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The Startling Array of Hacking Tools In NSA's Armory
littlekorea writes "A series of servers produced by Dell, air-gapped Windows XP PCs and switches and routers produced by Cisco, Huawei and Juniper count among the huge list of computing devices compromised by the NSA, according to crypto-expert and digital freedom fighter Jacob Applebaum. Revealing a trove of new NSA documents at his 30c3 address (video), Applebaum spoke about why the NSA's program might lead to broader adoption of open source tools and gave a hot tip on how to know if your machines have been owned."
2013 is the year that proved your ‘paranoid’ friend right The person who can figure out how we can have all our tech toys and our privacy too will earn a fortune. Assuming that the technology is not made illegal.
Quit yer bitching. Everyone knows only terrorists care about privacy.
Better check your compiler while you're at it, and your hardware.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
What sort of straw man is that? No one has claimed that it is impossible to sabotage open source software. But the fact that the saboteur would at least have to try to hide it, which is not the case with secret source software, puts them at a huge disadvantage.
Do you leave your front door unlocked because you're not 100% sure that your lock can't be picked?
> The person who can figure out how we can have all our
> tech toys and our privacy too will earn a fortune.
Can't be done. All your toys are possible because it is cheep to copy and store information. If you can afford it, any military can. As long as information is easy to copy, information can not be private.
The debate is not whether the spy tools should exist, but how they should be used. The NSA was originally meant to be a support organization that assisted the CIA and other federal agencies in protecting national security interests globally; Hence the name National Security Agency.
What it has become lately, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security and our idiot congresscritters, are lackies for the FBI. The FBI has a terrible record going all the way back to the Prohibition of doing whatever it wants and generally running rough-shod over civil rights. It has long shown signs of institutional corruption and rot. This is the source of the rot in our judiciary at the federal level... and like Midas, everything the FBI touches turns to sh*t.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
There is some indication that the NSA is a rampant bureaucracy run by geeks with an unlimited budget who do things just to see if they can, but that doesn't mean they haven't gotten useful information or accomplished anything significant. I'd say the destruction of Iranian centrifuges was a master stroke, personally.
Now, as for their domestic surveillance operations, I'd say it's pretty fair that they've not prevented any terrorist attacks whatsoever. That's the problem with broad collection of data, it's all the harder to sort through for anything useful. It's unfortunate that they're going to keep trying, instead of returning to targeted intelligence gathering.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
The fact is that the NSA needs these tools for the same reason the Army needs weapons ranging from small arms to weapons of mass destruction. It needs tools that let it collect signals intelligence on foreign targets. And yes, that includes our "allies." They do it as much to as we do it to them. It's understood that it happens. Even the British and Canadians wouldn't be shy about collecting Top Secret data on our operations that we want to keep from them if they could acquire it without jeopardizing their highly productive and close relationship with the US.
Americans should be outraged that the NSA is now deeply integrated with federal law enforcement per 9/11 "reforms" that all but created an integrated security state. That puts our rights deeply at risk. Prior to 9/11, the most the NSA could legally do was inform Customs and the Coast Guard that smugglers were en route to US territorial waters or airspace. Now, they're damn near as much of an intelligence arm for law enforcement as the military.
What we need is an iron clad, black letter of the law statute that says that no data the NSA collects on Americans is legally admissible unless the communication was collected abroad, occurred entirely outside of US territory and is specifically of a nature that is dangerous to our national security.
At the end of the day, you have to trust someone either way. Saying "It's open source, and therefore more trustworthy," is bullshit--because unless you or someone you trust has went through it line by line, it's functionally little different than trusting a closed-source binary. It's just a false sense of security most of the time.
It comes down to who you trust, not whether their software is open or closed source.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
If they had prevented any terrorist attacks, they'd be shouting it from the rooftops right now in an attempt to win more political support and counter any representatives who question their broad spying progams.
You don't trust your compiler (and compiler vendor)?
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
Well, in fact they did claim they stopped terrorist attacks, but that was later determined to be a complete fabrication.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Open source is no more secure than closed source, for a host of reasons, but at least with closed source, you know where the code came from and can judge it based on that.
You have absolutely no idea where the code came from with closed source. Could be from anyone. Not much different from open source except for the fact that with open source you can at least theoretically examine the code itself even though in most cases that will never happen.
For the time being we can start by blocking all outbound UDP data on routers. Unfortunately these hw hacks call nsa over open wifi too. So we'd have to jam wifi in buildings too ..
