4 ms·

What a great rabbit hole! It's pretty interesting to see how some of these sites are "protected" (big HTML warning stating "DO NOT ACCESS THIS") and some oldsch

What a great rabbit hole! It's pretty interesting to see how some of these sites are "protected" (big HTML warning stating "DO NOT ACCESS THIS") and some oldschool-IT named domains such as https://itdashboard.gov/ https://itdashboard.gov/ . Given the recent SolarWinds breach I wonder how these networks are impacted. Most of them look like from the early 90s.

sitzkrieg 6y ago
PKI, not username/password
sandworm101 6y ago
>> Given the recent SolarWinds breach I wonder how these networks are impacted. Classified military networks are very different than civilian networks. They aren't just air-gapped. Because they are not general purpose networks they can have lots of internal barriers that would not be acceptable outside of the military. Want to use HDMI for your new screen? Nope. VGA because it doesn't require compute power within the screen. Want to use a Bluetooth headset? Nope. You are stuck with a curly wire from 1972 because that wire has passed the emissions security inspections. Such principals extend to the internal barriers too. Important national security websites can look like personal websites from the 1990s not because they are not updated but because they are very restricted in how they can load information from other sources. The fact that these networks look old doesn't mean they are behind the curve on security. Got too many passwords to remember? Want a "password manager"... lol. Good luck with that in a world where computer A isn't even allowed to be in the same room as computer B.
- euler_angles 6y ago
  We aren't allowed to use VGA because it's vulnerable to being sniffed. Everything has to be hdmi or display port/mini display port
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    It depends on the threat profile. In an emissions secure zone, inside a big metal box like say a ship, the chance of a bug in the monitor's hdmi circuitry can be higher than the risk of the vga being sniffed.
    - p_l 6y ago
      Funnily enough a static configuration HDMI display needs no special circuitry, as it's essentially VGA that didn't pass a DAC and you can spam it directly to LCD matrix.
    - _kbh_ 6y ago
      If theres a chance of there being a bug in the HDMI circuitry isn't there just as much chance of there being a bug in VGA?.
alksjdalkj 6y ago
Those HTML banners aren't intended to "protect" anything, they just indicate what classification level the content is.
kube-system 6y ago
Sensitive networks are airgapped because vulns like solarwinds are not unforeseeable.

sitzkrieg 6y ago

PKI, not username/password

sandworm101 6y ago

>> Given the recent SolarWinds breach I wonder how these networks are impacted. Classified military networks are very different than civilian networks. They aren't just air-gapped. Because they are not general purpose networks they can have lots of internal barriers that would not be acceptable outside of the military. Want to use HDMI for your new screen? Nope. VGA because it doesn't require compute power within the screen. Want to use a Bluetooth headset? Nope. You are stuck with a curly wire from 1972 because that wire has passed the emissions security inspections. Such principals extend to the internal barriers too. Important national security websites can look like personal websites from the 1990s not because they are not updated but because they are very restricted in how they can load information from other sources. The fact that these networks look old doesn't mean they are behind the curve on security. Got too many passwords to remember? Want a "password manager"... lol. Good luck with that in a world where computer A isn't even allowed to be in the same room as computer B.

euler_angles 6y ago
We aren't allowed to use VGA because it's vulnerable to being sniffed. Everything has to be hdmi or display port/mini display port
- sandworm101 6y ago
  It depends on the threat profile. In an emissions secure zone, inside a big metal box like say a ship, the chance of a bug in the monitor's hdmi circuitry can be higher than the risk of the vga being sniffed.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Funnily enough a static configuration HDMI display needs no special circuitry, as it's essentially VGA that didn't pass a DAC and you can spam it directly to LCD matrix.
  - _kbh_ 6y ago
    If theres a chance of there being a bug in the HDMI circuitry isn't there just as much chance of there being a bug in VGA?.

alksjdalkj 6y ago

Those HTML banners aren't intended to "protect" anything, they just indicate what classification level the content is.

kube-system 6y ago

Sensitive networks are airgapped because vulns like solarwinds are not unforeseeable.