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"The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices." So this is what Snowden has done: he "drew
by pulse7 6y ago
"The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices."
So this is what Snowden has done: he "drew widespread attention to these tactics". Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid" if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore.
And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don't trust Intel processors and Cisco routers anymore (among other products). They actually destroyed computers and internet as we knew them in the 1990'ies. It is not fun anymore to own a computer or a phone if you know that NSA can get access to it anytime they want... and you will never know if they accessed it...
- warent 6y agoIt has always been true that any computer connected to the internet could be accessed by an unauthorized party, even before the leaks. Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- redbeard0x0a 6y agoa little interdiction while that new airgapped laptop is shipped to you and they got you, even though you never connected to a network
- derefr 6y agoExactly what have they got, if you never connect it to a network afterward, either? A key-log that never makes it back to them? (I’m presuming here that the laptop is openable, and that you will do so and physically remove any wi-fi M.2 card from it — and associated antennae — since you won’t be using it. There might be some sort of extra surface-mount snooper chip left onboard that could replicate the same function — but without big antennas, how’s it going to report?)
- BlueTemplar 6y agoResearchers have been able to make integrated circuits emit radio waves.
- snypher 6y agoYou might not understand the depth to which you can be exploited. They will simply let you use your laptop and switch your USB cable, which has a built in 6ft antenna. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSA_COTTONMOUTH-I.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSA_COTTONMOUTH-I.jpg
- _jal 6y agoPerhaps with something like this? https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/ragemaster_nsa.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/ragemaster_ns... Or this? https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/cottonmouth-i_n.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/cottonmouth-i... If you have actually attracted the attention of the NSA, pulling your NIC is playground stuff.
- xxpor 6y agoIgnoring the larger context, but just technologically, RAGEMASTER sounds freakin' sweet. Like that's actually amazing.
- sroussey 6y agoAnd it can add a slight flicker that can be used as a signal and detected from outside.
- purplecats 6y agoor rather they're not getting in _or_ out. they might already be in. as long as both in _and_ out are disconnected, you're set.
- vorpalhex 6y agoA 2g or 3g module is <$100 and easy enough to hide without RF detection equipment. Plain radio is easier. If the NSA has enough of an interest to be intercepting your packages, they're not going to shy away at adding in a transmitter or two of their own preference.
- robin_reala 6y agoQuite considerably less. This one from Adafruit (hardly the cheapest supplier) is $30 and has GPS built in too: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2637 https://www.adafruit.com/product/2637
- ReactiveJelly 6y agoAnd yet I have to buy a new phone because 3G is getting shut down. I guess if I was the NSA I'd bring my own Stingray, but then you have to amortize in the cost of the van.
- PenguinCoder 6y ago> Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA. That is patently false.
- hanniabu 6y agoHope you have your bluetooth also turned off
- bayindirh 6y ago> Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA. Oh boy. That's some serious delusion in 2020. Wireless cards and higher end network interface cards are independent computers. Your processor has another processor (Intel ME and others) in it. Baseband Management Controllers are also independent computers on their own right. With closed firmware and wireless capabilities, you can never know what they're doing at a given time. Stuxnet reached systems which were seriously air gapped. Consider a what a laptop with a witty wireless card firmware can do. I'm not getting into TEMPEST attacks and their newer versions, passive surveillance, etc. I've listened tales about Cisco devices which were configured to isolate and prevent internet traffic but, they mistakenly forgot to drop some magic packets. Uh. --- Random facts about this stuff: - Your Intel system runs a special version of Minix on its Management Engine. A version of Minix customized for Intel by its original developer. - There are photos of Cisco devices which were delightfully enchanced by NSA before shipping to its customer via special firmware and/or hardware. NSA still retains this capability.
- the_only_law 6y agoI'm actually kinda curious if TEMPEST attacks or similar have been used spy on citizens ever now.
- aborsy 6y agoStuxnet is interesting. Apparently, the US and Israeli agents threw away a number of USB devices around target facilities. What do you do when you find a USB stick? Well, eventually someone working in an air gapped facility picked up one and used it inside. The NSA apparently perfectly aligned 4 zeros days in Siemens and Microsoft products to spread the malware from USB into the Iranian LAN (shared printers, industrial PICs etc). The fact that they could choose and align 4 zero days indicates that the NSA probably has a large list of zeros days.
- bayindirh 6y agoIts more nuanced than that. Didn't read the book completely but read a long report. What I remember: - They got exact hardware details and topology of the centrifuges somehow. - They've stolen Realtek's driver signing keys. - The virus looks like a simple worm which can infect other USB devices and doesn't unpack beyond a certain point if it can't find the SCADA equipment and the correct device ID & topology (It's like a homing cruise missile which looks like an RC plane from distance until it finds its target). It's possibly the most sophisticated hacking campaign when social and technical aspects combined.
- autumn_unlaces 6y agoHave you heard of Stuxnet?
