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John McAfee: NSA's Back Door Has Given Every US Secret To Enemies (businessinsider.com)
John McAfee, American computer programmer and contributing editor of Business Insider, explains how the NSA's back door has given every U.S. secret to its enemies. He begins by mentioning the importance of software, specifically meta- software, which contains a high level set of principles designed to help a nation survive in a cyberwar. Such software must not contain any back doors under any circumstances, otherwise it can and may very likely allow perceived enemies of the U.S. to have access to top-secret information. For example, the Chinese used the NSA's back door to hack the Defense Department last year and steal 5.6 million fingerprints of critical personnel. "Whatever gains the NSA has made through the use of their back door, it cannot possibly counterbalance the harm done to our nation by everyone else's use of that same back door." McAfee believes the U.S. has failed to grasp the subtle implications of technology and, as a result, is 20 years behind the Chinese, and by association, the Russians as well.
From TFA:
The British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks.
I hope we all understand now what “acquired the capability” means. The NSA planted a programmer within Jupiter Networks. The was no other way to “acquire" this capability.
Except that he just referenced a claim that the British acquired the capability by being told about the backdoor, and he then goes on to say that the Chinese acquired the same capability by discovering the backdoor through reverse-engineering. So there is another way after all.
Which raises the following possibilities, each just as plausible as "The NSA planted a programmer":
1. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA or GCHQ discovered it via reverse-engineering and shared it with the other.
2. The Chinese planted a programmer, and the NSA discovered it during review of source-code shared as a condition of purchasing for sensitive government use.
3. A programmer was paid to create the backdoor by a non-governmental entity interested in corporate espionage, and all the state actors discovered it via reverse-engineering.
4. The backdoor was created unintentionally (e.g. failure to remove white-box test code before going to production), and all the actors discovered it via reverse-engineering and/or source review.
Basically, John presents no evidence whatsoever for his claim that the NSA caused the backdoor.
Ultimately, I do agree with his point he does make is that code inspections can catch and close both intentional and unintentional backdoors. But the rest of the article is FUD.
There is no doubt that McAfee speaks the truth here, but what he doesn't reference is that while the NSA and the FBI are retarded, there are huge numbers of folks in the US who do not subscribe to that policy and HAVE kept up on security and can spin the US Gov'mint up to speed quickly when the need arises, and it will. The US has traditionally been a late riser when it comes to open warfare, we mince in and get bloodied and then, come together in an economic juggernaut, uniting seemingly perpetual fighting sides of our country against any external threat, much like a bickering family consolidates against any outsider. Then when the threat is gone we go back to feuding like dysfunctional hamsters. I just hope we don't wait too long in the face of this more subtle threat...
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
"Regardless of the provenance of the quote, Yamamoto believed that Japan could not win a protracted war with the US. Moreover, he seems to have believed that the Pearl Harbor attack had become a blunder even though he was the person who came up with the idea of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It is recorded that "Yamamoto alone" (while all his staff members were celebrating) spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression". He is also known to have been upset by the bungling of the Foreign Ministry which led to the attack happening while the countries were technically at peace, thus making the incident an unprovoked sneak attack that would certainly enrage the Americans."
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
From John McAfee - I have considered that. But isn't it more convenient to assume, at the start, that individual people are mostly honest, than mostly dishonest?
I have the most to lose - already being investigated by the FBI for a multitude of imagined offenses (multiple murders, drug manufacturer, treason and a host of others). I am, at least, standing up - risking all - and calling the FBI deceptive, dishonest, self serving and anti-society.
The US government is, without any doubt, my enemy. At least with Apple there is the possibility that they are not my enemy.
Did a contract last year for the oldest bank in the US (go look it up) who were writing their own videoconferencing application so they could be sure there were no back doors in the tool used for almost all internal communications.