NYT: NSA Put 100,000 Radio Pathway "Backdoors" In PCs

retroworks writes "The New York Times has an interesting story on how NSA put transmitters into the USB input devices of PCs, allowing computers unplugged from the Internet to still be monitored, via radio, from up to 8 miles away. The article mainly reports NSA's use of the technology to monitor Chinese military, and minor headline reads 'No Domestic Use Seen.' The source of the data was evidently the leak from Edward J. Snowden."

Comments

The real important question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the hardware have good Linux drivers?

Re:Where are they?

[JoeMerchant]

It (the tinfoil) is supposed to go around your head too... the bit that most people fail to do is close the faraday cage - it needs to be a complete enclosure to work.

Solution

[freax]

Translucent USB cables and connectors.

Re:Where are they?

[TWiTfan]

Pics or it didn't happen

I got a laugh this morning watching NBC's morning show. Some reporter was talking about how some of these devices were embedded in USB cables. "Like these," he said, as he held up a RJ-45 ethernet cable. :-)