PSTN traffic and private line come to mind, and the Nauraus is just one component used to intercept IP based traffic.
That is a good point, although I don't know how much of the regular phone traffic is run via IP in AT&T's network. I think the company name is "Narus," by the way, not "Nauraus" (unless you're misspelling it to avoid the filters:)
Have you noticed that ALL of your examples of how "Free Speech" is not absolute are examples of LYING?
The blackmail example was not. There are examples of restricted "true" speech as well, like campaign advertisements, trademarks, copyright, not releasing information about minors, privacy laws that restrict medical personal, and laws that prevent dissemination of passwords and PIN numbers. All of these can be valid restrictions of free speech. The real criteria is when restricting free speech prevents someone trampling on the rights of another or when there is an overwhelming public interest.
Having just read through the documents, and being a network operator for a small network, this looks exactly like the installation thay ANY large network provider would implement to comply with the Lawful Intercept program mandated in CALEA.
I suspect it was regulatory compliance and security budget that funded this installation, but it is a little "above and beyond."
The whistle-blower, Klein, so far doesn't seem to have produced any evidence that AT&T and the NSA are actively spying without court orders, just that they could.
I agree, but this does look very suspicious and it is certainly worth investigating. We were commanded to be "eternally vigilant" against our own government. This should be investigated and NSA files and procedures reviewed to determine just what is occurring. I see no national security reason to keep this secret (aside from, possibly, the contents of some actual intercepted communications).
This is wrong, they can only read traffic that[sic] has been routed over their network, generally that means only traffic to, or from, one of their customers, as required by CALEA.
I take it you've never heard of transit traffic?
The major Internet backbone links are OC-192 and higher, the Narus system described in the document could only handle up to OC-48 (1/4 the speed of OC-192 circuits).
Yup, at any given time, although I doubt AT&T has their connection constantly maxed out, so we don't know the real traffic rate percentage this can monitor. We also have no idea what the capacity of the storage they are using for forensic analysis of this data is, nor how long they are keeping it. Hopefully the average load, the regexps matched (at least in general), and the procedures in place will shed some light on this.
Or at least that is the way NSA and the administration perceive the rules for foreign intercept.
The courts have not yet ruled on this (and I suspect they will find the NSA in violation) and I think the "reasonable expectation of privacy" of the average citizen is pretty clear here.
Another potential reason for NSA cleared individuals having access to the rooms is that NSA performs security clearance screening for telecommunications related lawful intercept employees.
That seems more than a little far-fetched to me.
In my mind, I don't know what they were doing, but I think the circumstantial evidence is rather strong. The problem is, I don't trust that a proper investigation will be performed, given the current and obvious corruption of our government. I would like to compliment you, however, on at least providing some of the only rational discourse in this thread.
I never want a judge or a federal official telling me what I can and can't say. Ever. I don't care what people think their right is in a fair trial, but my right to speak my conscience or reveal information about others should be protected from government infringement.
I disagree. You can say whatever you want, but be prepared to face the consequences. Many of the laws restricting speech serve a very necessary purpose. Here are some examples:
Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. (The classic example.)
Slandering a political opponent, loudly via the media outlets you own, and only hours before voting starts.
Publishing libelous remarks a political opponent, loudly via the media outlets you own, and only hours before voting starts.
False advertising
Medical personnel lying about dangers, options.
Blackmailing someone for something they have or have not done.
There are plenty of other legitimate reasons to limit free speech. I'm less convinced of the need for "trade secrets" and certainly it does not trump revealing political corruption and illegal actions by government officials (the most highly protected form of free speech). In this instance there is little to no justification and the executive branch has absolutely no authority to suppress this speech because of national security concerns.
The immorality of what the NSA and AT&T have done is worse that the illegality of it. I see no reason why the ultimate penalty should not be paid by the government officials who created this beast. Treason is treason, and violating one's oath to uphold the Constitution is treasonous.
I'd argue that what they are doing is illegal and unethical, but not necessarily immoral. But it is the letter of the law that needs to be upheld to insure that we continue to be a nation of law. I would also consider these people to be oathbreakers, violating their oaths to uphold the constitution, but then, so is pretty much every member of congress and every person in the armed forces. The constitution and bill of rights is just a speaking point these days, and is in no way enforced. The federal government is just what the founding fathers tried to prevent. The issue is what to do about it. In this day and age of mass media can an opponent win on the reform platform? I thinks so, but without a lot of money behind them and certainly not from within either mainstream political party.
Okay, so if Opera sits at %25, Thunderbird at %25, I guess that makes Outlook 50%. Then what? What your're suggesting is security through obscurity.
First, Opera is a Web browser, not an e-mail client. Second, if one program is on 50% of all machines, it is a decent target, but not as good as one that is on 90%. Market share is not the only factor to security, but it is a factor. If I write some malware I'm likely to target the program that will yield the best results. Anything on less that 20% of machines is certainly not worth my effort unless I'm going after a specific target (in which case we're in a whole different ball game). Right now, more than half of all Windows malware can be defeated simply by making IE inoperable and using anything aside from IE and Outlook. Making your machine safe from 50% of all malware makes it more secure and that's all there is to it.
Monocultures are a vulnerability for automation which is why avoiding Windows, even using a relatively insecure OS is likely to protect you from pretty much all automated attacks. Think of where the term "monoculture" enters the computing lexicon from. The principals apply the same to biology. Diversity is not the same thing as obscurity. If 500 clones can all be killed by one bug. 500 individuals with significant differences are likely to have some that survive. If an animal, or malware, specifically targets raccoons (which happen to make up 90% of the animals in a forest), it might be a good idea to be a rabbit or a skunk. Something adapted to eating raccoons will likely be driven off by skunk spray, and might not be able to keep up with a rabbit. Does that mean rabbits are surviving through obscurity, not really. It means they have avoided the vulnerability of being just like everyone else.
It is one valid way to avoid a particular vulnerability and only part of a valid defense, but it is a part.
1) Make sure all attachments are virus scanned - the case in point is that it was and it passed because it was a zero-day exploit.
True, but in the very near future thnat will not be the case. I mentioned this since it is good general practice and it mitigates the majority of these instances.
2) Use secure products not part of a monoculture - unfortunately ALL products have security issues. Again, this was a zero-day exploit - which could happen to ANY product, monoculture or not.
You miss the point. If someone is sending exploits, they need to have a reasonable expectation that their target will have the vulnerable software installed. How can they have a reasonable expectation of this? Well, they can study each target and find a new vulnerability for software used by each company and then craft an exploit for it, or; they can target something that is used by 90% of all machines and assume you'll have it to. Which one gives them more reward for less work?
If someone finds an exploit in WordPerfect, so what? If they mail it to random companies disguised as legitimate traffic, most will discover it is illegitimate in hours and an alert will go out to the community. If, however, they find one in Word, most will assume it is legitimate but broken (since most use.doc). The alert will be slower to propagate and the number of targets that are exploiting in that time will be greater. Thus, avoiding "what everyone else is using" is a layer of security by itself. If there is no software in a niche that is used by almost everyone, you are fine. If there is, it is a liability.
While WE know that the use of open document formats and open source software would alleviate this issue to some degree, the problem is that if the program creators are competing with each other on features, they will be extending the so-called open document format in incompatible ways. The only answer to this, of course, is everybody using open source AND all open source developers agreeing to never add a document format feature without passing it through the committee controlling the format.