Network effect works. They would hate to put an encryption key in plain text or the channel they use to send the data, or the destination name/address, so putting in a souce code that anyone could eventually see is a big no. Regarding binary packages, if well some distributions could be compromised by secret laws (RedHat at least resides in US) the code release that they must do ensures that other projects can pick the source, recompile it and use them instead (i.e. Centos), and if you trust the distributions packages are signed so is harder (maybe not NSA-level harder, but harder anyway) to do some MITM work to install touched binaries.
Also, some projects like Tor are adding deterministic builds to validate that the binaries really are what the author says.
You may know where the binary came from, but you have no idea where the code came from. And for all you know, neither did the person who signed the binary.
Given all the US lobbying against Huawei gear being used in critical infrastructure, it seems odd that the NSA is claiming they have managed to penetrate these routers.
Perhaps while NSA was powning Huawei routers they discovered they were already compromised.
Seems far more likely that in doing so, the NSA penetration was in turn detected and prevented by Huawei, or they haven't been able to penetrate to the extent they have with Cisco routers, and therefore they need to keep these out of critical infrastructure.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I disagree. The code is out, anybody can review patches, etc. At least if it is developed in an open manor (ie truecrypt is a fine example of an application we shouldn't rely on as while its code is available its development is not transparent). If something is published that's nefarious you have to make some sort of effort to conceal it, and if its developed transparently as well all the more so. If it is proprietary you have to make zero effort to conceal it.
Silly me, I thought the reason for NSA's existence was to make it HARDER for the bad guys to attack our infrastructure, not easier. Shows how little I know about how Washington "works" for us.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
it is difficult to believe that the NSA is the only one doing this, so who else owns my electronic toys?
Freedom fighter indeed.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
So basically no online banking platform can be safe once these exploits are released into the public? I do wonder though how they do it though.
The company selling the closed source software is where the code came from. It's their responsibility, it's their business and reputation on the line, and if they're using libraries they didn't develop in-house, it's their job to know how those work too. If they do something bad (and really, it's not that hard to tell if some software is leaking data or accessing files it shouldn't), they'll be the ones held responsible.
By its very nature, open source code can be manipulated by anyone, with potentially ulterior motives. A company can accidentally hire a foreign agent or an NSA plant, but if they do, and it gets out, that company will be held responsible.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Seeing as how it's the binary you're running, what's the difference? If a company is compromised, they're screwed. People won't buy their software again, they'll know to stop using it. This should make companies careful, and if they're not, they'll get in trouble soon enough. Some anonymous party puts up a clever back door in a patch, what is a user to do then? Whose reputation is damaged?
I am by no means claiming closed source is more secure than open source, I'm saying they're equally insecure. I'm also saying, that at least with closed source, you know who to blame when something goes wrong.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Open source has the "nothing to hide" argument so it's not something you can ignore completely.
Nevermind "thanks Obamacare", now nobody is going to buy *any* technology from a US vendor because it's likely compromised by the NSA.
Just like you don't want to buy from a purely Chinese vendor because it's reporting back to the Chinese version of the NSA.
So, thanks to the NSA and China having a dick-measuring contest on why can spy more, the internet is essentially fucked. No privacy, no e-commerce, hell, no commerce (thanks Target), unless it's all cash.
So the only place you can trust is (ironically), Craigslist!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
A lot of these names probably come off of random word lists, to help disguise the purpose in case foreign agents learn of a code name.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
NSA does SIGINT, or signals intelligence, and it doesn't matter what computer solution you think you found, they will own you. The only solution is to avoid all computers. Have something important to say? do so in person. An important thing to record? Write it down. Heck, even the USPS or FedEx seems to be less compromised - they record the address info (metadata) but I haven't seen anything to imply they've been opening the letters.
CIA and FBI do HUMINT, or old-school spying, but from what I've heard their skills here have withered as they've focused on SIGINT themselves.
inb4 encryption - I assume that they can crack any encrypted files, or they wrote the specs in the first place.
You should be pointing people to this instead:
"Fully Countering Trusting Trust through Diverse Double-Compiling (DDC) - Countering Trojan Horse attacks on Compilers"
http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/
They do photograph every single letter and parcel, as well as x-ray scan everything that goes through their facility.
Is that "safe"? I don't know.
Can they discern written text inside a letter in an envelope, through x-ray scanning? I don't know.
