knowledge.
- linkregister 9y ago
  But you have tons of concrete reports from the Snowden leaks and prior leaks. Dual_EC RNG is the worst example anyone can think of, something that has been red-flagged since 2007. Assuming a supposedly* adversarial agency has unlimited resources and ability will only cause you to focus on that threat instead of more immediate ones. Or worse, make you needlessly complacent when there is so much that can be done to harden against APTs and other, more immediate threats. * supposedly because if you're a U.S. citizen, the government works for you. If you're outside of FVEY (AU,CA,UK,US,NZ) and are a government official, military member, have interesting technical infrastructure, or operate an interesting company, then yes you should include NSA in your threat model.
traineater 9y ago
> No, the Snowden leaks showed that NSA did do something, not that it does every malicious thing that people accuse it of. How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? It shows they'll do anything within their power, legal or illegal, in order to get at more people's data. Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? > Historically, Australia has heavily interfered in PNG affairs. Should you be accused of espionage or subversion if you decide to hike a portion of the Kokoda Trail? > Would it be appropriate for Indigenous People to accuse you of attempting to steal their children, a practice that occurred until the 1970s? Bizarre points in support of your initial comment I think.
- linkregister 9y ago
  They have zero context for an American, but the parent poster was Australian. If I had used American analogies, the point would have been lost. You're right that anyone else should be mystified.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- linkregister 9y ago
  > Of course they have involvement with this, why wouldn't they? I think you give them too much credit and unnecessarily slander Intel, which has little reason to go along with NSA (no large DoD contracts, almost all consumer and B2B market). Also, you overestimate the amount of resources NSA has. If they have enough money to overcome Intel's appetite for risk, then why doesn't the NSA just run every single internet and hardware service out there? Your threat model needs to have bounds. It's worthless if you expect the adversary to have unlimited resources.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Overestimate the amount of resources? Wikipedia: > In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts."[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world's largest single employer of mathematicians. Let's assume they have 30 000 employees and the large majority of them are highly educated, that would make it into one of the largest organization on Earth in terms of intellect capital. In terms of actual budget it's obviously classified but estimations are probably around 10 billions USD per year. https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.html https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/budget/index.h... That's not a small budget by any feat, and we know they operate huge data centers for surveillance, so they are certainly not a "passive" intelligence agency.
trisimix 9y ago
Dude youre acting like snowden leaked that shit in the fifties.
ekianjo 9y ago
> How does it help anything by making unfounded accusations? You can only conservatively assume the worst since they operate in complete secrecy with pretty much a blank check from the Federal Government, and prevent anyone from disclosing what they actually do. And take in account that even the Snowden revelations were not the full picture, there are documents that were still not released from what he passed on to journalists. And it's in their agency's interest to go above and beyond what the Law, and to lie about it like they did before the Congress hearing. They will do every malicious thing given the opportunity because that's their core mission. Unless you assume they are grossly incompetent at it.