Ummm, no. The answer is extensible standards that gracefully degrade. It isn't that hard. That way each company can innovate and add features, but tools without those features can still read the files. Every so often the most implemented/useful features become an required part of the new version of the specification. This has been going on with open standards for decades and in the absence of an abusive monopoly that can bypass the market, it works just fine.
Another thing that would be useful - nobody acquires software unless it has been checked for security flaws by an independent security code checking group - a sort of "security Consumer Reports". How you would get the massive amount of software being developed checked in less than a century would be a feat, however.
If it is open source and popular, this has happened or you can quickly make it happen. If it is closed source, you just have to decide how much trust to place in the original company and the security review, alongside other features. There is no reason to try to legislate this however.
Also Microsoft either has to redesign its systems from the ground up...
I'm not sure what your point is here. Just enforce the laws and prevent MS from leveraging their monopoly and MS will solve their problems or lose market share till it doesn't matter.
The REAL answer to security is: there IS NO security... The closest anybody has come is the fairly secure BSD OS's.
There are plenty of fairly secure OS implementations and the beginnings of many more. MAC, jails, VMs, ACLs, or whatever you want to call them will make this sort of attack almost impossible. The only reason they have not been developed and integrated into all major OS's is the market has not demanded it. Windows is a giant target, but they don't care since it doesn't cost them any money (their custo
I don't need "evidence", as you put it - I need only look at what IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
And this exactly what makes you lack credibility and more of a liability than an asset for affecting change in the government on this issue. A rational person makes decisions based upon facts and admits they don't know when they have no facts. There is no reason to make assertions about what you don't know to convey to others what happened that is unethical, un-American, and corrupt here. Still you insist on making those assertions and demonstrating your irrationality.
It may take another ten years, but eventually someone like Bamford will write a book about it and you'll look like an idiot for believing the press releases and corporate spin.
No one ever looks like an idiot for admitting they don't know the facts of something they have no way of obtaining facts about. Maybe there is some grand conspiracy, maybe there isn't. It seems far-fetched to me, since there is no motive in this case. In any case, right now I look and am a rational person discussing facts. You seem to be an irrational person spouting conjecture with nothing to back it up. I can educate people and motivate them to press for reform. You can make them look for an excuse to be elsewhere and believe that anyone discussing the issue is some wacko. Which of us is of more benefit to society?
Change your tools every time one becomes popular? Nice.
There is a difference between popular and a monoculture. A program that enjoys 25% of the market is popular. One that enjoys 50% of the market is popular. One that dominates 90% of the market and is installed on most machines is a giant target. You don't have to worry about Opera or Thunderbird grabbing 90% of the market this decade and thus you don't have to worry that malware authors will find them an easy target.
copying to a share is not more difficult or less usable that mailing as an attachment. Try it sometime. Most companies support both.
It is an extra step to place a file on a share and then send an e-mail. That means some people will try to avoid the work. Just because something is easy for you does not mean it is easy for Mr. Johnson who learned how to use e-mail and send files two years ago and has never had any training since and would not care if he did. What he is doing works, if you take it away it is easier for him to use his MSN account than it is to learn a new method and comprehend a new concept. He's management and not to be bothered with this techie stuff. Just make it work, or suffer the consequences.
You did not address that fact that this trains people to click on links in e-mails, a primary method for phishing and other exploits. Sorry, your head is on wrong on this topic.
It[zero day] means that the exploit was discovered by crackers before any patch has been made available to the public. In other words there is nothing you can do except not open any.doc files unless you want to run the risk of being cracked.
Well, you have the right basic idea, but you're wrong on a few specifics and some terminology. A zero day exploit is an exploit that was used before the associated vulnerability was discovered/announced. So in the most common chain of events someone discovers a vulnerability, tells the vendor (MS), the vendor fixes it, releases the patch and announces the vulnerability/fix to the world. Some period of time after that, crackers write an exploit for it that attacks unpatched boxes. If the exploit is released at the same time or before the patch, it is called a "zero-day" exploit since people have zero days to patch before they are subject to attacks. It is important not to confuse the term "vulnerability" (potential hole) with the term "exploit" (attack that takes advantage of a vulnerability).
Also, being a zero day exploit does not preclude "work-arounds." This might be, don't open.doc files, filter all attachments out, or just switch to using OpenOffice for.doc files.
Disable attachments. It's was a dumb idea in the first place...
Why is it that half of all security people think the proper way to mitigate a security threat is to make the computer less functional and harder to use so users can't do what they want and thus expose themselves to threats? That is the worst idea ever.
First, people will work around it. They will send each other attachments via their personal e-mail, IM, P2P, etc. because it is easier to accomplish the task they want. Second, this will train people that it is okay to click on links in e-mail, because we all know how safe that is.
If you want security, provide a secure and easy to use channel for what people want to do; otherwise they will go out of band to get it done and some of those people will have more clout in the company than you do. The real solution is to make sure all attachments are virus scanned and make sure all workstations properly handle e-mail messages using secure products that are not part of a monoculture. Ditch IE, Outlook, and Word, right now. Install Opera, or Firefox, Thunderbird or Lotus Notes, OpenOffice or WordPerfect. Just avoid anything that has more than 90% market share unless you have some real heavy duty security in place. That is a much better way to deal with it.
People like you who think usability and security are polar opposites are the reason you see internal, corporate documents posted on public blogs as a means of exchange.
This is disruptive and lose-lose, either organizations heed the advice, and now for as long as it takes to fix Microsoft's problem applicants will have their documents blocked, or some of these hackers profuse their new hack and compromise organization's infrastructure.
The open source and closed source communities have already provided me with a better work-around for this attack vector, one which Microsoft motivated me to start employing long ago. MS Word costs money. MS Word is rather slow to open and sometimes leaks memory. MS Word crashes, corrupting the open file when working on long documents. As a result, I avoid MS Word.
On my Windows and Linux systems I open.doc files in OpenOffice by default. This means if I'm opening an attachment I don't have to open a separate program from the one I already have open (OpenOffice). When I'm on my mac, I usually open them in Pages.app (which I often have open for other, minor editing tasks. Either way, I'm unlikely to use MS Word and thus I won't be vulnerable to this attack.
My response is, time to mandate OpenOffice in your workplace and defang this particular threat while saving a bundle of cash at the same time.
Even more: You hate microsoft because you think they develop shitty software, but you want them to keep it that way and not to improve their products.
Your comment is pure speculation. The original poster did not mention why they hate Microsoft. You're the only one that said it was because they develop shitty software.
I, personally, have a strong dislike for Microsoft, but it is not because they sell shitty software. I dislike the fact that they use their monopoly to retard progress in the entire industry and make life harder for people in the interests of their own profit. I dislike that they break the laws and I dislike that they spread constant misinformation. I dislike that they buy companies with innovative products and then kill those companies and their products.
Secondly, you make the assumption that Vista is an improvement. While in some ways this is sure to be true, in others it is sure to be completely wrong. They already ripped most of the real features out of vista, like a database filesystem and a usable shell. They have, however, kept all of the anti-features, like DRM, intentionally broken OpenGL support, bundling of other products, and more built-in nonstandard replacements for standards (PDF). It is by no means clear that Vista will benefit users more than it hurts them and it is clear that it will continue to apply illegal tactics to remove innovation and choice from additional computing related markets.
In short, you're making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about someone else's statements, based upon your own ignorance of what is going on and your assumption that others have the same level of awareness.
Windows can be just as secure as Linux; third party developers who stupidly rely on the user having admin privs make it difficult, but it *is* possible. The biggest single security issue facing users of modern PC operating systems (Windows 2k+, a recent Linux, OS X, etc) are the users themselves.
