7 ms·

NSA Technology Transfer Program – 2014 Technology Catalog [pdf]

62 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

sarciszewski 12y ago
Patent 7,945,947 lol, they patented a privilege escalation rootkit
- sarciszewski 12y ago
  Technology Transfer Program S ecurity | Page 63 P ROVIDING A C OMPUTER U SER WITH H IGH -L EVEL P RIVILEDGES P ATENT N O .: 7,945,947 This invention monitors all terminal sessions i n an operating system, su ch as Microsoft’ s Windows ® , for a special key sequence and if found, launches a command shell running with high privileges for use by the logged-on user, regardless of which user it was and without requiring subsequent authenticati on. The advantage of this method is that it allows any user to launch a command shell with high privileges even though the user may only have few privileges, and does not require a login with a username and password to be entered each time. VALUE Allows user to launch privileged command shells Simple command for authentication reduces user input
  - jngreenlee 12y ago
    I was confused about this one. It appears that it may be for systems only where an authorized server with admin rights is running. I'll have to read more to be sure. Edit: Upon more reading from (https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u6olVL_ZM4-GyASdzYKgAQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&...) It appears to be non-specific, but an admin computer is needed. [A] user-definable process is associated to the terminal services session. The user-definable process is selected so that the process can interact with the user connected to that terminal services session and can identify all the desktops registered in the terminal services session that the user-definable process is running in. [...] Again, by example, once a process has registered a low-level keyboard hook on a desktop, it is notified of all keystrokes that occur when the input for the keyboard would go to that desktop. Each Vista system prompt service process examines the keystrokes and if the user-definable key sequence (such as CTRL-F10) was pressed, the system performs the action of creating a command shell running as the LocalSystem account.
jngreenlee 12y ago
Another interesting one, I won't post any more. Can anyone think of a current consumer use of a technique like this? Those Garmin GPS/Radios that track each other is the closest I can think of: DETERMINE RANGE AND VELOCITY OF AN OBJECT PATENT NOS.: 7,755,536 AND 7,545,325 This method provides the ability to determine the position and velocity of a transmitter over a wide range of bandwidths. The second invention models the Doppler process as a time shift and change of scale of the original signal. In this process, the received signal is delayed in time and dilated. In this invention, the method of performing the resampling function is to apply a forward Fourier transform of one length to the zero-padded signal and apply an inverse Fourier transform of a different length to the results of the first transform. This pair of operations results in a resampling of the signal at a rational multiple of the original sample rate. The scale correlation is then computed as the normal correlation of the transmitted signal and the resampled signal. VALUE Accurate model of Doppler process Rational signal resampling
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
dang 12y ago
Also http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-program-national-security-agency-ttp/ http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-pro..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jngreenlee 12y ago
Interesting, didn't know they were into manufacturing techniques, maybe they license to their own exclusive fab contracts: FABRICATING AND INTEGRATING DECOUPLING CAPACITORS PATENT NO.: 7,297,613 This technology provides a method of fabrication and integration for high quality decoupling capacitors with high capacitance values, low parasitic losses, good yield, and long-term reliability. This method enables high-yielding capacitors and other passive elements to be placed very close to the processor or other integrated circuit design and provides improved signal integrity. VALUE [Value:] Reduced signal loss and footprint Reduced cost and increased yields for RF systems
- DannyBee 12y ago
  The NSA has its own small fab, and they are definitely into manufacturing techniques, because they build their own architectures :)
mindcrime 12y ago
I reject the idea that one should have to pay to license technology developed by a (taxpayer funded) federal agency. If tax dollars funded it, it belongs to all of us anyway. I believe I'm going to write my Congressional reps later today and suggest pushing for the elimination of licensing fees for tech from NSA, NASA, DOD, etc. I'm sure it won't go anywhere, but what can ya do?
- jngreenlee 12y ago
  Agreed, it's interesting that they do this. I don't have time to dig in, but I wonder if the $$ goes back to NSA R&D budgets, or to the US's general fund.
- ganeumann 12y ago
  Disagree. While the taxpayers funded it, the taxpayers also get the benefit from others paying for it. Charging for the tech gives them information about what others find valuable, so is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time.
  - atmosx 12y ago
    Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see reason in your reasoning. There are other ways to find out the what is important, ways that are less prone to errors, ESPECIALLY for research...
    - garric 12y ago
      It's not just you, though it sounds like his reasoning is based around the ideological context of conflating "democratic choice" with "choice in a market". The role of price is a principal guarantor of democracy, after all. /sardonic
      - ganeumann 12y ago
        The part about "democratic choice" should be handled by our "democratically elected leaders." But I don't think I really understand your point at all. What does selling the IP v. giving it away have to do with democratic choice? My point was that selling the IP instead of giving it away is revenue neutral to society (and, in fact, a positive to the taxpayers who are not buying the IP) and so selling it does not decrease welfare and may well improve it if it provides some data to the agency on what the users of their research value. This is entirely unlike what happens with NSF-funded research which is given away to journals who charge a fortune to read it. In this latter case (unless you think that peer-review is incredibly valuable, which no one besides the publishers seem to believe) the overall effect is welfare reducing.
shulu 12y ago
COLLISION FREE HASHING FOR NEAR MATCH INPUTS on page 14 looks interesting. http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501 http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501 This could help improve performance for data stores in general.
oscardelben 12y ago
One of their offering under technology is converting computer programs with loops to ones without loops. Can anyone help me understand what the point of that is?
- thirsteh 12y ago
  To make it easier to reason about whether the program will terminate. This is an important part of writing high-assurance software. From the actual patent text (https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659 https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659): "Because of the possibility of looping and branching within loops, a brute force attempt to enumerate the paths through a computer program will most likely fail. Therefore, there is a need for a method of converting a computer program that contains loops to one that does not." More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis
- scottlocklin 12y ago
  autoparallelization
- dnd 12y ago
  Some twist on loop unrolling[1] perhaps. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling
- runlevel1 12y ago
  It's called loop unrolling. Most optimizing compilers do it to increase performance. The most obvious gain is that you minimize your branch penalty. The Wikipedia article on it is quite good with examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling
rrggrr 12y ago
If your government isn't going to engage in commercial espionage on your business or employers behalf (as does China) then it darn well better do technology transfer. If you can't explain your mission value to the American public - whom you happen to be spying on - you could at least articulate this kind of value that can impact citizens in a positive way. IMHO they should double down on this and allocate funds for start-ups ala inQtel.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  I'm confused, either you are claiming France and China don't conduct commercial espionage or that the US doesn't, in either case I disagree. All three conduct commercial espionage for the "right" corporate clients.
explorigin 12y ago
Some of the nuggets: "Digital Transcription System" (that can handle foreign languages). This would be awesome to release OSS. Finally the tech giants wouldn't have a monopoly on good voice recognition. "All Fiber Optically-Controlled Optical Switch" So they have all they need to make optical processors/routers. If this is the declassified tech, it's time to start paying attention to http://pqcrypto.org/ http://pqcrypto.org/ "Port Protector Assembly for D-Sub Connectors" I haven't heard of much spying happening by someone hooking something up to an unused DVI port. Good to know.
dsl 12y ago
These all have patents issued, so this is good idea of the state of the art at NSA 4 to 6 years ago.
ape4 12y ago
Reminds me of the Made In India site that was posted the other day. Except the output of NSA is more.
sbussard 12y ago
ScribeZone is a rip off of Pied Piper!

