Slashdot Mirror
A Look at the NSA's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
realized writes in with a closer look at the NSA's QUANTUM system. "Today QUANTUM packs a suite of attack tools, including both DNS injection (upgrading the man-on-the-side to a man-in-the-middle, allowing bogus certificates and similar routines to break SSL) and HTTP injection. That reasonable enough. But it also includes gadgets like a plug-in to inject into MySQL connections, allowing the NSA to quietly mess with the contents of a third-party's database. (This also surprisingly suggests that unencrypted MySQL on the internet is common enough to attract NSA attention.) And it allows the NSA to hijack both IRC and HTTP-based criminal botnets, and also includes routines which use packet-injection to create phantom servers, and even attempting (poorly) to use this for defense."
Its the same question that should have been asked of the doctors that assisted with the torture and stress programs, the psychologists that aided and abetted the threats made against detainees families. The aviation engineers that built remote controlled ariel death machines. The lawyers that twisted and bent the law to try to justify all the above. There is a tendancy for professions to remote themselves from the consequences of thier actions, and to adopt both the "obeying orders" and the "if we dont do it, somebody else will" defense. Scumbags the lot of them, there is a very hot place waiting for them all.
Clearly they have an interest (or conflict of interest) in letting botnets run amok, as it gives them a cover for their own illegal activities.