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Crypto Legend Quisquater Targeted - But NSA May Not Be To Blame
judgecorp writes "Reports that the NSA and/or Britain's GCHQ deliberately targeted Belgian cryptography professor Jea-Jacques Quisquater may be jumping to conclusions, the professor has said. Investigation of an apparent NSA/GCHQ hack of Belgian ISP Belgacom uncovered evidence that Quisquater's PC had been infected with malware and had data extracted. However the two incidents might be coincidence: similar malware is used by Asian attackers, he said."
Now the NSA has shown its willingness to do such things, and then deny even having the ability, they're going to get the finger of blame pointed at them a lot more, regardless of whether they deserve it, and now in a much more credible way.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
How about this? Edward Snowden Reveals 'Quantum Insert': NSA And GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn And Slashdot Pages To Install Spyware?!?!
German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that documents leaked by Snowden show that the GCHQ used a method called “quantum insert” to redirect employees of Belgacom, Belgium’s largest telecommunications company, to fake websites that contained spyware. The program targeted higher-level employees that had “good access” to Belgacom’s infrastructure.
TFA doesn't tell much about the setup on the professor machine and network. I couldn't even find which OS he was running...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
WTF? Is it no longer PC to say Chinese hackers? And so now we vilify an entire continent instead?
In other news felching all the rage with GCHQ staff.
Enlarge ur ......linkedin profile size! Click Here!
Thats may point to a local support network of staff knowing when to turn the malware or make it become passive again.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The NSA is responsible for the hacking of Jean-Jacques Quisquater whether or not they actually did it.
They're the ones who created this ugly labyrinth of snoops and upskirters who obsessively have to possess every atom of extant human dignity by owning their information, they're very meaning.
God, I hope Edward Snowden is only the beginning. I hope that dozens, hundreds, thousands of Edward Snowdens reveal every single detail of every single stinking perverted notion of what a government and corporation is to do until we know exactly what kind of chlamydia medicine the wife of the head of the NSA takes and how often he spits in the shower.
These NSA revelations have left me absolutely disgusted and incensed. They've changed my politics, they've changed my behavior, they've changed my view of my innocent corner of the world.
And worse, for the corporations who thought this was going to bring some great future of control over the metrics of our lives, it's changed my consumption habits. Now, I've become leery of every request for my zip code. My willingness to use a real email address anywhere is just about gone and I'll pay cash just because fuck them.
I don't think the backlash has even started over this Surveillance State. Or rather, I hope it hasn't because if there's not an effective backlash then our only hope is a solar flare that wipes everything with an EMP, and that would mess up my saved games.
Damn you to hell, NSA! and the corporate trojan horse you rode in on.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Crypto Legend Quisquater Targeted - But NSA May Not Be To Blame
Oh, come now. I'm certain we can find SOME way to blame the NSA for this! It's almost as if you don't have any faith in our talents whatsoever!
He is probably one of the willing participants, and trying to shrug off and explain this away so people don't stay curious.
May not be to blame? Well, they very specifically seem to aim for that don't they?
They use injection systems that masquerade as legitimate systems. They use preliminary infections to probe and gauge user sophistication, then they choose their attacks based on threat of detection.
so the attack that most looks like them is one that doesn't look like them. So any intrusion, unless its just lame (like the one Jake Applebaum talked about in his recent talk where it was litterally just using a script to upload screenshots of his system to a remote server, and had failed to upload many so it filled his home directory..... that was very likely not them.
However anything that actually works, even if it is off the shelf malware, could be them.
Which doesn't mean that it is of course, but, it does mean that there is no way to actually shut the conspiracy nuts down on any of these because, any attack could plausibly be them.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You can be pretty much certain that the NSA is trying to get its hands on the private data of anybody relevant to their interests and work: cryptographers, big data scientists, other related fields of computer science. This is simply so that they can make sure that they are ahead of what's out there in the public domain and academia.
And in addition, you can also be certain that any administration is going to be using the NSA and other spy agencies to keep track of potential dissidents, critics, and leakers: economists, social scientists, political opponents, political activists, members of the military, etc. And they are going to use that data to warn the administration of political attacks and silence opponents through leaks of unflattering personal information, as well as selective prosecution of actual wrongdoing.
That's not a question of whether this or any other administration is particularly bad or dishonest, it's simply what happens when you give any organization and any government the kind of power that the NSA has given to recent administrations.
And we still don't have SSL with PFS on /.
This guy's Wikipedia page basically only mentions that he's famous for being the victim of the alledged attack. So he's been chosen as a target because he is famous for being the target of the same attack? I'd assume a garden variety mass phising attempt is more likely.
OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software
And if we did, there would have been another slide with a little arrow pointing to Dice and saying "this is where we remove SSL". With a smiley, of course.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
similar malware is used by Asian attackers, he said
Similar malware is also used by the US government. It was used in the Freedom Hosting attack, it was used on ~100,000 suspects (of what and who they are was not stated) of the FBI, the NSA's own documents claim they have malware on over 50,000 machines worldwide, and that's not even counting Stuxnet/Flame.
The prof is simply not jumping to conclusions. Doesn't mean anyone in particular is or is not involved.
Presumably the researchers he contacted know enough to say if this did not look like the NSA job. The quantum insert looks like they don't need hosting in Asia, where these attacks were hosted.
NSA ate not the only people who have heard of LinkedIn, and it is the obvious attack vector for people who use it. It could be fricken anyone, and pointing to one party in particular is just click bait given the facts. If you have more info beyond that link, let us know how it lines up with the info linked elsewhere in these comments and you will actually deserve a +5.
Don't worry, the NSA has a log of all the porn sites the guy has visited, so they can help identify which gave him the infection.
...including the letter N from his first name!
Co-operation beats competition
" NSA May Not Be To Blame"
Yes,
Oh and by the way how is the Nile doing at this time of year?
Think about it.
Yes, that's the beta.slashdot.org site. If you're redirected to it, you know why.
When are people going to understand: the NSA targets all, at all times. Satellite and space/radar capability monitor all souls regardless. Who the fuck cares if they targeted him one pathetic way or not, when everyone is being monitored regardless in other more invasive and secretive ways?
Total global surveillance method exposed by Dr. Robert Duncan, a DOD/CIA/US DOJ systems architect: http://www.oregonstatehospital...
NSA is 90% air wave and radiation intelligence. 10% lower tech shit.
Is that you?