62 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

sarciszewski 12y ago

Patent 7,945,947 lol, they patented a privilege escalation rootkit

sarciszewski 12y ago
Technology Transfer Program S ecurity | Page 63 P ROVIDING A C OMPUTER U SER WITH H IGH -L EVEL P RIVILEDGES P ATENT N O .: 7,945,947 This invention monitors all terminal sessions i n an operating system, su ch as Microsoft’ s Windows ® , for a special key sequence and if found, launches a command shell running with high privileges for use by the logged-on user, regardless of which user it was and without requiring subsequent authenticati on. The advantage of this method is that it allows any user to launch a command shell with high privileges even though the user may only have few privileges, and does not require a login with a username and password to be entered each time. VALUE Allows user to launch privileged command shells Simple command for authentication reduces user input
- jngreenlee 12y ago
  I was confused about this one. It appears that it may be for systems only where an authorized server with admin rights is running. I'll have to read more to be sure. Edit: Upon more reading from (https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u6olVL_ZM4-GyASdzYKgAQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA https://www.google.com/patents/US7945947?dq=7,945,947&hl=en&...) It appears to be non-specific, but an admin computer is needed. [A] user-definable process is associated to the terminal services session. The user-definable process is selected so that the process can interact with the user connected to that terminal services session and can identify all the desktops registered in the terminal services session that the user-definable process is running in. [...] Again, by example, once a process has registered a low-level keyboard hook on a desktop, it is notified of all keystrokes that occur when the input for the keyboard would go to that desktop. Each Vista system prompt service process examines the keystrokes and if the user-definable key sequence (such as CTRL-F10) was pressed, the system performs the action of creating a command shell running as the LocalSystem account.

jngreenlee 12y ago

Another interesting one, I won't post any more. Can anyone think of a current consumer use of a technique like this? Those Garmin GPS/Radios that track each other is the closest I can think of: DETERMINE RANGE AND VELOCITY OF AN OBJECT PATENT NOS.: 7,755,536 AND 7,545,325 This method provides the ability to determine the position and velocity of a transmitter over a wide range of bandwidths. The second invention models the Doppler process as a time shift and change of scale of the original signal. In this process, the received signal is delayed in time and dilated. In this invention, the method of performing the resampling function is to apply a forward Fourier transform of one length to the zero-padded signal and apply an inverse Fourier transform of a different length to the results of the first transform. This pair of operations results in a resampling of the signal at a rational multiple of the original sample rate. The scale correlation is then computed as the normal correlation of the transmitted signal and the resampled signal. VALUE Accurate model of Doppler process Rational signal resampling