Windows can be made as secure as Linux. It is not as secure when it ships though. Right now most malware infections are the result of automated worms, etc. that require no interaction from the user. For a number of reasons, it is hard to make Windows secure and keep it that way. In that regard you are correct, most users can't interact with Windows easily enough to secure it.
Of course we all know they should not have to secure it. Windows should ship with reasonable default settings and should include a reliable update mechanism. Compared to Windows, Linux ships with great default settings. It does not have the numerous unneeded services running. It usually has an automated update process. Updates rarely break large amounts of software on the machine (thus people trust it and let it update their workstation right away). In all these ways, Windows is more vulnerable to malware.
Your implication that users are the weakest link, however, is currently misguided. Their is the potential that if MS gets their act together at some point users will be the weakest link, but right now they aren't. Even then, a lot can be done to mitigate the problem of user-machine interaction. Until OS's empower the users and provide the necessary tools in a usable way, the user half of the equation cannot really be "fixed."
For example, if I want to download and run a game called "space blasters" (or any random software) what is preventing that software from doing malicious things on my computer? Well, on some OS's I can run it as an unprivileged user, but that is a poor work-around for what I really want to do. I don't want to establish a new identity, just run a game without letting it ruin my computer if it happens to be malware. That is why, by default, all new applications should be placed in a sandbox, VM, or otherwise restricted from doing anything it is not likely I want all applications to be able to do. I should have to specifically enable it to have more access using a well crafted UI (not something MS is any good at).
Right now, most users don't know how to use multiple accounts and it would be too much of a hassle if they did. On Windows, running as non-admin is a minor hurdle since their are hundreds of unpatched local escalations. The basic choice is run it and hope it is good, or don't run it and lose all the ability to use that software. Not running software makes the computer unusable. Running it makes it insecure. Users are screwed either way.
MS has a solution. Make all software vendors give the code to MS and pay them a fee. Then everyone can trust MS to make sure the code is clean and if it isn't, well nothing happens because you signed an agreement saying you don't hold them responsible for anything. A more reasonable solution is to run any software the user downloads, but do so in a VM or jail. Then the user can play "space blasters" without fear. And what if it is malware? In that case the user can start playing it and if it tries to do anything unusual the user is warned. For example, "Space Blasters wants to access the internet (stop it from accessing the internet)(let it access the internet)." "Space Blasters wants to read your e-mail address book (stop it from reading my addresses)(let it read my addresses)." "Space Blasters wants to read your personal files (Stop it form reading them)(Let it read them)." There is no reason most programs a user downloads ever need to access the internet, modify the kernel, read any files it did not create, or access your e-mail address book. Stopping new programs from doing so by default would also stop the majority of malware and make user education for the remainder feasible. Even if malware requires access to work, a VM can gi
It's not a "modified" version of anything. They built it for the specific purpose of traffic analysis which also happens to be what you use for wiretapping. Read their description of the product.
Please, they started out building products that detected various layer 7 and 4 traffic types for purposes of network mapping and billing, before moving on to deeper packet inspection. They built upon this existing technology to create their inspection system. It is one small step from looking a packet and saying, "yup this is SMTP" to saying "yup, this is e-mail containing the phrase 'jihad'."
I'm perfectly well aware that Israel has a high-tech industry.
So what makes you think the NSA helped develop any of this then? All you have is speculation.
An NSA man is on that board NOT because of his technical expertise but because the NSA knows how valuable that hardware is for spying on people, Anybody who can't figure that out is a moron.
Please. Half of the people in government jobs eventually migrate to the public sector and make a lot more money. This is not because of their technical knowledge, it is because of their contacts and knowledge of the system. The main reason to hire someone from the NSA to work for you is they know all the people likely to be doing the buying. They golf together and they go to strip clubs together. They enable sales. It is about money, not a conspiracy to control the public company as some sort of front. If it was, you wouldn't know they were ever in the NSA.
I repeat, this device was built and sold for one purpose only - spying. Any additional revenue the company gets from using it for other purposes is a perk and a cover for its real purpose.
AT&T is one of how many of their customers? Most are legitimately using it for traffic analysis and billing. Claiming they get secret kickbacks from the NSA or they are secretly controlled by the NSA is fine, but if you don't have any evidence to support that, it is just conjecture. You don't know, and claiming you do just puts your credibility on the whole issue in the crapper. If you yell "fire" in a theater and want to save lives, don't follow it up with a rant about how it's all part of an MPAA plot to get you to pay twice. Otherwise, people will just think you're a nutjob.
You think it's being misused, but you don't think it's a "conspiracy". Gee, I guess you figure they just "misused" it by ACCIDENT?
No, I think the NSA knew full well what it was doing. I think Narus considered the NSA as a potential source of revenue when they were allocating their engineering effort. I don't, however, see as any evidence they had any motivation other than legitimate profit in building it. Why should the NSA be secretly involved? They can get the same results by just letting the market supply them with tools and misusing them.
You're just another fool that bends over and takes it from the government because you don't have the balls to call them on it.
You're just another fool that thinks a persuasive argument unnecessarily includes wild conjecture and unsupported accusations. You're also the kind of fool who will do more harm to curbing government abuses than good, by being so irrational and vitriolic that no one wants to be associated with you or any cause you are advocating. Your rabid and wild advocacy for this issue is enough to make some people assume the government did nothing wrong, simply because they will assume all proof to the contrary came from "some wackjob conspiracy nut" like yourself. Maybe there is a conspiracy, but if you don't have any evidence of it, shut the hell up already and stick to the real, proven issue.
Why? And why do these weapons and aircraft never surface in times of war?
They do. The SR-71 could fly higher and faster than pretty much anything ever developed. It was developed in secret and deployed for spying missions for years before its existence was leaked to the public and then later made public. Now you can rent space on one for your personal low gravity, subspace experiments.
The F-117 stealth bomber was first built in the 70's then put into production and use in 1983. It was not publicly known about until 1988 and some of the design is still classified. That is five years of production use in the army and more than 15 years in flight as a secret.
You don't think the Air-force maintains huge, top secret testing facilities with gigantic runways for fun do you? Just look up area 51 in wikipedia or something.
Neither is very secret actually since many countries have said technology.
You're missing the point. When the projects were still secret, no one had such technology. The SR-71 first flew in the 60's and more than doubled the fastest speed of even experimental aircraft that had been built at the time. Expense is always part of technology, but if you think back to the types of technology, suborbital extreme speed spying and the like, there was nothing else like them at the time. Rumors of what kinds of aircraft the government has kept secret abound, ranging from orbital planes (very probable) to exotic propulsion mechanisms (less likely). One thing very few experts doubt is that they have something.
Keygen, I could see just skipping over for suggestions. Not as many legitimate uses.
What!?! You've never heard of encryption keys? How about just every SSH implementation I've ever seen? You can't foresee whether the use of a word is legitimate or not and they shouldn't have to. Let these guys sue the people distributing tools for trademark violation and leave Google alone.
What ServersCheck is asking Googles is to stop suggesting that people search for Serverscheck crack, when they were possibly trying to just search for ServersCheck.
The specific terms are irrelevant. ServerCheck is asking Google to make an exception to their algorithm, which says most people who entered "ServersCheck" were looking for a link to a product called "ServersCheck Crack." So what if most people entering "Word" are looking for a link to "MS Word" according to their algorithm? Would it be fair for WordStar to ask Google to change their algorithm to link to them instead? What about "Word" the popular christian musical band? Should they be able to get Google to make an algorithm exception for them?