Are they photographing every letter under extreme bright lights, making the container effectively transparent?
Not sure, but it's worth exploring every single one of those questions.
Nonsense. It's much easier to hide backdoors and such in the code if it's not open. Open source reduces the chances that no one will spot the problems. It's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be perfect in order to be better, and anyone who claims it isn't a superior option is a damn fool.
hope and change already happened. Hope peaked and reverted to the mean. Change happened but was largely a downward trend.
while we're investigating things, I wonder how secure a one-time pad is. obv you would need to decode the message by hand.
Free Software folks have their reputation too, and often that is the only thing motivating them.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Or hash it with a strong algorithm and use along, non-entropic, unpredictable, rotated salt.
...use "a long", not "along", damn Mac keyboard! :)
inb4 encryption - I assume that they can crack any encrypted files, or they wrote the specs in the first place.
Go back to 4chan, and don't forget your tinfoil hat.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Is this one of those fabricated scandals like Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS going after conservatives, the President lying about the AHA, Holder lying in front of congress repeatedly..
Not at all like those ones, With those ones they just denied it even happened or blames things that had nothing to do with the issues. With this they admit that its happening and dont even pretend to care that they are abusing their power
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
If it is proprietary you have to make zero effort to conceal it.
Well, you should at least probably ensure you turned on the right compiler options to strip the NSA_BACKDOOR_PASSWORD identifier out of the binary.
Someone had to do it.
You see, there is a big flaw in your point. _IF_ the only developers were in the US, you may have a better point. OpenSource is not just coded in the US, and the eyes looking at the code are all over. I think for a while you had a level of trust among OpenSource crowds that everyone was equally altruistic and freedom loving. I am pretty sure that when the leaks came out a few years ago about the NSA jacking encryption that trust evaporated pretty quickly.
What you may want to believe is that all of these coders are here doing "Merikah!" great favors, or at least looking the other way because.. you know, "Merikah!". Guys in Germany don't have any devotion to that cause, and won't be complicit.
So now, that level of trust that people had is gone. Not that OpenSource coders are all out trying to screw each other (as we see with 3 letter agencies and closed source companies), but there is a whole lot more scrutiny. As it should be, and like it was 10-15 years ago.
You can _never_ scrutinize closed source code. That point I agree with, and yes we should all assume that closed source systems ship compromised. As with the paragraph above, we used to assume that not very long ago. This is how we started to catch on to how shitty MS was (remember the ACK wars?).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I think there's a "how to make a tinfoil hat for your written correspondence" instructable out there.
And what about the applications the undercover NSA employees take? They are quite active in the open source community.
@de_machina
All that only helps if you're comparing checksums and compiling your own binaries.
If you're not paranoid enough to do that, you're trusting that the compiler/packager/distributor of the binaries didn't amend the source or have a compromised compiler toolset.
If I were to go about attempting to compromise all the (pick-a-Linux-variant) systems out there, I wouldn't submit my "improved" code to kernel.org, but I might attempt to load a compiler at (distributor of selected Linux variant) with a surreptitious payload (see above comment).
That closed-source company may _want_ to stand on their reputation. But they can be ordered to backdoor the software against their will and in secrecy. This is no longer a hypothetical argument, and it _is_ harming the reputation of businesses.
This is a great time for competitors of US tech companies.
If they do something bad (...), they'll be the ones held responsible.
Let's review every single EULA I've ever read going back 35 years or so...
The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose
They may be responsible, but they're probably not liable and I'm the one who is likely to get injured.
No, nor should you need to.
For anything sufficiently widely used you will have several competing groups looking at it...
With american commercial software you likely only have the vendor and the nsa looking at it...
For something like linux you have not only the nsa, but also several foreign governments looking at it too. While you may not be able to trust a single party, the chance of error decreases when you have multiple parties who have no reason to collude together.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Probably it was in the video, because people seem to think everyone has time to watch oodles of video without a posted transcript to skim over, and nobody cares to actually associate their hyperlinks to the text they attach the href to.
Someone had to do it.
If Congress required the NSA to reveal exploits of US made products within 30 days it could boost US sales.
One of the ways NSA developed hacks into MS software was by intercepting the error reports that Windoze sends when it crashes. ;-)
Talk about a lot of data
The article and another one like it I saw on the Guardian indicates that the NSA will intercept your mail (called an interception! ) and "configure" any hardware you ordered then send it on its way.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-941262.html
Nice try cold fjord:
The Belgium plot, though not confirmed to be one of the 50 that relied on the recently revealed secretive NSA program to monitor online messages, appears to fit the bill.
