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Red Star Linux Adds Secret Watermarks To Files
An anonymous reader writes: ERNW security analyst Florian Grunow says that North Korea's Red Star Linux operating system is tracking users by tagging content with unique hidden tags. He particularizes that files including Word documents and JPEG images connected to but not necessarily executed in Red Star will have a tag introduced into its code that includes a number based on hardware serial numbers. Red Star's development team seems to have created some quite interesting custom additions to Linux kernel and userspace, based on which Grunow has written a technical analysis.
>> privacy of potential users (especially from North Korea) may be impacted
I didn't know privacy was a thing in North Korea.
Is this any different that our government forcing printer manufacturers to put secret watermarks on pages printed?
Ken Thompson's C compiler is an interesting read on the subject:
http://programmers.stackexchan...
http://www.reddit.com/comments...
Basically, It's a compiler with a backdoor that injects it's source code when it's compiling itself. pretty interesting idea for 1984.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
Desktop software is really horrible these days. To preserve your freedoms, use Chrome OS or Android and organize your collaborations and activities over Facebook. Capitalist computing is much more trustworthy than that evil communist Linux thing.
Seriously?
Most North Koreans don't have access to the internet. Most North Koreans don't know a damned thing about Linux. Most North Koreans don't know a damned thing about kernels or spying modules installed on their computers.
Do you really think people are going to compile a custom kernel to get around the brutal dictatorships surveillance and risk their lives for something they probably don't know exists?
Come on, guys, learn a little about North Korea before suggesting the populace just whips up a custom kernel to work around this.
Under a third generation pisspot dictator, the overwhelming majority of North Koreans will only know what they've been told. They're poor, starving, and isolated from much of the rest of the world.
And the suggestion is to go to kernel.org? Pathetic.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.