The answer to this is obvious. If ServersCheck has a problem with some other company being more popular while using part of the same name, sue that other company or party. They are the one presumably violating the trademark as well as enabling copyright infringement and license violations. Google just supplies impartial services and tools. The only reason they are being targeted is because they are bigger and have money. This is just another nuisance lawsuit, from a company that would probably go out of business if not for the free advertising Google provides to them. If they want to take this route, Google should make an exception, returning no results for ServerCheck from any of their search services. That would put these people out of business in short order and they would not have to worry about it.
Sadly, in an environment with significant parts Windows, Mac, Linux, and other, the lack of a decent Mac version of OpenOffice is an issue. Sure there is the NeoOffice/J which is fine, if a bit slow, for OpenOffice 1.x, but nothing for OpenOffice 2.x. Mind you, MS Office is no better, with Office running only under WINE for Linux. Lets hope standards support becomes a must have, soon and we can get some real tool independence.
Hrmm, let's see here. Telecom providers want to charge for best access to their pipes. Telecom providers buy LOTS OF NETWORK HARDWARE. Suddenly, hardware providers agree with them! I am shocked, SHOCKED to find them in bed together!! SHOCKED!
You've hit the nail on the head here. Cisco and the gang have been trying to sell people on the new management and Quality of Service features for years. They can make a pile of cash selling ISPs the gear they need to know what traffic is coming from and going to a given location, what QoS that "customer" has paid them, and guaranteeing that the level is enforced. In fact, I work at a company that has tools that let them do that (among many other things) right now. I have stock options and profit sharing and stand to make a pretty penny myself if ISPs are not held to the same standard as other common carriers. I'm more than willing to not make that profit in exchange for things being done properly. Cisco and many others smell green. I've heard more than one network gear operator use the metaphor of the arms dealer. Arms dealers are in favor of more lax UN restrictions of arms buildup and invasion of neighboring dictatorships? Gee what a surprise.
I read three tomes by Robert A. Caro on Lyndon Johnson. At some point in time electricity company was forced to sell electricity at a lower rate, which the company strongly opposed to. The government won, and later the company had to admit that they made much more profit. This story is not to demonstrate that government always knows best, but to demonstrate that free market also doesn't always know best.
While the free market does not "always know best" it is the best method we've been able to use for figuring it out. Not that that applies in this case. A government enforced monopoly on the public right of ways needed to install power lines, makes the power industry anything but a free market.
Similarly, the internet is made up of ISPs, many of whom are one of only one or two companies with the right to run "last mile" lines through the government controlled right of ways. They are granted a whole range of privileges as common carriers that give them special rights in exchange for impartially moving whatever data they are given. Now they want to renege on their half of the deal? Fine. They can charge anyone anything they want in a free market, but they should lose their common carrier privileges exempting them from prosecution for copyright violation, libel, slander, kiddie porn, etc. they have on their gear. Likewise, any company that requests it should be given equal access to all the public right of ways they are using. Finally, they should have to pay back all the money the government spent subsidizing the lines they are using in order to provide a public good. They are a business, not a public good; let them act like it.
I'm perfectly happy with laws that require ISPs to pass thru any packet irrespective of its type.
There is no "big gun" technology with the NSA. Why do people hype the technology of the government and its agencies when they are shown time and time again that the tech they actually have and use is rather common stuff.
By "big guns" I was referring to bypassing/cracking the encryption used on the data. This could be getting a warrant and seizing one of the computers and using it to decrypt. It could be a well-crafted dictionary attack. It could be brute forcing the encryption (whatever you say the NSA has more raw computing power available to them then pretty much any other organization in the world). It could be hiring a contractor to break into the data on their behalf. What I was not implying was that they had some super-secret macro-mathematics based chip based on the movie, "Sneakers."
There is no mysterious super technology being used by our government.
Actually, the government is engaged in dedicated research with their own personnel into a variety of areas. Certainly they have weapons systems and aircraft technology not available to anyone else. Leaks and declassification of everything from the atom bomb to the SR-71 have proven that pretty well. Is the NSA involved in research like this? I don't know. Nonetheless, they have the funding, legal pull, and people needed to have a very good chance of unencrypting some given data if they are motivated to do it.
This doesn't have to be done inline. Use a tap to get a copy of all the data sent to another port, then do your filtering there. No latency in packet forwarding--in fact, your intrusion is seamless to the customers!
That is, more or less, the way it works, but none of the systems really have the capacity to analyze and record all of the traffic flowing through a core router, in detail, for any length of time. Also, mostly the interest is in reassembling entire communications based upon a match to one of the packets. Given this, in order to record an entire traffic flow, or conversation, the turnaround for matching the flow against all your regexps has to be fast enough that you can capture and store the rest of the flow.
I believe in this particular case the system was analyzing something like 5% of the traffic at any given time. So, obviously assuring the packets are forwarded on time is the primary concern of the core router involved, but it is also receiving instructions for what goes to the Narus device over the tap and/or the Narus device is deciding which flows to analyze before it has to toss them to make room for incoming traffic. I'm not sure which in this case.
Note, I haven't read Narus's literature in quite a while and I've never used one, personally, let alone have any knowledge of this setup, except from what I read in the press. I'm piecing this together from news articles, what I recall, and what other companies in the industry do.
This device as designed and built for spying, and was placed into telcos everywhere on the PRETEXT of being useful for traffic analysis. Then the NSA came calling and bulldozed the telcos into giving them everything that goes through it.
Well, sort of. This device is (I believe) a modified version of what the ISPs have been using for a long time to let them accurately bill people for the services they offer and negotiate peering agreements and QoS contracts.
The fact of the matters is that Narus the company is run by an "Israeli immigrant" and is financed by, among others, an Israeli investment company, one of the partners of whom happens to have worked for the Israeli government, including a stint developing optical devices for the Israeli military.
Whoa, whoa, whoa there cowboy! Now I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but you're making some pretty big and likely unwarranted leaps here. A whole lot of the traffic shaping, modeling, and balancing technology came out of Israel. The university there had a top notch network engineering program with a lot of smart people and patents coming out of it. Most moved to the US, where they could make money off of the.com boom and the aftermath. I know because I work with one of the professors who came over here to do that and let me tell you, he giggles way to much to be a mossad agent. I imagine anyone working in high-tech in Israel probably did some work for the military, especially if they were in academia.
And one of the directors on the board happens to be an "ex-" NSA guy...
So? I'm sure it helped them get the contract, and maybe helped them decide on the feature set. This is very common in the security industry. The company I work for has ex Microsoft people and ex-Cisco people. Surprise, surprise we sell to both of them. Another company we do a lot business with has ex Naval intelligence and NSA people. Guess who two of their big customers are? That is just the way the industry works. If you know people, you have an in and and often an advocate who helps to make the sale.
The reality is that this device was designed and built for spying by the Mossad, in collaboration with the NSA, and then sold to the telcos under a pretext, which was then altered by arm-twisting or payment to the telcos to sell out the US Constitution.
The reality is, some people found a niche and they filled it. This same type of functionality is needed for billing services and compliance with a number of government acts regarding lawful intercept, financing, security, and privacy assurance. Now maybe the NSA or AT&T requested added features to make this sort of activity easier. Maybe Narus came up with them on its own and sold them on it.
I certainly think it is being misused and in a way that violates the founding principals of our government. That does not mean it is some grand conspiracy and running off half-cocked spouting this sort of unsupportable nonsense isn't helping anything. All it is doing is reducing the credibility of those who argue to have this sort of thing stopped and distracting people from the real issue.