- lm28469 6y ago> Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA. Wait until they put 5g chips in every single product to make them "smart". Few people talk about that but I believe it's the main use case for 5g. Everything will be connected and you'll have no way to opt out > 4G can support about 4,000 devices per square kilometre, whereas 5G will support around one million
- ReactiveJelly 6y agoWho pays for the connection? I assume for the radio to stay on, it's either subsidized by the parent company (Amazon pays for Alexa's 5G) or I'm paying for a subscription (Xbox subscription pays for 5G on some future mobile XBox) Maybe you could get the cost down to $1 / month. If you invest $400 in the market it should pay out about that much, so you could make it a one-time payment of $400 for a 5G chip. Consumer network connections, of any kind I'm aware of, don't go down to $1 per month. Maybe with a big volume order and a low bandwidth cap the cell companies would do it, or maybe 5G itself is just cheaper, but where does that monthly cost come from?
- lm28469 6y agoI have no answer but the amount of data that could be collected and the possibility to transmit ads to anything with a speaker or screen even if they're not connected to your wifi would be attractive to many companies.
- 542354234235 6y ago> Disconnect from the internet and nobody is getting in, including the NSA. Ah, the "just move to the wilderness and grow your own food if you don't like the government infringing your constitutional rights" argument. I want to be able to meaningfully engage in normal society by buying consumer goods and connecting them to communications platforms and I want my 4th amendment rights protected. I really don't think that is too much to ask.
- dancemethis 6y agoThey totally still call you paranoid. Snowden unfortunately meant nothing to the general technology consumer mass. They're more than happy to defend tooth and nail their jails. See Discord or Zoom as prime current examples. It is ridiculous that he had to go through this just for people to shake their shoulders and keep on, except for the few that already were inclined to care.
- abvdasker 6y agoLook, my estimation of "general technology consumer mass" is incredibly low, but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I agree that many — maybe even most — people don't understand the issue very well, but I think it did have a pretty large impact at the time and since.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoThey don't know who he is. American adults are uninformed about most issues and will just parrot what they're told to believe in. Mass media paints him as a bad person so that's his public image.
- alexilliamson 6y agoN = 1 blah blah, but my Dad is a West Virginian factory worker who couldn't name one current Supreme Court Justice (including the one just appointed), but he has spoken positively about Snowden for years.
- xkcd-sucks 6y agoEh Appalachian labor has a history of being on right side of morals and the wrong side of force
- AndrewBissell 6y agoZero doubt that the common people of this country have much more affinity for Edward Snowden and anti-surveillance viewpoints than the psychos at the top running things.
- mschuster91 6y ago> Many don't trust Intel processors and Cisco routers anymore That's Cisco's own fault given that there are rarely more than 6 months between critical firmware releases that either have some way of hardcoded backdoor account, remote code execution or other similar bugs.
- colejohnson66 6y agoIt’s not Cisco’s fault if the NSA has compelled them to add those “bugs”
- SauciestGNU 6y agoIt absolutely is. There can be a duty to resist. People get killed based solely on data collected from signals intercepts. More people and companies should take the brave stand Lavabit did, rather than be complicit in oppression and state-sponsored killings.
- colejohnson66 6y agoWhile I dislike the NSA as much as practically everyone else here, I’m not aware of any state-sponsored killings done by the NSA. Sure, the executive branch has ordered killings, but the branch is so large, lumping it all together makes no sense. The NSA, FCC, FTC, EPA, etc. don’t kill. Now, you should resist, yes, but most people don’t. It takes a very brave soul to resist and hope the Supreme Court will side with you. Civil disobedience generally also requires vast public support who would rally behind you. Practically everyone knows Rosa Parks, but polls have shown only about 60% of Americans have even heard of Snowden. Public support is a fraction of that. Cisco’s executives would also end up being involved in some massive lawsuits if they shut down the company to take a stand. Lavabit, OTOH, was multiple orders of magnitude smaller than Cisco is, and they could afford the backlash. It also didn’t help that Lavabit catered to tech people who would understand why they shut down. Cisco, OTOH, is used by virtually every large business; many of the employees of which would not understand why they shut down.
- 6y ago
- rjkennedy98 6y ago"Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts" - William S Burroughs
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIn my country, law enforcement (police) apparently uses or has used hardware to allow secure / encrypted communications, whose encryption was supplied by a Swiss company (Crypto AG) which was secretly owned by the CIA which built in backdoors since the 70's. So basically the CIA and by extension the US government has compromised their allies' communications. I hope there are massive consequences, but probably not.
- disown 6y ago> Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid" No. They'd call you a "conspiracy theorist". By "they", I mean the news/media would call you a "conspiracy theorist".
- AndrewBissell 6y agoIt's cool how "conspiracy theories" are always false, because the instant something which had been dismissed using the term is confirmed to be true, it's no longer a theory!
- duncan_bayne 6y ago> Many don't trust Intel processors and Cisco routers anymore In fairness, my lack of trust for Cisco products pre-dated the Snowden revelations, and were based on the products themselves. Nothing I've seen since has caused me to change my opinion. https://hub.packtpub.com/cisco-merely-blacklisted-a-curl-instead-of-actually-fixing-the-vulnerable-code-for-rv320-and-rv325/ https://hub.packtpub.com/cisco-merely-blacklisted-a-curl-ins...
- steve76 6y ago> It is not fun anymore You like Castlevania, don't you? I think it's a lot of fun. Like Gandalf talking to that butterfly on Sauroman's tower. Add some life to some old video games. Let power dress up like commoners to see what's up and help out good people. Odds are, stuff like this went on since prehistory.
- make3 6y agothe US police is such a shit show, as the news of innocent people getting gunned down keep showing us. I have zero trust in a system that has even less accountability.