So it's not even confirmed that it had anything to do with the programs in question. And then you dig later into the article:
e-mail information relating to the case was "provided voluntarily by the companies Microsoft and Yahoo, as authorized by the Patriot Act."
So basically it wasn't the NSA's surveillance programs that helped it was that Microsoft and Yahoo voluntarily provided the information to the FBI. So in conclusion, your article contradicts itself in stating it can't even verify that this case had anything to do with anything revealed from NSA spying on Americans and it even states that the information was gathered by companies who voluntarily gave it to the FBI.
Now please explain how your article is supposed to be justification for mass surveillance on US citizens by the NSA?
What percentage of computer users in the world are capable of finding security issues by looking through the code. How many semi competent application programmers are capable of the same thing? Operating System level code has very little in common with application level code and unless you have a lot of real world experience good luck on finding any undiscovered weaknesses by looking at the source code. The majority of hacks today involve social engineering targeted towards tricking the average user into doing something stupid. Add incompetent system administrators to the mix and your system becomes wide open and susceptible to all kinds of mischief.
The same is true of taxation, but I don't see you complaining about that either. The government has natural authority which individuals do not when there exists a legitimate government. One of those is defense and intelligence gathering is now as critical to national defense as any weapon system if not more so.
There are thousands upon thousands of people looking at open source code. One of them somewhere along the line is going to notice. That should be pretty obvious. I would like to think this would be a tipping point to more Open Source based usage but we all know that most people don't have a clue what all the surveillance talk even means. All they hear is "They are listening to my phone calls" and that's where it ends.
It is in the video which is definitely worth taking the time to watch. He mentions several things to look for, pictures of lots of the hardware they slip into people's computers, and specifically mentions looking for UDP packets encrypted with RC6.
Not posting anonymously because I want those fuckers at the NSA to know what I think of them.
-AndrewBuck
.. Maybe I missed some context here, but as a former FedEx employee with frequent contact with current FedEx employees, I've not heard of every fedex package being subject to x-rays or picture collection, although I wouldn't be surprised at the latter since I believe they've installed state-of-the-art OCR for QR reading on the airbills. The closest thing to x-rays I know of are the laser scanners used for calculating dimensions/weight (dimweight) for appropriate billing (people marking "1 pound" on their Laserjet shipping...). The amount of time it would require to actually x-ray and analyze 5-10 million packages a day would be non-trivial, especially in light of the service commitments. I could be wrong, however, and I'll have to bring it up next time I talk to the guys.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
In short, neither Microsoft nor Yahoo fought the issue and didn't require a court order. The information is consistent with what we've learned about the operations of the NSA involving those companies. You also overlook that it is CNN that labels it as NSA, not me. Even given NSA's involvement they clearly have wanted to stay out of the spotlight and would likely have handed the information to the FBI which has liaisons with overseas law enforcement agencies. At the end you are still stuck trying to explain how US intelligence obtaining terrorists emails and cooperating with allies in law enforcement against terrorists doesn't happen when it clearly does.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
From TFA:
intercept the hardware in transit, and take it to a secret workshop where it could be discretely fitted with espionage software before being sent on its way.
I blame it all on bad elves.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'd say the destruction of Iranian centrifuges was a master stroke, personally.
Why? Because the same people that destroyed their infrastructure told you that Iran is "evil"? Does "Iran = evil" mean that we should act in an evil fashion? Is Iran as evil as people tell you? Personally I no longer believe that line of rhetoric (30 years ago I did). I believe that two wrongs don't make a right. I also believe that we should treat people equally, regardless of Religion, Race, or gender.
For the duration of my life, which is longer than most people on this site, I have heard about how Iran is "evil" and plans to take over the world. I heard about how they hate Israel, but have never seen them do anything outside of their borders. They yelled a lot when Mossad allegedly destroyed infrastructure, but I have not seen the Republican guard blow shit up in Israel or even be accused. How "bad" or "good" the treatment of their own people is becomes subjective to the people that live there, not my opinion, and that treatment is based on their Religion. The US denounces Iran and their beliefs, yet we have no problem with Talmud Jewish beliefs that much of Israel follows (not to be confused with Rabbinical Jewish beliefs).