..or is that your intention? You certainly do enough rabble rousing and insulting. If you really want to help, stick to the facts, not the wild speculation.
I am suspecting that the ISPs who INSISTS the newbie/uninformed windoze users and Mac users install that ISPs crackware CD masquerading as an 'experience enhancing/improving' software tool is really just a Trojan to facilitate later offline decryption.
I seriously doubt this, but it is easy enough to find out. Make a vm of windows and save it. Install the software save it. Take a look at the bits and figure out what has changed. Has it touched any of the encryption libraries or programs? Just copy them off and checksum them even.
But, if LINUX users DON'T need the damned CD, why do windoze and Mac users need it.
They don't of course. Most of those CDs just run a script, some are even easy to look at. In fact, the one time I had to setup a mac for a cable modem I just looked at their script, grabbed the DNS server, mail server, and netmask, etc. from it and input them by hand in my config. It worked just fine. The reason they tell you have to run the CD is because they hire support moneys working minimum wage to read a script into the phone when you call. It is easier for them to tell you to double click a script then walk you through making manual configuration changes.
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PSTN traffic and private line come to mind, and the Nauraus is just one component used to intercept IP based traffic.
That is a good point, although I don't know how much of the regular phone traffic is run via IP in AT&T's network. I think the company name is "Narus," by the way, not "Nauraus" (unless you're misspelling it to avoid the filters :)
Have you noticed that ALL of your examples of how "Free Speech" is not absolute are examples of LYING?
The blackmail example was not. There are examples of restricted "true" speech as well, like campaign advertisements, trademarks, copyright, not releasing information about minors, privacy laws that restrict medical personal, and laws that prevent dissemination of passwords and PIN numbers. All of these can be valid restrictions of free speech. The real criteria is when restricting free speech prevents someone trampling on the rights of another or when there is an overwhelming public interest.
Having just read through the documents, and being a network operator for a small network, this looks exactly like the installation thay ANY large network provider would implement to comply with the Lawful Intercept program mandated in CALEA.
I suspect it was regulatory compliance and security budget that funded this installation, but it is a little "above and beyond."
The whistle-blower, Klein, so far doesn't seem to have produced any evidence that AT&T and the NSA are actively spying without court orders, just that they could.
I agree, but this does look very suspicious and it is certainly worth investigating. We were commanded to be "eternally vigilant" against our own government. This should be investigated and NSA files and procedures reviewed to determine just what is occurring. I see no national security reason to keep this secret (aside from, possibly, the contents of some actual intercepted communications).
This is wrong, they can only read traffic that[sic] has been routed over their network, generally that means only traffic to, or from, one of their customers, as required by CALEA.
I take it you've never heard of transit traffic?
The major Internet backbone links are OC-192 and higher, the Narus system described in the document could only handle up to OC-48 (1/4 the speed of OC-192 circuits).
Yup, at any given time, although I doubt AT&T has their connection constantly maxed out, so we don't know the real traffic rate percentage this can monitor. We also have no idea what the capacity of the storage they are using for forensic analysis of this data is, nor how long they are keeping it. Hopefully the average load, the regexps matched (at least in general), and the procedures in place will shed some light on this.
Or at least that is the way NSA and the administration perceive the rules for foreign intercept.
The courts have not yet ruled on this (and I suspect they will find the NSA in violation) and I think the "reasonable expectation of privacy" of the average citizen is pretty clear here.
Another potential reason for NSA cleared individuals having access to the rooms is that NSA performs security clearance screening for telecommunications related lawful intercept employees.
That seems more than a little far-fetched to me.
In my mind, I don't know what they were doing, but I think the circumstantial evidence is rather strong. The problem is, I don't trust that a proper investigation will be performed, given the current and obvious corruption of our government. I would like to compliment you, however, on at least providing some of the only rational discourse in this thread.
I never want a judge or a federal official telling me what I can and can't say. Ever. I don't care what people think their right is in a fair trial, but my right to speak my conscience or reveal information about others should be protected from government infringement.
I disagree. You can say whatever you want, but be prepared to face the consequences. Many of the laws restricting speech serve a very necessary purpose. Here are some examples:
There are plenty of other legitimate reasons to limit free speech. I'm less convinced of the need for "trade secrets" and certainly it does not trump revealing political corruption and illegal actions by government officials (the most highly protected form of free speech). In this instance there is little to no justification and the executive branch has absolutely no authority to suppress this speech because of national security concerns.
The immorality of what the NSA and AT&T have done is worse that the illegality of it. I see no reason why the ultimate penalty should not be paid by the government officials who created this beast. Treason is treason, and violating one's oath to uphold the Constitution is treasonous.
I'd argue that what they are doing is illegal and unethical, but not necessarily immoral. But it is the letter of the law that needs to be upheld to insure that we continue to be a nation of law. I would also consider these people to be oathbreakers, violating their oaths to uphold the constitution, but then, so is pretty much every member of congress and every person in the armed forces. The constitution and bill of rights is just a speaking point these days, and is in no way enforced. The federal government is just what the founding fathers tried to prevent. The issue is what to do about it. In this day and age of mass media can an opponent win on the reform platform? I thinks so, but without a lot of money behind them and certainly not from within either mainstream political party.
Okay, so if Opera sits at %25, Thunderbird at %25, I guess that makes Outlook 50%. Then what? What your're suggesting is security through obscurity.
First, Opera is a Web browser, not an e-mail client. Second, if one program is on 50% of all machines, it is a decent target, but not as good as one that is on 90%. Market share is not the only factor to security, but it is a factor. If I write some malware I'm likely to target the program that will yield the best results. Anything on less that 20% of machines is certainly not worth my effort unless I'm going after a specific target (in which case we're in a whole different ball game). Right now, more than half of all Windows malware can be defeated simply by making IE inoperable and using anything aside from IE and Outlook. Making your machine safe from 50% of all malware makes it more secure and that's all there is to it.
Monocultures are a vulnerability for automation which is why avoiding Windows, even using a relatively insecure OS is likely to protect you from pretty much all automated attacks. Think of where the term "monoculture" enters the computing lexicon from. The principals apply the same to biology. Diversity is not the same thing as obscurity. If 500 clones can all be killed by one bug. 500 individuals with significant differences are likely to have some that survive. If an animal, or malware, specifically targets raccoons (which happen to make up 90% of the animals in a forest), it might be a good idea to be a rabbit or a skunk. Something adapted to eating raccoons will likely be driven off by skunk spray, and might not be able to keep up with a rabbit. Does that mean rabbits are surviving through obscurity, not really. It means they have avoided the vulnerability of being just like everyone else.
It is one valid way to avoid a particular vulnerability and only part of a valid defense, but it is a part.
1) Make sure all attachments are virus scanned - the case in point is that it was and it passed because it was a zero-day exploit.
True, but in the very near future thnat will not be the case. I mentioned this since it is good general practice and it mitigates the majority of these instances.
2) Use secure products not part of a monoculture - unfortunately ALL products have security issues. Again, this was a zero-day exploit - which could happen to ANY product, monoculture or not.
You miss the point. If someone is sending exploits, they need to have a reasonable expectation that their target will have the vulnerable software installed. How can they have a reasonable expectation of this? Well, they can study each target and find a new vulnerability for software used by each company and then craft an exploit for it, or; they can target something that is used by 90% of all machines and assume you'll have it to. Which one gives them more reward for less work?
