Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Government Hires Company To Hack Into Video Game Consoles
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Navy is paying a company six figures to hack into used video game consoles and extract sensitive information. The tasks to be completed are for both offline and online data. The organization says it will only use the technology on consoles belonging to nations overseas, because the law doesn't allow it to be used on any 'U.S. persons.'" Should be a doddle.
Does the US Navy really want to spend it's time finding out what sort of porn slashdotters were storing on their consoles, etc. They've got more important things to do, like protecting us while we watch our porn. And so we have the RIGHT to watch it.
Woder what they are looking for.. Mostly wonder what can be found thats not already on facebook.
"A mind reader? That sounds like sci fi." "Honey, we live on a space ship"
They're looking for the high scores of Taliban insurgents or what?
Have gnu, will travel.
and that includes the data on it.
Besides, I wonder how they'll get the data if the thing isn't networked, eh?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
If they can build a ray gun which can extract all the porn and terrorist plots stored on my old Super Nintendo, I'll be very impressed.
Some of the information provided in the article:
“This project involves furnishing video game systems, both new and used, and creating prototype rigs for capturing data from the video game systems.”
-- U.S. Navy listing
"“R & D effort for the development and delivery of computer forensic tools for analyzing network traffic and stored data created during the use of video game systems.”
-- Federal Business Opportunites website
Some links from the article:
Statement of Work [DOC]
Contracting Activity document [DOCX]
No US court will give them the time of day, as they don't have constitutional rights. They'll just say, go get your own diplomats to work something out, it's beyond our scope.
As someone living 'overseas' I am not exactly relieved to hear that.
On the other hand I don't own a gaming console.
But why do get the strong feeling they meant to say 'after PCs now consoles too'? Am I reading too much between the lines here?
What could THE NAVY possibly get from used game consoles?
And why go that route to get it?
Wouldn't a five figure 'security-incentive' to the 3 major players be cheaper ?
Not that I support the Navy (?? what? why Navy?) doing this stuff, or paying so much, but there is possible precedent. It's been pretty clear for a long time that anything you throw out in the trash is no longer your possession. So, before you toss that old game console, take a hammer to the memory bits.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
As if that ever stopped them before. **rolls eyes**
More government spending, more invasion of privacy, more unauthorised behaviour, more deficit and debt, more government jobs (paid for with debt of-course), more government contracts, more money printing - inflation.
Less real economic activity, less freedoms, less real value in money.
Only one good thing hopefully will come out of this: fewer people supporting government actions, less desire to have this type of government, getting closer to the point when this becomes completely unbearable (of-course this will only really end when all resources end as government consumes them all).
What's funny is people on this site saying that people consume too many resources, so there needs to be birth control done by government. When they get a reply that people are not a drain on the system, they are a resource that need to be freed from government oppression to solve the problems of resources, so many of /. posters argue against it.
They want government to control every aspect of human life, including artificially controlling birth rates, so that government can get one more leverage point against the people while doing THIS kind of nonsense?
The REAL drain on the system is GOVERNMENT.
You can't handle the truth.
With today's consoles being walled-garden cryptographic playgrounds, I am hard pressed to think of any useful exploit tools that wouldn't run a substantial risk of qualifying as 'circumvention devices' for DMCA purposes...
It makes me wonder if the law(s) that probably do make almost any sort of spying legal also enable otherwise illegal tools, or whether the MPAA just isn't going to be suing the Navy as a pragmatic matter?
Finding a console that will yield useful sensitive information is why it's worth 6 figures.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
If you need a warrant for citizens, you also need a warrant for non-citizens, no matter where they are. The jurisdiction of the constitution constrains American government employees no matter where they are in the Universe.
Yes, they are refusing to do this to U.S. game consoles, because that's against the law. And that's important. And they wouldn't break the law by doing something like that.
Good for them.
It looks like they are going to find a way to use those cameras built into the latest and greatest video game controllers. And if we can do it then the bad guys will start doing it to us and our troops.
maybe we should scale their budget back, since they have 6 figures and all that manpower to waste all while running a TV ad ever fucking hour, slash it to 25% and give them a real challenge
cock minded morons
This is why you are broke.
Peoples online information like usernames and passwords, email address and real address with this information they can access your online life, not everyone who owns used consoles are geeks sitting in basements a lot could be people in positions of power or influence in foreign goverment to large foreign organisations if that does not pan out they can still use your idenity to spy on your country otherwise they have to plant agents that take a long time before they can be used as to remain anonymous but with your idenity it makes things much easier and when there finished or compromised they move out and guess who gets the blame for betraying there country.
Think on it is it that far fetched?
Microsoft says Xbox hacking claims are ‘unlikely’.
"A report emerged last week from a security researcher claiming Microsoft’s Xbox lacked important security features that might protect owners who sell used consoles from having personal information stolen. Ashley Podhradsky of Drexel University claimed to have purchased a used Xbox console and used readily available hacking tools to recover the prior owner’s credit card number and other personal information. “Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information, but they don’t do a great job of protecting the user’s data,” Podhradsky said at the time.
