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How the NSA Plans To Infect 'Millions' of Computers With Malware
Advocatus Diaboli sends news from The Intercept about leaked documents which show that the NSA is significantly expanding its efforts to build an automated system to compromise computers remotely. From the article:
"The implants being deployed were once reserved for a few hundred hard-to-reach targets, whose communications could not be monitored through traditional wiretaps. But the documents analyzed by The Intercept show how the NSA has aggressively accelerated its hacking initiatives in the past decade by computerizing some processes previously handled by humans. The automated system – codenamed TURBINE – is designed to 'allow the current implant network to scale to large size (millions of implants) by creating a system that does automated control implants by groups instead of individually.' In a top-secret presentation, dated August 2009, the NSA describes a pre-programmed part of the covert infrastructure called the 'Expert System,' which is designed to operate 'like the brain.' The system manages the applications and functions of the implants and 'decides' what tools they need to best extract data from infected machines."
Shouldn't somebody go to jail for this?
Apparently, the government is above the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity When you steal money from someone, it is called a crime called theft but when the government does it, they call it taxes. When you extort money from someone, it is a crime but when the government does it, it is called a fine, levy, duty or fee.
Don't steal, the government hates competition.
The government does not provide ("make") roads, power nor drinkable water.
Fuck you, statist twat.
Right. Because it's not as if they found a bug in GnuTLS security the other week, that compromises HTTP security in many Linux apps. A bug that may or may not have been planted by the NSA, but either way has been undiscovered for 9 years.
There is nothing about Linux that makes it safer from government hacking. In fact the openness that allows many people, who's actual identities are not know to anyone, to contribute code makes it more vulnerable than a closed commercial OS.
At least with a closed commercial OS you have to actually be an identifiable person working for the company to submit changes. Or risk posing as one. And there are people who are paid to do the boring testing and audits. Apple's equivalent of the GnuTLS bug was discovered in a matter of months, not years.