If someone finds an exploit in WordPerfect, so what? If they mail it to random companies disguised as legitimate traffic, most will discover it is illegitimate in hours and an alert will go out to the community. If, however, they find one in Word, most will assume it is legitimate but broken (since most use .doc). The alert will be slower to propagate and the number of targets that are exploiting in that time will be greater. Thus, avoiding "what everyone else is using" is a layer of security by itself. If there is no software in a niche that is used by almost everyone, you are fine. If there is, it is a liability.
While WE know that the use of open document formats and open source software would alleviate this issue to some degree, the problem is that if the program creators are competing with each other on features, they will be extending the so-called open document format in incompatible ways. The only answer to this, of course, is everybody using open source AND all open source developers agreeing to never add a document format feature without passing it through the committee controlling the format.
Ummm, no. The answer is extensible standards that gracefully degrade. It isn't that hard. That way each company can innovate and add features, but tools without those features can still read the files. Every so often the most implemented/useful features become an required part of the new version of the specification. This has been going on with open standards for decades and in the absence of an abusive monopoly that can bypass the market, it works just fine.
Another thing that would be useful - nobody acquires software unless it has been checked for security flaws by an independent security code checking group - a sort of "security Consumer Reports". How you would get the massive amount of software being developed checked in less than a century would be a feat, however.
If it is open source and popular, this has happened or you can quickly make it happen. If it is closed source, you just have to decide how much trust to place in the original company and the security review, alongside other features. There is no reason to try to legislate this however.
Also Microsoft either has to redesign its systems from the ground up...
I'm not sure what your point is here. Just enforce the laws and prevent MS from leveraging their monopoly and MS will solve their problems or lose market share till it doesn't matter.
The REAL answer to security is: there IS NO security... The closest anybody has come is the fairly secure BSD OS's.
There are plenty of fairly secure OS implementations and the beginnings of many more. MAC, jails, VMs, ACLs, or whatever you want to call them will make this sort of attack almost impossible. The only reason they have not been developed and integrated into all major OS's is the market has not demanded it. Windows is a giant target, but they don't care since it doesn't cost them any money (their custo
I don't need "evidence", as you put it - I need only look at what IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
And this exactly what makes you lack credibility and more of a liability than an asset for affecting change in the government on this issue. A rational person makes decisions based upon facts and admits they don't know when they have no facts. There is no reason to make assertions about what you don't know to convey to others what happened that is unethical, un-American, and corrupt here. Still you insist on making those assertions and demonstrating your irrationality.
It may take another ten years, but eventually someone like Bamford will write a book about it and you'll look like an idiot for believing the press releases and corporate spin.
No one ever looks like an idiot for admitting they don't know the facts of something they have no way of obtaining facts about. Maybe there is some grand conspiracy, maybe there isn't. It seems far-fetched to me, since there is no motive in this case. In any case, right now I look and am a rational person discussing facts. You seem to be an irrational person spouting conjecture with nothing to back it up. I can educate people and motivate them to press for reform. You can make them look for an excuse to be elsewhere and believe that anyone discussing the issue is some wacko. Which of us is of more benefit to society?
Change your tools every time one becomes popular? Nice.
There is a difference between popular and a monoculture. A program that enjoys 25% of the market is popular. One that enjoys 50% of the market is popular. One that dominates 90% of the market and is installed on most machines is a giant target. You don't have to worry about Opera or Thunderbird grabbing 90% of the market this decade and thus you don't have to worry that malware authors will find them an easy target.
copying to a share is not more difficult or less usable that mailing as an attachment. Try it sometime. Most companies support both.
It is an extra step to place a file on a share and then send an e-mail. That means some people will try to avoid the work. Just because something is easy for you does not mean it is easy for Mr. Johnson who learned how to use e-mail and send files two years ago and has never had any training since and would not care if he did. What he is doing works, if you take it away it is easier for him to use his MSN account than it is to learn a new method and comprehend a new concept. He's management and not to be bothered with this techie stuff. Just make it work, or suffer the consequences.
You did not address that fact that this trains people to click on links in e-mails, a primary method for phishing and other exploits. Sorry, your head is on wrong on this topic.
It[zero day] means that the exploit was discovered by crackers before any patch has been made available to the public. In other words there is nothing you can do except not open any .doc files unless you want to run the risk of being cracked.
Well, you have the right basic idea, but you're wrong on a few specifics and some terminology. A zero day exploit is an exploit that was used before the associated vulnerability was discovered/announced. So in the most common chain of events someone discovers a vulnerability, tells the vendor (MS), the vendor fixes it, releases the patch and announces the vulnerability/fix to the world. Some period of time after that, crackers write an exploit for it that attacks unpatched boxes. If the exploit is released at the same time or before the patch, it is called a "zero-day" exploit since people have zero days to patch before they are subject to attacks. It is important not to confuse the term "vulnerability" (potential hole) with the term "exploit" (attack that takes advantage of a vulnerability).
Also, being a zero day exploit does not preclude "work-arounds." This might be, don't open .doc files, filter all attachments out, or just switch to using OpenOffice for .doc files.
Disable attachments. It's was a dumb idea in the first place...
Why is it that half of all security people think the proper way to mitigate a security threat is to make the computer less functional and harder to use so users can't do what they want and thus expose themselves to threats? That is the worst idea ever.
First, people will work around it. They will send each other attachments via their personal e-mail, IM, P2P, etc. because it is easier to accomplish the task they want. Second, this will train people that it is okay to click on links in e-mail, because we all know how safe that is.
If you want security, provide a secure and easy to use channel for what people want to do; otherwise they will go out of band to get it done and some of those people will have more clout in the company than you do. The real solution is to make sure all attachments are virus scanned and make sure all workstations properly handle e-mail messages using secure products that are not part of a monoculture. Ditch IE, Outlook, and Word, right now. Install Opera, or Firefox, Thunderbird or Lotus Notes, OpenOffice or WordPerfect. Just avoid anything that has more than 90% market share unless you have some real heavy duty security in place. That is a much better way to deal with it.
People like you who think usability and security are polar opposites are the reason you see internal, corporate documents posted on public blogs as a means of exchange.
This is disruptive and lose-lose, either organizations heed the advice, and now for as long as it takes to fix Microsoft's problem applicants will have their documents blocked, or some of these hackers profuse their new hack and compromise organization's infrastructure.
The open source and closed source communities have already provided me with a better work-around for this attack vector, one which Microsoft motivated me to start employing long ago. MS Word costs money. MS Word is rather slow to open and sometimes leaks memory. MS Word crashes, corrupting the open file when working on long documents. As a result, I avoid MS Word.
On my Windows and Linux systems I open .doc files in OpenOffice by default. This means if I'm opening an attachment I don't have to open a separate program from the one I already have open (OpenOffice). When I'm on my mac, I usually open them in Pages.app (which I often have open for other, minor editing tasks. Either way, I'm unlikely to use MS Word and thus I won't be vulnerable to this attack.
My response is, time to mandate OpenOffice in your workplace and defang this particular threat while saving a bundle of cash at the same time.
Even more: You hate microsoft because you think they develop shitty software, but you want them to keep it that way and not to improve their products.
Your comment is pure speculation. The original poster did not mention why they hate Microsoft. You're the only one that said it was because they develop shitty software.
I, personally, have a strong dislike for Microsoft, but it is not because they sell shitty software. I dislike the fact that they use their monopoly to retard progress in the entire industry and make life harder for people in the interests of their own profit. I dislike that they break the laws and I dislike that they spread constant misinformation. I dislike that they buy companies with innovative products and then kill those companies and their products.
