4 ms·

«They also paid a third party contractor "six figures" to help develop a zero-day exploit in Tails: a bug in its video player that enabled them to retrieve the

by mrb 6y ago

«They also paid a third party contractor "six figures" to help develop a zero-day exploit in Tails: a bug in its video player that enabled them to retrieve the real I.P. address of a person viewing a clip.» This sounds like they describe the well-known WebRTC leak: https://restoreprivacy.com/webrtc-leaks/ https://restoreprivacy.com/webrtc-leaks/

bawolff 6y ago
Other than webRTC being related to video playing, i dont see the connection. They don't really describe the exploit, so hard to say, but the webrtc leak isn't really in the video player part, its super well known (literally a feature not a bug) so i dont think you would need to pay six figures for it, and tails uses tor browser which doesn't support webrtc.
- marci 6y ago
  But you can install WebRTC enabled browsers in tails. Depending on how tech-savvy someone is, they could be motivated to install one of them.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    The article specificly says the issue was in code that used to be in tails and isnt anymore. Additionally, the motherboard article describes the payload as a video file uploaded to dropbox, which doesnt sound like webrtc.
    - mirimir 6y ago
      Yes, I doubt that it's WebRTC. Or at least, I recall similar vulnerabilities in video player code that predated WebRTC. There used to be a Metasploit leak-testing site (Metasploit Decloaking Engine) which checked for IP leaks via video, PDFs, etc. And it included an early version of the NIT that the FBI has used since ~2011.[0] 0) https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/43442/cyber-crime/fbi-used-nit-against-pedo.html https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/43442/cyber-crime/fbi-u...
    - marci 6y ago
      I wasn't saying that's how it happened (regarding the article). It was to expand on: > and tails uses tor browser which doesn't support webrtc. and how (in other instances than the situation in the article) the WebRTC flaw could be used. I wasn't specific enough.
dillondoyle 6y ago
If it is that simple, this is used in most widespread adtech analytics..

by mrb 6y ago

bawolff 6y ago

Other than webRTC being related to video playing, i dont see the connection. They don't really describe the exploit, so hard to say, but the webrtc leak isn't really in the video player part, its super well known (literally a feature not a bug) so i dont think you would need to pay six figures for it, and tails uses tor browser which doesn't support webrtc.

marci 6y ago
But you can install WebRTC enabled browsers in tails. Depending on how tech-savvy someone is, they could be motivated to install one of them.
- bawolff 6y ago
  The article specificly says the issue was in code that used to be in tails and isnt anymore. Additionally, the motherboard article describes the payload as a video file uploaded to dropbox, which doesnt sound like webrtc.
  - mirimir 6y ago
    Yes, I doubt that it's WebRTC. Or at least, I recall similar vulnerabilities in video player code that predated WebRTC. There used to be a Metasploit leak-testing site (Metasploit Decloaking Engine) which checked for IP leaks via video, PDFs, etc. And it included an early version of the NIT that the FBI has used since ~2011.[0] 0) https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/43442/cyber-crime/fbi-used-nit-against-pedo.html https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/43442/cyber-crime/fbi-u...
  - marci 6y ago
    I wasn't saying that's how it happened (regarding the article). It was to expand on: > and tails uses tor browser which doesn't support webrtc. and how (in other instances than the situation in the article) the WebRTC flaw could be used. I wasn't specific enough.

dillondoyle 6y ago

If it is that simple, this is used in most widespread adtech analytics..