Microsoft has since responded to the researcher’s claims, stating that they are likely inaccurate."
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Let's take a look at some examples you just provided:
more invasion of privacy,
This makes no sense in relation to the article. The summary plainly states that the Navy is purchasing used consoles and hacking in to them. These are being sold on the very same free market that you claim to love so much.
more unauthorised behaviour
The only one who doesn't authorize hacking in to game consoles that are freely purchased and outright owned are the manufacturers of said consoles. However you repeatedly post that you want to see the end of all patents and copyrights, so you should not be defending companies that want to dictate how end users use their products, either.
more deficit and debt
That is a straw man argument, at best. At this point government deficit and debt are like global entropy - they can only increase.
more government jobs
No reasonable person would ever argue for more unemployment. Of course, you are known to not be the least bit reasonable.
Less real economic activity,
How is the government purchasing items and putting people to work less economic activity? Oh, yes, it isn't.
less freedoms
Nonsense. By your argument if the US Army sourced a new scope for a rifle, other than the one that it was initially purchased with, that would also be "less freedoms".
What's funny is people on this site saying that people consume too many resources, so there needs to be birth control done by government.
That would be an interesting argument, if the post you linked to actually made that argument. Too bad it made no such argument in any way, shape or form. Did you mean to link to a different post?
They want government to control every aspect of human life
Can you show an example of someone on slashdot saying such a thing? Yeah, I didn't think so.
The REAL drain on the system is GOVERNMENT.
You can say what you want about the government, but you certainly haven't demonstrated that claim. If anything, you have supported the ever-increasingly-hypothesis that you are indeed just a slightly-more-refined-than-average troll.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The military is always over budget... maybe they can get some credit card numbers to cover the spending.
"the law doesn't allow it to be used on any 'U.S. persons.'"
Well that's a load off my mind. It's nice to know all we US persons have to worry about is being flagged as a terrorist and executed with no due process in a drone strike, but at least they won't hack our game consoles.
they will then spy on americans.
hey, its the free market!
Perhaps consoles and games are the next-gen virtual training camps?
I always find it an odd amusement, us US'ers being so hell-bent on interfering with everyone's business--but our laws say you can't do it to us. Then we complain when some guy we don't like in a country we don't like does the same, as if our displeasure at being treated the way we treat others is acceptable.
Then again, like hell they aren't going to do it to us Yanks if they can find loopholes.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
why not just get MS, sony, and Nintendo to do it? they can use there own code and make it easier and maybe even hide it better.
As another person who's not an American citizen, I'm thinking oh good, another reason for me to not deal with Americans, to avoid buying anything that's American, ever visiting that country, or being nice to any Americans visiting my country. It's weird, 15 years ago in my neighborhood we all admired USA, now the majority of people I talk to tend to spit after mentioning America... Why are you guys so hell-bent on making everybody hate you?
That is all.
but doing it on consoles of other countries, it means it's actually an act of war (IMHO) as it's not something that is allowed by INTERNATIONAL Law.. but oh wait, the US doesn't give a rat's ass about international law unless it is in their favor.. So now if the US does it to our consoles, we are allowed to do it to their consoles...
Fuck, the president ordered an American citizen be killed without trial, the law means shit to the government, they do whatever they want and get away with it.
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Cant be used on Americans....Hmmm.
The Navy should not be in that business at all.
My Dad works at NSA in the InfoSec/Cyberwarefare/etc etc etc department, on both light and dark sides (defense and offense), as they're known
This is what he has to say about spying on US citizens:
"You'd be surprised at the amount of effort to not unintentionally (or intentionally, of course) capture anything about US persons (here or abroad) or anything about anybody here in the US - without a court-ordered FISA warrant. This includes the identification and purging of all possible traces of such inadvertently collected information (e.g., going after guy X in country Y and find out that he's a US citizen).
Some big-$$ projects are oriented towards doing such purging in a very automated manner. It's not cheap.
We regularly (yearly) undergo a mandatory set of readings on how this all works. It's taken *quite* seriously.
Do a mind experiment and try to figure out how to do this - thoroughly, efficiently, and safely."
Also:
"Forgot to mention: The kinds of things that are cited in several comments about that article are the purview of the FBI..."
Hacking the USAF playstation cluster?
Wouldn't it be great for the big brother to access all the x-box cameras?
Not only does roman_mir not have a clue of what he is talking about, he doesn't believe in it anyways. He's just here to get a rouse out of slashdot readers when he takes all of the bullshit that comes out of the cult of ron paul, rolls it into one undigestable pile of crap, and serves it up piping hot. It's not worth while to point out how what he says cannot possibly work, because he's not here for a discussion.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
US government is no to piracy as well as hacking so why they are now hiring hackers?