Secondly, you make the assumption that Vista is an improvement. While in some ways this is sure to be true, in others it is sure to be completely wrong. They already ripped most of the real features out of vista, like a database filesystem and a usable shell. They have, however, kept all of the anti-features, like DRM, intentionally broken OpenGL support, bundling of other products, and more built-in nonstandard replacements for standards (PDF). It is by no means clear that Vista will benefit users more than it hurts them and it is clear that it will continue to apply illegal tactics to remove innovation and choice from additional computing related markets.
In short, you're making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about someone else's statements, based upon your own ignorance of what is going on and your assumption that others have the same level of awareness.
Windows can be just as secure as Linux; third party developers who stupidly rely on the user having admin privs make it difficult, but it *is* possible. The biggest single security issue facing users of modern PC operating systems (Windows 2k+, a recent Linux, OS X, etc) are the users themselves.
Windows can be made as secure as Linux. It is not as secure when it ships though. Right now most malware infections are the result of automated worms, etc. that require no interaction from the user. For a number of reasons, it is hard to make Windows secure and keep it that way. In that regard you are correct, most users can't interact with Windows easily enough to secure it.
Of course we all know they should not have to secure it. Windows should ship with reasonable default settings and should include a reliable update mechanism. Compared to Windows, Linux ships with great default settings. It does not have the numerous unneeded services running. It usually has an automated update process. Updates rarely break large amounts of software on the machine (thus people trust it and let it update their workstation right away). In all these ways, Windows is more vulnerable to malware.
Your implication that users are the weakest link, however, is currently misguided. Their is the potential that if MS gets their act together at some point users will be the weakest link, but right now they aren't. Even then, a lot can be done to mitigate the problem of user-machine interaction. Until OS's empower the users and provide the necessary tools in a usable way, the user half of the equation cannot really be "fixed."
For example, if I want to download and run a game called "space blasters" (or any random software) what is preventing that software from doing malicious things on my computer? Well, on some OS's I can run it as an unprivileged user, but that is a poor work-around for what I really want to do. I don't want to establish a new identity, just run a game without letting it ruin my computer if it happens to be malware. That is why, by default, all new applications should be placed in a sandbox, VM, or otherwise restricted from doing anything it is not likely I want all applications to be able to do. I should have to specifically enable it to have more access using a well crafted UI (not something MS is any good at).
Right now, most users don't know how to use multiple accounts and it would be too much of a hassle if they did. On Windows, running as non-admin is a minor hurdle since their are hundreds of unpatched local escalations. The basic choice is run it and hope it is good, or don't run it and lose all the ability to use that software. Not running software makes the computer unusable. Running it makes it insecure. Users are screwed either way.
MS has a solution. Make all software vendors give the code to MS and pay them a fee. Then everyone can trust MS to make sure the code is clean and if it isn't, well nothing happens because you signed an agreement saying you don't hold them responsible for anything. A more reasonable solution is to run any software the user downloads, but do so in a VM or jail. Then the user can play "space blasters" without fear. And what if it is malware? In that case the user can start playing it and if it tries to do anything unusual the user is warned. For example, "Space Blasters wants to access the internet (stop it from accessing the internet)(let it access the internet)." "Space Blasters wants to read your e-mail address book (stop it from reading my addresses)(let it read my addresses)." "Space Blasters wants to read your personal files (Stop it form reading them)(Let it read them)." There is no reason most programs a user downloads ever need to access the internet, modify the kernel, read any files it did not create, or access your e-mail address book. Stopping new programs from doing so by default would also stop the majority of malware and make user education for the remainder feasible. Even if malware requires access to work, a VM can gi
It's not a "modified" version of anything. They built it for the specific purpose of traffic analysis which also happens to be what you use for wiretapping. Read their description of the product.
Please, they started out building products that detected various layer 7 and 4 traffic types for purposes of network mapping and billing, before moving on to deeper packet inspection. They built upon this existing technology to create their inspection system. It is one small step from looking a packet and saying, "yup this is SMTP" to saying "yup, this is e-mail containing the phrase 'jihad'."
I'm perfectly well aware that Israel has a high-tech industry.
So what makes you think the NSA helped develop any of this then? All you have is speculation.
An NSA man is on that board NOT because of his technical expertise but because the NSA knows how valuable that hardware is for spying on people, Anybody who can't figure that out is a moron.
Please. Half of the people in government jobs eventually migrate to the public sector and make a lot more money. This is not because of their technical knowledge, it is because of their contacts and knowledge of the system. The main reason to hire someone from the NSA to work for you is they know all the people likely to be doing the buying. They golf together and they go to strip clubs together. They enable sales. It is about money, not a conspiracy to control the public company as some sort of front. If it was, you wouldn't know they were ever in the NSA.
I repeat, this device was built and sold for one purpose only - spying. Any additional revenue the company gets from using it for other purposes is a perk and a cover for its real purpose.
AT&T is one of how many of their customers? Most are legitimately using it for traffic analysis and billing. Claiming they get secret kickbacks from the NSA or they are secretly controlled by the NSA is fine, but if you don't have any evidence to support that, it is just conjecture. You don't know, and claiming you do just puts your credibility on the whole issue in the crapper. If you yell "fire" in a theater and want to save lives, don't follow it up with a rant about how it's all part of an MPAA plot to get you to pay twice. Otherwise, people will just think you're a nutjob.
You think it's being misused, but you don't think it's a "conspiracy". Gee, I guess you figure they just "misused" it by ACCIDENT?
No, I think the NSA knew full well what it was doing. I think Narus considered the NSA as a potential source of revenue when they were allocating their engineering effort. I don't, however, see as any evidence they had any motivation other than legitimate profit in building it. Why should the NSA be secretly involved? They can get the same results by just letting the market supply them with tools and misusing them.
You're just another fool that bends over and takes it from the government because you don't have the balls to call them on it.
You're just another fool that thinks a persuasive argument unnecessarily includes wild conjecture and unsupported accusations. You're also the kind of fool who will do more harm to curbing government abuses than good, by being so irrational and vitriolic that no one wants to be associated with you or any cause you are advocating. Your rabid and wild advocacy for this issue is enough to make some people assume the government did nothing wrong, simply because they will assume all proof to the contrary came from "some wackjob conspiracy nut" like yourself. Maybe there is a conspiracy, but if you don't have any evidence of it, shut the hell up already and stick to the real, proven issue.
Why? And why do these weapons and aircraft never surface in times of war?
They do. The SR-71 could fly higher and faster than pretty much anything ever developed. It was developed in secret and deployed for spying missions for years before its existence was leaked to the public and then later made public. Now you can rent space on one for your personal low gravity, subspace experiments.
The F-117 stealth bomber was first built in the 70's then put into production and use in 1983. It was not publicly known about until 1988 and some of the design is still classified. That is five years of production use in the army and more than 15 years in flight as a secret.
You don't think the Air-force maintains huge, top secret testing facilities with gigantic runways for fun do you? Just look up area 51 in wikipedia or something.
Neither is very secret actually since many countries have said technology.
You're missing the point. When the projects were still secret, no one had such technology. The SR-71 first flew in the 60's and more than doubled the fastest speed of even experimental aircraft that had been built at the time. Expense is always part of technology, but if you think back to the types of technology, suborbital extreme speed spying and the like, there was nothing else like them at the time. Rumors of what kinds of aircraft the government has kept secret abound, ranging from orbital planes (very probable) to exotic propulsion mechanisms (less likely). One thing very few experts doubt is that they have something.
Keygen, I could see just skipping over for suggestions. Not as many legitimate uses.
