Slashdot Mirror
To Avoid NSA Interception, Cisco Will Ship To Decoy Addresses
An anonymous reader writes with this news snipped from The Register: Cisco will ship boxes to vacant addresses in a bid to foil the NSA, security chief John Stewart says. The dead drop shipments help to foil a Snowden-revealed operation whereby the NSA would intercept networking kit and install backdoors before boxen reached customers. The interception campaign was revealed last May. Speaking at a Cisco Live press panel in Melbourne today, Stewart says the Borg will ship to fake identities for its most sensitive customers, in the hope that the NSA's interceptions are targeted. 'We ship [boxes] to an address that has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who, ultimately, it is going to,' Stewart says.
"We ship [boxes] to an address that's has nothing to do with the customer,"
I know some other companies that seem to do this for about half my orders.
I would be happy to pay a little extra for this service for non-critical hardware. But if I were actually concerned the NSA would want to twist my knickers there's no way in hell I would: It's a huge red flag for them. Instead I would bribe someone at a different company to accept my shipment and forward it to me.
But let's be honest, if the NSA is interested enough in you to install extras on your hardware, they probably already know your favorite porn, your underwear size, and what you had for breakfast. I'm happy to see extra services appearing for privacy-loving individuals but I don't think this particular one will help.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Seriously, I would assume that NSA at least has a "mole" in the order processing/accounting/shipping dept. at Cisco. Unless Cisco pays a lot more than market to these rank-and-file employees or gives them benefits unheard of elsewhere, they aren't particularly hard to get to cooperate, I would guess.
We had several Vaxen in our lab.
It's used to show who groks tek. Sales dept use "Vaxes". Users say Vaxen.
Now, get off my lawn. I just mowed it.
Mouse-> Mice
Louse -> Lice
House -> Hice
Platapouse -> Platapice
Faux -> Fauce
Fox -> Fice
Box -> Bice
The plural of John Stewart is John Stewarten.