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Modern-day spying: sometimes old technology is more secure
- tahoeskibum 2y agoSounds like the storyline for Battlestar Galactica :-)
- trod123 2y agoThe technical director on that remake had a sound head on his or her shoulders. They correctly treated many aspects and details that today go ignored and addressed many of the issues that apply to us today with regards to adversaries who can by nature react faster than we can perceive. The solution had cost tradeoffs, but in the end it proved the correct decision through virtue of the fact that the story continued (and they weren't all killed off in episode one).
- czl 2y ago> it proved the correct decision through virtue of the fact that the story continued (and they weren't all killed off in episode one). In the show’s fictional plot, the decision seems correct because the story continued and the characters survived. However, we shouldn't judge decisions in real life by how they are portrayed in fiction. In modern fiction, decisions are often shaped to please audiences, not to reflect real-world correctness. Thus, it may not be wise to judge these fictional decisions by the same standards we use in real life.
- schmidtleonard 2y agoExactly. This is a pet peeve of mine, with the most common incarnation being: no, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park do not escape because the writers proved that chaos theory makes a dinosaur zoo mathematically impossible, they escape because otherwise you and I would not pay to see the movie.
- andoando 2y agoReminds me of all the high school prompts like "What does the Lord of the Flies teach us about human nature". Nothing, its a complete work of fiction
- walterbell 2y ago> What does the Lord of the Flies teach us about human nature It teaches us about the human propensity for propaganda.
- jowea 2y agoI think that can be understood as "What does the Lord of the Flies opines about human nature"
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoUnfortunately, the School education system has decided that only a certain interpretation is correct.and sometimes that is not even interpretation of the books author
- trod123 2y agoWell, in fairness the majority of that system has been taken over by communism. Quite a lot of the methods and techniques they use are based in Marx or Mao, though the teachers aren't taught the origins of the tools they use, which have been obscured. For some background, Lifton, Meerloo, New Discourses (youtube), inform.
- WalterBright 2y agoEvery Hollywood production about a fictional President of the US has liberal policies working.
- smcin 2y agoDr Strangelove?
- trod123 2y agoYes, that does goes without saying for unvetted sources, what you say is just a less formalized way of saying, follow Descartes Rules of Method. That said, the handling of the tech received a seal of approval from me, and I've quite a bit of professional background in IT System's Engineering, and a periphery of Cyber. I mean what they do really is not that much of a leap, and would improve existing security by orders of magnitude by eliminating swatches of attack surface that the worst of the worst malware out there uses today. Punch cards (upgraded) -> Optical printouts that can be physically changed to load firmware and and the functional software from a physically modifiable medium. (A known working, knokwn safe state at the lowest level). No persistent internal state at the hardware/firmware controller levels (for bad actors to abuse with an APT such as some of the DMA shennanigans, hooking, and bus tricks). Non-networked except between critical fortified systems (to limit spread). Sure you take some performance hits, but its resilient with few single points of failure (such as the physical medium).
- heinrich5991 2y agohttps://archive.is/G9g7P https://archive.is/G9g7P
- bmurray7jhu 2y agoMatt Blaze's analysis of the flawed OTPs used by Cuban numbers stations: https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/neinnines/ https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/neinnines/
- _n_b_ 2y agoAnd his recording of the Cuban numbers station, if you want to hear what these sound like: https://www.mattblaze.org/private/17435khz-200810041700.mp3 https://www.mattblaze.org/private/17435khz-200810041700.mp3 Here's a sample of the referenced "Linconshire Poacher": https://priyom.org/media/247818/e3.mp3 https://priyom.org/media/247818/e3.mp3
- ghayes 2y agoTrying to understand why the Nein Nines could happen. My first thought for a “fill” algorithm would be to just fill with zeros, and hence read out the pad, since it is going to be used up anyway. But I suppose that’s bad since if it did accidentally get re-used then that cyphertext would be fully compromised (versus say having two cyphertexts from the same pad to run a frequency analysis against). Another fill would be to add random data and pad against it, but then if your random data is flawed, you may still leak the OTP. So, I guess the actual algorithm must be derived from the OTP, but not padded with it? (Since if it were padded, there is no way to avoid a 9 digit). It just seems like zero or semi-random fill seems safer…
- pwg 2y ago> My first thought for a “fill” algorithm would be to just fill with zeros, and hence read out the pad, since it is going to be used up anyway. That also would use up the pad when there are no messages, requiring some secure way to get a new pad to the operatives when their existing pad is consumed. This is difficult enough (secure delivery of new pad) that it is unlikely that spy-HQ wishes to consume pad data for fill. > But I suppose that’s bad since if it did accidentally get re-used then that cyphertext would be fully compromised Yes, if they reused any part of any pad for more than one single message, they have compromised (and revealed) the contents of the reused pad messages. This is the other difficulty with OTP's. The OTP data must never be reused. Which is alo why spy-HQ would not want to use it (the OTP) up for the fill, because to avoid reuse then they have to get new pad material to the operatives in some secure way. > So, I guess the actual algorithm must be derived from the OTP, but not padded with it? The 'implication' of the article is that the fill is just random data (without using up any pad material). Possibly with the appropriate headers in place so that it looks indistinguishable from a read message in the same slot. The further implication is that the Cuban station did something essentially like this: for (count=0; count<20; count++) { send(int(rand()*9)); } With a rand() implementation that returned a number from zero to 1.0 exclusive of 1.0 and an int() implementation that merely truncated any fraction from the multiplication. With the result that 9 is never sent.