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dang 12y ago

Also http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-program-national-security-agency-ttp/ http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-technology-transfer-pro..., via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373728.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jngreenlee 12y ago

Interesting, didn't know they were into manufacturing techniques, maybe they license to their own exclusive fab contracts: FABRICATING AND INTEGRATING DECOUPLING CAPACITORS PATENT NO.: 7,297,613 This technology provides a method of fabrication and integration for high quality decoupling capacitors with high capacitance values, low parasitic losses, good yield, and long-term reliability. This method enables high-yielding capacitors and other passive elements to be placed very close to the processor or other integrated circuit design and provides improved signal integrity. VALUE [Value:] Reduced signal loss and footprint Reduced cost and increased yields for RF systems

DannyBee 12y ago
The NSA has its own small fab, and they are definitely into manufacturing techniques, because they build their own architectures :)

mindcrime 12y ago

I reject the idea that one should have to pay to license technology developed by a (taxpayer funded) federal agency. If tax dollars funded it, it belongs to all of us anyway. I believe I'm going to write my Congressional reps later today and suggest pushing for the elimination of licensing fees for tech from NSA, NASA, DOD, etc. I'm sure it won't go anywhere, but what can ya do?

jngreenlee 12y ago
Agreed, it's interesting that they do this. I don't have time to dig in, but I wonder if the $$ goes back to NSA R&D budgets, or to the US's general fund.
ganeumann 12y ago
Disagree. While the taxpayers funded it, the taxpayers also get the benefit from others paying for it. Charging for the tech gives them information about what others find valuable, so is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time.
- atmosx 12y ago
  Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see reason in your reasoning. There are other ways to find out the what is important, ways that are less prone to errors, ESPECIALLY for research...
  - garric 12y ago
    It's not just you, though it sounds like his reasoning is based around the ideological context of conflating "democratic choice" with "choice in a market". The role of price is a principal guarantor of democracy, after all. /sardonic
    - ganeumann 12y ago
      The part about "democratic choice" should be handled by our "democratically elected leaders." But I don't think I really understand your point at all. What does selling the IP v. giving it away have to do with democratic choice? My point was that selling the IP instead of giving it away is revenue neutral to society (and, in fact, a positive to the taxpayers who are not buying the IP) and so selling it does not decrease welfare and may well improve it if it provides some data to the agency on what the users of their research value. This is entirely unlike what happens with NSF-funded research which is given away to journals who charge a fortune to read it. In this latter case (unless you think that peer-review is incredibly valuable, which no one besides the publishers seem to believe) the overall effect is welfare reducing.

shulu 12y ago

COLLISION FREE HASHING FOR NEAR MATCH INPUTS on page 14 looks interesting. http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501 http://www.google.com/patents/US8355501 This could help improve performance for data stores in general.

oscardelben 12y ago

One of their offering under technology is converting computer programs with loops to ones without loops. Can anyone help me understand what the point of that is?

thirsteh 12y ago
To make it easier to reason about whether the program will terminate. This is an important part of writing high-assurance software. From the actual patent text (https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659 https://www.google.com/patents/US7788659): "Because of the possibility of looping and branching within loops, a brute force attempt to enumerate the paths through a computer program will most likely fail. Therefore, there is a need for a method of converting a computer program that contains loops to one that does not." More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis
scottlocklin 12y ago
autoparallelization
dnd 12y ago
Some twist on loop unrolling[1] perhaps. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling
runlevel1 12y ago
It's called loop unrolling. Most optimizing compilers do it to increase performance. The most obvious gain is that you minimize your branch penalty. The Wikipedia article on it is quite good with examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling

rrggrr 12y ago

If your government isn't going to engage in commercial espionage on your business or employers behalf (as does China) then it darn well better do technology transfer. If you can't explain your mission value to the American public - whom you happen to be spying on - you could at least articulate this kind of value that can impact citizens in a positive way. IMHO they should double down on this and allocate funds for start-ups ala inQtel.

Someone1234 12y ago
I'm confused, either you are claiming France and China don't conduct commercial espionage or that the US doesn't, in either case I disagree. All three conduct commercial espionage for the "right" corporate clients.

explorigin 12y ago

Some of the nuggets: "Digital Transcription System" (that can handle foreign languages). This would be awesome to release OSS. Finally the tech giants wouldn't have a monopoly on good voice recognition. "All Fiber Optically-Controlled Optical Switch" So they have all they need to make optical processors/routers. If this is the declassified tech, it's time to start paying attention to http://pqcrypto.org/ http://pqcrypto.org/ "Port Protector Assembly for D-Sub Connectors" I haven't heard of much spying happening by someone hooking something up to an unused DVI port. Good to know.

dsl 12y ago

These all have patents issued, so this is good idea of the state of the art at NSA 4 to 6 years ago.

ape4 12y ago

Reminds me of the Made In India site that was posted the other day. Except the output of NSA is more.

sbussard 12y ago

ScribeZone is a rip off of Pied Piper!