5 ms·

Fun-ish story (for me, at least): I worked with a fellow who was incredibly privacy conscious. Now, that means many things to many people. I've worked in academ

Fun-ish story (for me, at least): I worked with a fellow who was incredibly privacy conscious. Now, that means many things to many people. I've worked in academia where people had time to do things like dynamically tunnel connections to their home VPN concentrator only to be piped out through their handrolled nameserver. That was old hat compared to this gentleman. During one engagement, he and I were holding a seminar on location about secure coding practices. He insisted on using HDMI cables without ethernet connections, piped to his own projector of his choosing, and spent about 10 or so minutes finagling device drivers to get the projector to work with his librebooted OS. After that we spent 10 or so minutes trying to setup a cellspot router to extend his phone signal so that he could phone home to a concentrator setup like I mentioned earlier in order for him to pull the handout pdfs from his home server (also librebooted btw, thanks for asking). Every bathroom break, and there were only 2 over 8h, he would disassemble his getup and take it with him into the stall of the bathroom. I don't know where this person is today, but I can only assume that the extent of his privacy consciousness has only continued to sink its roots deeper into his life. It struck me as a sort of paranoia that likely started off proper and good but grew malignant and degenerative over the years.

vorpalhex 4y ago
Depending on his threat model that isn't overwhelmingly paranoid, that is fairly sensible.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Even the bit about taking the gear into the bathroom with him? The only threat model that thwarts is somebody physically tampering with it, which seems very paranoid to me.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    > The only threat model that thwarts is somebody physically tampering with it, They way you state 'the only' seems to present a total misunderstanding of the fact that physical access is the number one easiest way to compromise just about any type of computing device that exists. If for example you went to any data center and attempted to get physical access without permission you would quickly find yourself accosted by armed personnel as to prevent the physical tampering you're talking about. In my work I must keep my laptop on my person, or otherwise locked up when I'm not using it to prevent physical access by others. This is in now way unique in the computer security industry.
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      For the vast majority of threat models, having someone you have a little bit of rapport with watch your locked computer is perfectly adequate. Realistically the bigger threat is someone stealing the laptop to sell, not as part of some targeted assault on your security. For that not to be adequate, your threat model needs to include field agents establishing a false sense of trust through some relationship, then leveraging that into an attack physical security. At some point you're getting really close to the "It's easier to bribe/blackmail/kidnap you" territory.
      - pixl97 4y ago
        In some businesses the risk of being blackmailed is high, but it also comes at significant risk of the blackmailed working as a double agent. If the affected agent has no idea they've been compromised it is unlikely they will change their behaviors in any manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack I mean in the case of desktop hardware, it's exceptionally easy to inline a USB key capture dongle.
    - rippercushions 4y ago
      You seem to have a total misunderstanding about the threats this person faces. If your job is running seminars about IT security to random companies, taking the projector with you to the bathroom is ridiculous and your clients will think you're a tin foil hat weirdo to boot. Of course, if you're Snowden or Assange, your threat landscape is quite different and this would not be paranoid at all.
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        The person does security seminars to major companies and connects his presentation hardware to hundreds of these companies on their internal network? His projector probably runs Android 7 (probably unsigned with who knows what mystery extras!). It would be an excellent attack vector.
        4y ago
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    You have a poor understanding of what kind of things are possible with hardware under your control for a couple of minutes, say the length of your average bathroom break. I once had to hand in my laptop to some busybeaver borderguard who wanted access to it (impossible: wiped clean Chromebook, only to be re-installed on destination), I told him that if he took it out my sight he might as well keep it because it would be useless to me.
aliqot 4y ago
risk profiles, like musical tastes, vary
fragmede 4y ago
OTOH if this person were Edward Snowden, that sounds more than reasonable!
- autoexec 4y ago
  Needing to go to extremes to avoid having their lives ruined can be reasonable for a lot of people depending on where they are and the kind of oppression they live under. Someone might be a whistleblower like Snowden, or in the witness protection program, or a homosexual, or have an abusive ex or stalker, or be seeking an abortion, or be a protestor/freedom fighter, etc. All the data collection pushed on us, even if it's only for marketing, leaves a lot of people vulnerable.
jacquesm 4y ago
I know two people this story could easily apply to and for both of them that's not at all paranoid. Both of them have had the resources of various nation states thrown at them on multiple occasions and they are both still walking the earth last I checked. To describe this as malignant would require you to be intimately familiar with everything they've been up to. There was a short period where I myself had very good reason to be that paranoid (and more, in fact) and it's not a memory I like to revisit much. Being paranoid is one thing but to actually know that you may be - for whatever reason - a legitimate target changes things considerably.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  What do you have to do for "nation state sending ground operatives to do hardware-level attacks against your security" becomes part of your threat model as an academic?
  - gazpachotron 4y ago
    [dead]
  - nehal3m 4y ago
    They could tell you, but they'd have to kill you?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Depending on the nation in question, it can be something as simple as posting a comment somewhere critical of the government.
  - jareklupinski 4y ago
    pretty much any mathematician researching novel cryptography maybe nuclear research
    - no-dr-onboard 4y ago
      He was was an armchair cryptographer. Not a particularly bright or studied one, but a cryptography enthusiast nonetheless. The kind of person to get all hand wavey about the efficacy of timing attacks and POODLE.