- andix 2y agoI think those old technologies are still around, because it's hard to train older spies on new technology. They learned that knowledge decades ago and would have a hard time to learn new things. So they let them use the stuff they know, instead of risking some boomer making an opsec mistake by updating their Facebook status on a secure device while doing sensitive communication.
- jrexilius 2y agoI would wager that is has more to do with leveraging existing infrastructure that is commonly deployed to more than just G7 nations and working with people in those countries who may not have a Q branch handy nor could afford to be caught with gear-turned-evidence. As well, as any honest engineer knows, new tech is rarely reliable and bug free. You may adopt it for other benefits, but assurance is generally not one of them. So if lives depend on something, you may keep using things that have been proven reliable.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- CapitalistCartr 2y agoAt least the USA and our allies are extremely conservative in adoption of unproven tech and have extremely high standards for security. The article states "modern methods are not safe" and is correct, in my experience. Numbers stations and One-Time Pads are a well-known and proven method, not just the encryption, but the entire process from delivering the pads to receiving the messages.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoThis is such a HN response. “If they aren’t using new technology, it’s gotta be [disparagement and putdowns, without any consideration being paid to whether or not the ‘newer’ stuff is worth it, let alone better]”
- andix 2y agoAround 10 years ago there were some Russian "illegals" captured in Germany. It was really a lot like in the TV show "The Americans". They seemed to have communicated a lot with radio and coded messages. They also used some Windows software to decode some of those messages. And exactly there they made a mistake and some messages could be restored. It seems like they only got very limited recurring training after their initial training in the 90s. So they might have had very limited IT opsec knowledge. The analog radio technology is also far from perfect. In their case the neighbours became suspicious, because they never opened the door at specific times, probably when their transmissions were scheduled. They also sent some radio transmissions from a nearby hill, that might have played a part in their capture. I'm convinced that some encrypted messages over a commonly used messenger or email provider would be way more secure. They would just disappear within billions of other encrypted messages.
- localfirst 2y agohow do you create encrypted communication that isn't easily triangulated? some youtubers are pushing LoRa but its hardly secure or encrypted creating your own number station requires shortwave broadcast which takes up a ton of power and your station is known the only way to break 5E is good old paper with one time pad encryption with dead drops but its hardly efficient
- oceanplexian 2y agoThis is exactly what Meshtastic is designed to do. Messages are encrypted with AES256, its extremely low power (And thus hard to triangulate), and can use a low powered repeater, hiding the location of a sender using a directional antenna. Nothing is impossible in terms of tracing or finding vulnerabilities but Meshtastic makes it a pain for an adversary.
- KaiserPro 2y agomeshtastic is terrible for avoiding triangulation. you operate in receiver mode and you have a unique ID. so you can send nonsense packets to that ID repeatedly and it'll send them right out again. Any kind of forwarding system with static IDs is very much not triangulation resistant.
- user32489318 2y agoInstinct tells me that you can have one of three, non triangulatable, secure/encrypted or high bandwidth
- localfirst 2y agolot of us would take first two over high bandwidth so far im seeing starlink + modded smartphone "s4tll1te p1r4cy" that ppl outside N America ignore but supposedly risky for everyone else variations on LoRa (still not convinced it can evade tri)
- jrexilius 2y agoLoRa is just a transport layer. You can do whatever encryption you want and LoRaWAN has some basic encryption built in. It's hard(er) to triangulate if you don't have constant traffic (like route updates in mesh, or heavy concentrated users like at a concert or protest), but be aware that AWS sidewalk (and all the alexa devices fielded in peoples homes, etc.) run LoRa antennas and traffic. So in the US, Amazon could do a reasonable job at triangulation of frequent emitters. In China and EU there is infrastructure in place (5G/SDR stuff overtly) that can do a pretty good job at triangulating a wide band of RF emitters. Meshtastic is not really designed to avoid that, but more for resiliency and off-grid type scenarios. Your best bet of really avoiding triangulation by state or telco level infratructure is to get creative with frequency and even transport layer hopping. None of which is really consumer friendly. [edit-to-add] another tactic to for low probability detection is to hide in noise on high traffic channels. basically figure out what their filter sensitivty is and see if you can go below that threshold and still maintain coherent channel, etc.
