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US Mounted 231 Offensive Cyber-operations In 2011, Runs Worldwide Botnet
An anonymous reader sends this news from the Washington Post:
"U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents [from Edward Snowden]. Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed 'covert implants,' sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions. ... The implants that [an NSA group called Tailored Access Operations (TAO)] creates are intended to persist through software and equipment upgrades, to copy stored data, 'harvest' communications and tunnel into other connected networks. This year TAO is working on implants that “can identify select voice conversations of interest within a target network and exfiltrate select cuts,” or excerpts, according to one budget document. In some cases, a single compromised device opens the door to hundreds or thousands of others."
that is so cool.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Allies, "ALLIES", we don't need no stinkin' Allies. All of it, ALL OF IT, ours, we, want it all, exploit it, burn it, the whole world, it's ours, Ours, OURS.
Seriously out of control. Looks like Chinese hardware is the least of the worlds problems. With the US Stupidity Services trying to purposefully break everyone's networks and insert back doors that only they, and their contractors, and anyone who wants to pay those contractors knows about.
Morons there is no such thing as an exclusive back door. Once you broken the security of other countries networks, you leave access for anyone waiting to exploit, bet anything you like those morons did not at all to monitor and ensure those back doors were not exploited by others. I wonder how many times now the US government has blatantly lied about cyber attacks they launched that have been discovered and then blamed on other countries and pseudo organisation like Anonymous.
How many attacks have they launched they were designed to do nothing else but increase their budget?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
But I can't find a single typewriter in any antique shops any more.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Whistleblowing on a secret US government agency that's governed (if at all) by secret laws and secret courts, and is clearly out of control? Sorry, that would never cross the line into treason. It's the agency which is breaking the law.
What operatives? None of the people involved in this are working undercover, they're working in cubicles in office blocks in the US.
We aren't talking about the beacon of the free world, we're talking about the USA!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
If Snowden leaked this at this point he's exposing information on operations, methods, everything. At what point does it cross the line and become treason? Is there a line which gets crossed where every Snowden supporter would say "this has gone too far"?
As a non-US citizen and potentially impacted by the US govt actions, I don't have any incentive to say "this has gone too far".
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I bet that if such a backdoor was discovered by China or Russia, that they'd use it as a propaganda weapon and we'd thus know about it.
It would be more realistic to expect them to use the backdoor to their advantage, while it lasts.
Some backdoors are very hard to detect because there is no obvious bug or a backdoor in any one place; with the size of the code base as it is, who would be crawling through the source of some USB driver that works just fine? As a crude example:
static int a[MAX_LENGTH];
void ioctl_handler(int i, int d) {
int *p = &a[0] + GetOffset(i, MAX_LENGTH);
*p = d;
}
There is no bug here. Now, elsewhere:
int GetOffset(int i, int len) { return (i < len?) i : (len-1); }
Welcome to poking any RAM location of your choice (limited only by sizeof(int).)
Then you shouldn't take and store photos and videos (obviously using and on your computer). You shouldn't use phone (since it has a microphone and possibly camera).. You shouldn't use Windows, ... and Android, ...oh and Linux and almost every connected device and software.
Basically it is a frightening fact that we can hardly run from ubiquitous surveillance since the whole connected electronics devices can be used for spying on us. Unless you leave in a farm, do not have communication devices and spend cash only. But I doubt even that would be enough.
Can we have Orwell's 1984 instead?
That's seriously a good question. The ironic answer is that the knowledge that would be sufficient to make an informed decision (as to where the line should be other than an annoyingly vague "whatever doesn't make it worse for humanity") is being withheld from us. Any actual example we could use would be based on what we already know, which isn't going to be whatever the government is still keeping secret - the good _and_ the bad.
Which puts us all between something of a rock and a hard place.
Having read this particular article, it doesn't mention any specific operations, nor any specific methods. I say "specific" because, while it does reveal that the US government is exploiting vulnerabilities in software and hardware (really not a surprise), it does not reveal specifics that would allow an enemy to distinguish between "US government exploit" and "random joe exploit".
I also found this part interesting: "The NSA designs most of its own implants, but it devoted $25.1 million this year to “additional covert purchases of software vulnerabilities” from private malware vendors, a growing gray-market industry based largely in Europe." Apparently, providing 25.1 million dollars of additional demand for unethical behaviour is now within the NSA's newest line in the sand, to go along with global warrant-less electronic surveillance of everyone including its own citizens within its own borders.
Which means here's the thing:
The US government crossed its constitutional line under a veil of secrecy from its own people and then said: I'll keep going.
Edward Snowden crossed his personal line under the orders of the US government and then said: I'm turning whistleblower.
So right now, I'm a lot more worried about the US government's limits than Snowden's.
That depends of if we decide the NSA has gone far enough to be considered a domestic enemy of the people. It lies to congress, it lies to the citizens, and it may be lying to the president as well. That doesn't sound much like a legit government agency. It spies on Americans and subverts the Constitution. That sounds like something an enemy does.