I'm not claiming that Iran does not do wrong things, but as a whole and in comparison to the US it's not even close. We went to war with Iraq on a completely fabricated premise killing millions. We helped a revolt in Libya, Egypt, are helping in Syria. We give arms to some 'terrorists' and launch Hellfire missiles at others. We have soldiers that will tell you stories about how the poppy growth in Afghanistan has boomed under US control, yet under the Taliban it was outlawed and production was virtually stopped. Today world wide heroine use/production/trafficking is killing more people than the Taliban ever did.
I'm also not claiming that Israel is "bad" because I don't live there so only have 2nd hand knowledge.
The point is, that the US is not some "justice" force out there righting wrongs and correcting injustice. Quite the contrary, we are causing more harm than helping in numerous countries. We, the intellectuals, really need to challenge handed down propaganda. Instead of accepting it, try to question it.
Our founding fathers had a mountain of quotes I could refer to, but I won't. We were supposed to be the example for Free Society, Republican Government, and tolerance. We were not supposed to be a thug.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
In short, neither Microsoft nor Yahoo fought the issue and didn't require a court order.
Yeah, and? What relevance does that have to anything? ISPs has given law enforcement information on criminals before the Patriot Act or NSA's mass snooping on US citizens.
The information is consistent with what we've learned about the operations of the NSA involving those companies.
Except your article specifically makes no mention of any NSA involvement. It clearly states only the FBI and the two companies.
Even given NSA's involvement they clearly have wanted to stay out of the spotlight and would likely have handed the information to the FBI which has liaisons with overseas law enforcement agencies.
They were involved? You have proof of this? The article makes no such mention. To quote:
The documents stated that as early as December 2007, the FBI handed Belgian authorities a disc with information relating to these e-mail addresses that had been provided to the FBI by Microsoft and Yahoo.
And claiming the NSA was trying to stay out of the spotlight? Bullshit. You're now simply making shit up now after being proven wrong by your own supposed evidence.
At the end you are still stuck trying to explain how US intelligence obtaining terrorists emails and cooperating with allies in law enforcement against terrorists doesn't happen when it clearly does
Did I ever claim that didn't happen? Nope. Of course they obtain that information and work with other foreign governments about terrorists. No one has made any such contradictory claim as this pathetic strawman you've constructed.
The post you responded to and my point was that information like this is not gathered by NSA's mass surveillance on US citizens. As your own article points out, it was obtained by the FBI via Microsoft and Yahoo providing it.
This stuff goes far, quite far, and to quote Jacob Applebaum: "I can't remember voting on any of this stuff, or even having seen a public debate on it".
How about you?
I imagine there's not a need to image the Fedex packages because it all goes into your DB anyway, which they undoubtedly have access to (if you know it or not). I agree that x-ray is implausible.
"Applebaum spoke about why the NSA's program might lead to broader adoption of open source tools and gave a hot tip on how to know if your machines have been owned."
.. the BIOS, the PCI BIOS, the Video Card, the NIC, the PXE ROM or buried in the CPU microcode ...
Where could the code be hiding
http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-583917-panoV9free-akfw.jpg
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The code can be compromised
1) In the source (undetectable in closed source) (detected by some reviewers for open source)
2) in the binary
3) in the compiler
4) device drivers
The host can be compromised
1) in the hardware
2) in the firmware/bios
3) external device means
The peripherals can be compromised
1) in the hardware
2) in the firmware
3) in the software
running software can be compromised
1) viruses
2) malware
3) root kits
network can be compromised
1) by physical devices routers/switches/hubs/wires
2) in the wireless
3) in the internet
4) traffic analysis and statistics
remote servers can be compromised
1) by all the same
2) middleman
3) third party trust
Transport of devices
1) snail mail
2) shipper (middle man attack)
People are compromised by use of
1) phone
2) car
3) cameras
4) social media
5) purchases
6) credit cards
7) music
8) social routines
9) social habits
10) social engineering
11) schedules
12) work/office
13) other
Without these (and any I have missed) being secured there is no way to insure the security of the system.
With an all seeing eye like a large government entity there is no way to prevent it with the exception of passing a constitutional amendment that makes it clear that it IS not legal without specific warrant. All other means falls short of the goal.
To spy on foreign nations in my opinion is what nations do. ALL OF THEM that are capable. Spying on ones own citizens is what governments that are not democracies do. If a democratic government starts spying on its own citizens then it ceases to be a democracy.