- guardianbob 2y agoFax Machines FTW baby
- nicbou 2y agoIf that were the case, German intelligence would have a far better track record
- dfc 2y agoThis is the article by Ingesson and Andersson. Clandestine communications in cyber-denied Environments: Numbers stations and radio in the 21st century https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/18335330.2023.2209578?needAccess=true https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/18335330.2023.2...
- barbs 2y agoSort of related - someone uses Windows 98 and tries to install a virus, but can't. https://youtu.be/mbbRUDexuBk https://youtu.be/mbbRUDexuBk
- Loughla 2y agoThat is amazing. Security by obsolescence.
- sreejithr 2y agoNo shit
- jwsteigerwalt 2y ago(1) a one time pad is and will remain highly secure (2) blocking shortwave radio (even if you are a nation state) is more difficult then taking down web assets. (3) there are benefits to security by obscurity when its part of a layered approach with constant maintenance and feedback (#3 is my controversial take)
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoThe fact that 3 is controversial is telling of the sad state of the security knowledge of techies generally. The most people seem to be able to do is to cargo cult / parrot, misunderstand, and misappropriate quips like “security by obscurity bad!” when it, all else equal, is a perfectly reasonable and often useful additive measure to take if it’s available to you.
- willis936 2y agoYou can even poke holes in it using their own terminology. Obscurity is equivalent to minimizing attack surface area. The less adversaries know about your system the smaller of a target it is.
- noduerme 2y agoI think there's overlap between surface area and obscurity, but they're not equivalent. To use the most pedestrian example, moving SSH off of port 22 makes it more obscure, but the total surface area hasn't gotten smaller.
- thyrsus 2y agoAnecdata: log files with failed login attempts became far smaller after leaving port 22.
- kibwen 2y agoA knee-jerk aversion to anything halfway adjacent to "security by obscurity" is flawed, but this reaction to that aversion is also flawed. Instead of trying to suggest "security by obscurity is fine, actually, and don't worry about it", it's time for us to just stop being pithy and start being precise: your cryptosystem should be secure even if your adversaries understand everything about it. If that is true, then you can (and, in the real world, almost certainly should) add defense in depth by adding layers of obscurity, but not before.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- matt_daemon 2y agoThis whole Technology Quarterly was terrifically written and researched for those wanting further reading: https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly They're all on the Internet Archive to read free, e.g. https://archive.md/Ed12X https://archive.md/Ed12X
- BostonEnginerd 2y agoJust a minor nitpick. To my knowledge, Archive.today is not known to be related to the Internet Archive (archive.org).
- luuurker 2y agoYes, they're unrelated.
- latexr 2y agoI wouldn’t call it a minor nitpick. From the Internet Archive’s Wikipedia page: > The Internet Archive is an American nonprofit digital library founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive In other words, it’s a legal entity and we know who’s behind it. In contrast, we don’t even know who runs archive.today. https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-of-the-mysterious-guerrilla-archivist-of-the-internet/ https://gyrovague.com/2023/08/05/archive-today-on-the-trail-...
- knallfrosch 2y agoThe Economist also offers a monthly subscription and some free trials. But honestly, they're simply worth their money.
- setopt 2y agoTheir content is great, but their subscription system is abhorrent. I’m not resubscribing in the future despite liking their content, and wouldn’t recommend that anyone else does either. If you want to cancel your The Economist subscription, you can’t just click a button. You need to wait to talk to a sales rep in a chat room… when they arrive, they will basically beg you to stay; here’s a discount offer and here’s another, you’ve been a subscriber for X years why stop now. Only after insisting for 15min that you really want to cancel will they let you. I’ve gone through that process twice, and find it very off-putting.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago"Radio is more resilient than software."
- StiffFreeze9 2y agoRadio receivers have significant digital components which may leave more trail than the spy intends. I like how some malware hides in plain sight and relays through google analytics.
- knallfrosch 2y agoYou could buy a cheap old radio at a pawn shop.
- Animats 2y agoA cheap old radio will rebroadcast what you are listening to at the IF frequency.
- perilunar 2y agoI've heard that before. So this statement in the article: "A high-powered transmitter can be located. But the receiver, tuning in to a station at a pre-scheduled time, cannot" is not strictly true?
- linuxftw 2y agoI think it's true from a distance. All electronic devices emit RF, though proper shielding can dramatically reduce it.
- Animats 2y agoShielding receivers is easy, and modern ones are pretty good, but cheap old radios often are not RF-quiet.