vorpalhex 4y ago

Depending on his threat model that isn't overwhelmingly paranoid, that is fairly sensible.

rippercushions 4y ago
Even the bit about taking the gear into the bathroom with him? The only threat model that thwarts is somebody physically tampering with it, which seems very paranoid to me.
- pixl97 4y ago
  > The only threat model that thwarts is somebody physically tampering with it, They way you state 'the only' seems to present a total misunderstanding of the fact that physical access is the number one easiest way to compromise just about any type of computing device that exists. If for example you went to any data center and attempted to get physical access without permission you would quickly find yourself accosted by armed personnel as to prevent the physical tampering you're talking about. In my work I must keep my laptop on my person, or otherwise locked up when I'm not using it to prevent physical access by others. This is in now way unique in the computer security industry.
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    For the vast majority of threat models, having someone you have a little bit of rapport with watch your locked computer is perfectly adequate. Realistically the bigger threat is someone stealing the laptop to sell, not as part of some targeted assault on your security. For that not to be adequate, your threat model needs to include field agents establishing a false sense of trust through some relationship, then leveraging that into an attack physical security. At some point you're getting really close to the "It's easier to bribe/blackmail/kidnap you" territory.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      In some businesses the risk of being blackmailed is high, but it also comes at significant risk of the blackmailed working as a double agent. If the affected agent has no idea they've been compromised it is unlikely they will change their behaviors in any manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack I mean in the case of desktop hardware, it's exceptionally easy to inline a USB key capture dongle.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    You seem to have a total misunderstanding about the threats this person faces. If your job is running seminars about IT security to random companies, taking the projector with you to the bathroom is ridiculous and your clients will think you're a tin foil hat weirdo to boot. Of course, if you're Snowden or Assange, your threat landscape is quite different and this would not be paranoid at all.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      The person does security seminars to major companies and connects his presentation hardware to hundreds of these companies on their internal network? His projector probably runs Android 7 (probably unsigned with who knows what mystery extras!). It would be an excellent attack vector.
      - 4y ago
- jacquesm 4y ago
  You have a poor understanding of what kind of things are possible with hardware under your control for a couple of minutes, say the length of your average bathroom break. I once had to hand in my laptop to some busybeaver borderguard who wanted access to it (impossible: wiped clean Chromebook, only to be re-installed on destination), I told him that if he took it out my sight he might as well keep it because it would be useless to me.

aliqot 4y ago

risk profiles, like musical tastes, vary

fragmede 4y ago

OTOH if this person were Edward Snowden, that sounds more than reasonable!

autoexec 4y ago
Needing to go to extremes to avoid having their lives ruined can be reasonable for a lot of people depending on where they are and the kind of oppression they live under. Someone might be a whistleblower like Snowden, or in the witness protection program, or a homosexual, or have an abusive ex or stalker, or be seeking an abortion, or be a protestor/freedom fighter, etc. All the data collection pushed on us, even if it's only for marketing, leaves a lot of people vulnerable.

jacquesm 4y ago

I know two people this story could easily apply to and for both of them that's not at all paranoid. Both of them have had the resources of various nation states thrown at them on multiple occasions and they are both still walking the earth last I checked. To describe this as malignant would require you to be intimately familiar with everything they've been up to. There was a short period where I myself had very good reason to be that paranoid (and more, in fact) and it's not a memory I like to revisit much. Being paranoid is one thing but to actually know that you may be - for whatever reason - a legitimate target changes things considerably.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago
What do you have to do for "nation state sending ground operatives to do hardware-level attacks against your security" becomes part of your threat model as an academic?
- gazpachotron 4y ago
  [dead]
- nehal3m 4y ago
  They could tell you, but they'd have to kill you?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Depending on the nation in question, it can be something as simple as posting a comment somewhere critical of the government.
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  pretty much any mathematician researching novel cryptography maybe nuclear research
  - no-dr-onboard 4y ago
    He was was an armchair cryptographer. Not a particularly bright or studied one, but a cryptography enthusiast nonetheless. The kind of person to get all hand wavey about the efficacy of timing attacks and POODLE.