> It also assumes you have such a trusted compiler. This has always been the tough part.
When Thompson wrote the original paper, it was tough. In the meantime, many more compiler options have arisen, and the complexity (measured in size of injected, specialized code) of Thompson's "attack" is O(n^2) where n is the total number of compilers to be compromised. When you combine this fact with the now-documented aversion of the NSA to having its methods uncovered, one quickly comes to the conclusion that it's not very likely that DCC is unproductive because all (or even most) combinations of compilers have been trojaned.
They hacked those, too.
Oh! Now I understand why they made me change all my Huawei hardware for Cisco. I thought it was only part of the economy war, but now I understand it was for safety.
Yeah! Safety.
Do you like Oranges or Bananas?
Requiem for the American Dream
They do openly state on their website that they randomly x-ray scan packages however:
http://www.fedex.com/gh/shippingguide/terms/#11
Killing a bunch of wageslave (or just regular slave) engineers in the process. When the innocent become expendable, no matter how valid the cause, when murder and terror become alternatives to diplomacy, the aggressor is not fit even to be spat upon. You know why William Gibson's Neuromancer was so wrong? Technology is progressing far faster, sure, but that's normal in sci-fi. No, William Gibson's mistake was in not foreseeing how degenerate humanity can get.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's simple: the NSA is actually a covert operation of the Chinese PLA which in turn is a CIA operation. And Obama is a spy for the German secret service.
The sooner I get my PhD in computer engineering, the sooner I can do something about there being fewer stories like this.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
All hail the New World Order and our masters at NSA. I was not a true believer in the NSA NWO but then I watched the 30c3 vid mentioned in the summary. Holy crap. No wonder Charlie Stross gave up on his next novel. I am now beyond horrified and simply in awe of our new Overlords.
Bitter and proud of it.
One problem here is that the "multiple parties" are looking for holes to take advantage of, not to fix.
Another problem is that for example Linux is generating more holes per week than it is fixing, and the attitude sucks (https://lwn.net/Articles/538600/, https://lwn.net/Articles/313621/, etc).
If OSS were serious about security they would immediately use grsecurity and managed runtimes (JVM and like). I don't expect either happening anytime soon.
A truly random OTP does not require any further coding. There is not even any point in trying brute-force. Any text of the same length of the cyphertext is a potential plaintext without any way of telling if this is the correct one.
... not foreseeing how degenerate humanity can get.
Foreseeing? Humanity is at its least degenerate today, at least in the developed world. It's not long ago when things we now consider totally depraved were considered normal. Just think about the world wars of last century, then consider what was done in the age of colonialism, and things just get more grisly the farther back you go.
Getting some engineers of enemy tribe killed is nothing in the grand history of humanity.
You overestimate their abilities. They couldn't even detect when Snowden was operating inside their network, and have been unable to determine what he took out prevent it being published. They know who had copies of the material, who is working on it, and for all their targeted hacking and exploits they can't do shit about it.
They have some scary tech, sure, but if you are careful there are limits to what they can do. For example this story states that they intercept computers being delivered and bug them. Well, anyone who thinks they might be a target can just go to a random computer store and buy an anonymous laptop with cash. Unless they install covert radios in every computer sold an airgap is still highly effective.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That's fine, my handwriting is strong enough a cipher as it is.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
So, you're suggesting that open source will be more secure? Oh! That's right! If it's open source, the NSA wouldn't be able to find exploits in it... Because after all, it's open source, it can't be hacked!
As the chronic gambler should know that the casino wins on the long run.
The thief knows what would happen if he's caught.
He's point, I think, is not about less or more secure. either is as likly to incroporate bugs a the other. It is about the chances of finding a vulnerability and the time it takes to fix it.
With open source, If you happen (or know someone) find a vulnerability chancesa re you can fix it right a way, report/submit a patch. As for a closed source, all you can do is report and wait (slashdot is full of articles about that).
if there's a choice between blaming someone for a problem and avoiding the problem, avoiding (when possible) is always the winner strategy.
No. I think you've misunderstood one-time padding (or brute-forcing).
Brute forcing is when you try (almost) every possible key, which is significantly shorter than the message, to see what the message will turn out with said key hoping to find the right one. If the message turns out to make sense (contain english words or ascii alphabet for example) it is likely to be correct.