- michaelt 2y agoIf you're a spy and you think spycatchers know your address, there's a risk of them bugging your home and overhearing the numbers station, or breaking in and finding your one-time pads. So you should probably act with the utmost caution regardless of the details of radio receiver design. Some radio receivers have existed that leak signal at the intermediate frequency, due to inadequate shielding. But it's not just a privacy problem, it also means that receivers operated near to one another can interfere with one another due to crosstalk at the intermediate frequency; it would be inconvenient if your car radio lost signal any time you were stuck in traffic and other drivers were using their radios. So usually designers add more shielding. It's difficult to know the truth because there are some organisations that benefit from exaggerating the possibilities of things like this - for example, a cable company might hope to deter cable pirates by claiming they have roving detectors that can detect people pirating cable.
- az09mugen 2y agoSecurity by obsolescence
- weitendorf 2y agoNot really a good article. You can and should apply the exact same argument to number stations as you apply to all the technology they criticize: they are vulnerable to being compromised at the supply-chain/provenance level. I'm not a radio expert but I'm also pretty sure that you can interfere with their signals. And you can communicate using OTPs using a computer network as long as you're smart about it. Actually the one interesting point made is that nobody can track whether you're tuning into a particular station. On a network, there has to be some traceable path of connections between the transmitter and receiver: even if the message is hidden in some other content or transmitted through a bunch of proxies, that traceable flow of data must exist. It makes me wonder how common it is to open ephemeral p2p connections over shortwave to transmit data between two computers - I'm sure someone's thought of it, and I think I brought it up one time during a quant firm system design interview.
- rdtsc 2y ago> Actually the one interesting point made is that nobody can track whether you're tuning into a particular station That’s a juicy enough piece of information that they probably have something for it. Does the radio emit any heterodyne signals when tuned to particular frequency? Maybe a super-sensitive satellite, drone or other sensors can pick it up. Another option I could think of is to somehow infiltrate and compromise popular short wave radio models sold. Make them emit some signal marker which would identify the radio station it’s tuned to. Pretty far fetched but the three letter agencies have spent money on crazier stuff than that in the past
- weitendorf 2y agoMy counter-counter-intelligence idea is that since you know where the radio broadcast station is, you can probably implement some kind of faraday cage with an aperture oriented towards the broadcast station. That way any kind of radiation emitted from the receiver also gets sent in that direction. That way detecting a signal emanating from the receiver requires being in the cone outside of that aperture (and I doubt those signals are so strong that they can be seen from space). I'm sure your counter-counter-counter measures might start from the premise that, with you also knowing the location of the broadcast station, you might be able to guess at the most likely receiving orientations if you knew the most likely places for a receiver to be located. Eg a shortwave reciever equipped with a faraday cage + aperture listening to codes from Russia in Manhattan would emit a cone in the direction of Stamford. But I also suppose that I might know my receiver emits this kind of signal, and use some other device to emit junk signals that look similar, or scatter around a bunch of receivers while only using one. Or I might try to only set up receivers in places where the cone would be inconvenient for you to intercept, or obvious that you were trying to intercept. Eg over the ocean.
- a-dub 2y agosee also: the conet project. home recordings of numbers stations from around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project audio now free on the internet archive: https://archive.org/details/ird059 https://archive.org/details/ird059
- davidgerard 2y agohttps://archive.ph/b3WVn https://archive.ph/b3WVn
- roody15 2y agoThis article makes me think of an intercom system I maintain at one of our buildings. The fact that it is offline and each location is physically wired = it’s safe and secure. Another school district about 80 miles away had their systems hacked including phones, cameras and intercom .. as they were all meter and “cloud” based. Just makes me rethink does everything thing need internet access. Sometimes perhaps simple safe and secure may fit better. Kind of off topic of this article but the concept just kind of got me thinking out loud.
- midtake 2y agoIt depends on threat model. A wired intercom can be easily bugged with a physical implant. Discovering such a bug is also a completely different art from securing code, so different that some would claim it is more difficult to secure with any guarantee of confidentiality. The cloud-based model might be leaky due to complexity but has the capability to deliver cryptographic assurance, which is a huge win in the long run. Modern cloud delivery is infamously insecure at the current point in time because most companies do not care about the security of their customers, and most customers are not aware of more secure options. But in the end as the technology matures it will be far more secure. Of course, cutting off internet access is a good practice and most cloud connected systems play happily with a proxy.
- MisterTea 2y ago> A wired intercom can be easily bugged with a physical implant. I think the big impact here is that mundane systems which are now connected to the internet have become targets for remote vandalism or espionage.
- notTooFarGone 2y agoYeah love those threat models where physical access is a topic but basic MFA measures are not even done. This is like comparing yourself to Fort Knox while not even locking your door. Physical access is not a problem when basic other measures are not taken. If physical access is your largest threat then you already safer than 90% of companies imo.
- gryt67 2y ago[flagged]
- science4sail 2y agoCan you please provide evidence that this isn't a scam website? It's pretty common for scammers to prey on scam victims since they're often desperate and emotionally compromised.