With OTP the key and the message are of equal length. Going through every key is the same as going through every possible message. So you will not only hit alphabet, but you'll get shakespeare and snowden leaks alike.
That makes all forms of bruteforcing futile. No extra codes necessary.
One bit example:
my message is M (0 or 1) and my pad is P (0 or 1).
M xor P = C cipher text, and equally C xor P is M.
Now, given C, say 1. You can trivially bruteforce it into 0 as if P had been 1 or into 1 as if P had been 0, but that solves nothing. Because both possibilites are equally likely. Repeat that on every bit and all you will ever know about the message is its length.
The length leakage is also easy to counter to some extent by appropriate amount of random padding (adding some extra gunk to the end).
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
How do you know that the internet is even real and not a cleverly designed honeypot?
Where is the "hot tip on how to know if your own machines have been owned"?
One thing you can use to increase the strength of OTP is extra data. They may not be able to crack the code, but they may be able to get an idea of the type of data it is by its length and the size of the key source (alpha only, alpha-num, etc).
You mean like the trojan that was in OpenSSH for 2 days?
FTFY.
In my experience, security envelopes aren't lined with toner, but with printer's ink (like from an offset press, not an inkjet).
My understanding is that those envelopes are helpful to prevent optical-light shining (like candling an egg), but I don't think they'll protect against x-ray. Anyone got an x-ray machine we can test with?
your example isn't very helpful, but I see what you mean and I hadn't realized it before. You can't brute force to look for dictionary words, because you'll find infinite words.
ABCDE
ZEBRA
PARIS
HAPPY
The NSA and any national intelligence forces have ZERO access to messages that are encrypted 256 at source and only decrypted using long (eg 25 character non-dictionary) passwords that have been exchanged manually. Even a SuperComputer would take hundreds of thousands of years or more to crack these, and never forget paper messages exchanged manually bypass ANY security altogether! So either stone-age bits of paper or very high tech encryption will suffice. If there is an additional random insert of characters based on a further password, decryption is totally totally impossible! The only weak point is getting hold of the passwords and encryption methods. If these are secure, no-one else can get at the data. The sensible thing to do of course is to have a different passwords for each data destination, So even if one is compromised, all the others are secure!
World War 1 is an excellent example of degeneracy. But let's face it, there is a level of honesty in charging machine guns and gassing enemy trenches. A depraved honesty, but honesty nonetheless.
Blackwater vehicles machine-gunning civilian populations for the hell of it, drones launching missiles at kids going to peace conferences - this lacks even the honesty.
Even earlier, the Charge of the Light Brigade was supposedly described as "magnificent, but it isn't war". I suppose the same could really be said of the Dambuster raid. There was nothing magnificent about Tora Bora, or the use of large radius, indiscriminate incendiaries earlier. Nor the use of cluster bombs colour coded to look like food drops.
The deliberate bombing of air raid shelters in Iraq was arguably worse than the Nazi bombings of London in the Blitz. The Nazis had no capacity to aim and seem to have been relatively indiscriminate. Bad enough to be a war crime and unacceptable to any civilized people. Firing laser-targeted missiles knowingly at civilian shelters, that goes from mere grotesquely savage incompetence to willful mass murder. To me, there is no question that having the capacity to do less harm but using it to inflict more is the greater evil and the more degenerate.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think any modern intentional bombing of civilians pales in comparison to what happened to civilians in conquered cities before modern times. The whole remaining siege army pillaging, raping and murdering in a very close-and-personal way, with full approval of the commanders.
But more to the point, now nasty stuff like this is considered a war crime. Back then it was a reward for being a soldier in an invading army.
Ofcourse can there be security bugs in Open Source. Which can be exploited by the NSA and others. But such bugs are far less common then in Closed Source. Open Source in itself doesn't promise security, but it _is_ a _requirement_ for security! No Open Source (including in hardware)? No security. Any program (OS) running on a TC chip? No security. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing) Also: if it is Open Source, it is not possible to hide backdoors and security flawed programming. Since everybody can see the code, the criminal putting the malware in the code, always will be found. And thus, there are no deliberate security errors in Open Source. Also, because everybody can see the code, it forces the programmers to code neatly (otherwise, they will get a lot of bad comments). Closed Source programmers can mess around as much as they want - as long as the program works. Nobody can see their mess. PS: the button 'create an account' doesn't work... Hence, there will be 'Anonymous Coward' above my post.