What!?! You've never heard of encryption keys? How about just every SSH implementation I've ever seen? You can't foresee whether the use of a word is legitimate or not and they shouldn't have to. Let these guys sue the people distributing tools for trademark violation and leave Google alone.
What ServersCheck is asking Googles is to stop suggesting that people search for Serverscheck crack, when they were possibly trying to just search for ServersCheck.
The specific terms are irrelevant. ServerCheck is asking Google to make an exception to their algorithm, which says most people who entered "ServersCheck" were looking for a link to a product called "ServersCheck Crack." So what if most people entering "Word" are looking for a link to "MS Word" according to their algorithm? Would it be fair for WordStar to ask Google to change their algorithm to link to them instead? What about "Word" the popular christian musical band? Should they be able to get Google to make an algorithm exception for them?
The answer to this is obvious. If ServersCheck has a problem with some other company being more popular while using part of the same name, sue that other company or party. They are the one presumably violating the trademark as well as enabling copyright infringement and license violations. Google just supplies impartial services and tools. The only reason they are being targeted is because they are bigger and have money. This is just another nuisance lawsuit, from a company that would probably go out of business if not for the free advertising Google provides to them. If they want to take this route, Google should make an exception, returning no results for ServerCheck from any of their search services. That would put these people out of business in short order and they would not have to worry about it.
Sadly, in an environment with significant parts Windows, Mac, Linux, and other, the lack of a decent Mac version of OpenOffice is an issue. Sure there is the NeoOffice/J which is fine, if a bit slow, for OpenOffice 1.x, but nothing for OpenOffice 2.x. Mind you, MS Office is no better, with Office running only under WINE for Linux. Lets hope standards support becomes a must have, soon and we can get some real tool independence.
Hrmm, let's see here. Telecom providers want to charge for best access to their pipes. Telecom providers buy LOTS OF NETWORK HARDWARE. Suddenly, hardware providers agree with them! I am shocked, SHOCKED to find them in bed together!! SHOCKED!
You've hit the nail on the head here. Cisco and the gang have been trying to sell people on the new management and Quality of Service features for years. They can make a pile of cash selling ISPs the gear they need to know what traffic is coming from and going to a given location, what QoS that "customer" has paid them, and guaranteeing that the level is enforced. In fact, I work at a company that has tools that let them do that (among many other things) right now. I have stock options and profit sharing and stand to make a pretty penny myself if ISPs are not held to the same standard as other common carriers. I'm more than willing to not make that profit in exchange for things being done properly. Cisco and many others smell green. I've heard more than one network gear operator use the metaphor of the arms dealer. Arms dealers are in favor of more lax UN restrictions of arms buildup and invasion of neighboring dictatorships? Gee what a surprise.
I read three tomes by Robert A. Caro on Lyndon Johnson. At some point in time electricity company was forced to sell electricity at a lower rate, which the company strongly opposed to. The government won, and later the company had to admit that they made much more profit. This story is not to demonstrate that government always knows best, but to demonstrate that free market also doesn't always know best.
While the free market does not "always know best" it is the best method we've been able to use for figuring it out. Not that that applies in this case. A government enforced monopoly on the public right of ways needed to install power lines, makes the power industry anything but a free market.
Similarly, the internet is made up of ISPs, many of whom are one of only one or two companies with the right to run "last mile" lines through the government controlled right of ways. They are granted a whole range of privileges as common carriers that give them special rights in exchange for impartially moving whatever data they are given. Now they want to renege on their half of the deal? Fine. They can charge anyone anything they want in a free market, but they should lose their common carrier privileges exempting them from prosecution for copyright violation, libel, slander, kiddie porn, etc. they have on their gear. Likewise, any company that requests it should be given equal access to all the public right of ways they are using. Finally, they should have to pay back all the money the government spent subsidizing the lines they are using in order to provide a public good. They are a business, not a public good; let them act like it.
I'm perfectly happy with laws that require ISPs to pass thru any packet irrespective of its type.
Agreed!
There is no "big gun" technology with the NSA. Why do people hype the technology of the government and its agencies when they are shown time and time again that the tech they actually have and use is rather common stuff.
By "big guns" I was referring to bypassing/cracking the encryption used on the data. This could be getting a warrant and seizing one of the computers and using it to decrypt. It could be a well-crafted dictionary attack. It could be brute forcing the encryption (whatever you say the NSA has more raw computing power available to them then pretty much any other organization in the world). It could be hiring a contractor to break into the data on their behalf. What I was not implying was that they had some super-secret macro-mathematics based chip based on the movie, "Sneakers."
There is no mysterious super technology being used by our government.
Actually, the government is engaged in dedicated research with their own personnel into a variety of areas. Certainly they have weapons systems and aircraft technology not available to anyone else. Leaks and declassification of everything from the atom bomb to the SR-71 have proven that pretty well. Is the NSA involved in research like this? I don't know. Nonetheless, they have the funding, legal pull, and people needed to have a very good chance of unencrypting some given data if they are motivated to do it.
This doesn't have to be done inline. Use a tap to get a copy of all the data sent to another port, then do your filtering there. No latency in packet forwarding--in fact, your intrusion is seamless to the customers!
That is, more or less, the way it works, but none of the systems really have the capacity to analyze and record all of the traffic flowing through a core router, in detail, for any length of time. Also, mostly the interest is in reassembling entire communications based upon a match to one of the packets. Given this, in order to record an entire traffic flow, or conversation, the turnaround for matching the flow against all your regexps has to be fast enough that you can capture and store the rest of the flow.
I believe in this particular case the system was analyzing something like 5% of the traffic at any given time. So, obviously assuring the packets are forwarded on time is the primary concern of the core router involved, but it is also receiving instructions for what goes to the Narus device over the tap and/or the Narus device is deciding which flows to analyze before it has to toss them to make room for incoming traffic. I'm not sure which in this case.
Note, I haven't read Narus's literature in quite a while and I've never used one, personally, let alone have any knowledge of this setup, except from what I read in the press. I'm piecing this together from news articles, what I recall, and what other companies in the industry do.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
This device as designed and built for spying, and was placed into telcos everywhere on the PRETEXT of being useful for traffic analysis. Then the NSA came calling and bulldozed the telcos into giving them everything that goes through it.
Well, sort of. This device is (I believe) a modified version of what the ISPs have been using for a long time to let them accurately bill people for the services they offer and negotiate peering agreements and QoS contracts.
The fact of the matters is that Narus the company is run by an "Israeli immigrant" and is financed by, among others, an Israeli investment company, one of the partners of whom happens to have worked for the Israeli government, including a stint developing optical devices for the Israeli military.
Whoa, whoa, whoa there cowboy! Now I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but you're making some pretty big and likely unwarranted leaps here. A whole lot of the traffic shaping, modeling, and balancing technology came out of Israel. The university there had a top notch network engineering program with a lot of smart people and patents coming out of it. Most moved to the US, where they could make money off of the .com boom and the aftermath. I know because I work with one of the professors who came over here to do that and let me tell you, he giggles way to much to be a mossad agent. I imagine anyone working in high-tech in Israel probably did some work for the military, especially if they were in academia.
And one of the directors on the board happens to be an "ex-" NSA guy...
So? I'm sure it helped them get the contract, and maybe helped them decide on the feature set. This is very common in the security industry. The company I work for has ex Microsoft people and ex-Cisco people. Surprise, surprise we sell to both of them. Another company we do a lot business with has ex Naval intelligence and NSA people. Guess who two of their big customers are? That is just the way the industry works. If you know people, you have an in and and often an advocate who helps to make the sale.
The reality is that this device was designed and built for spying by the Mossad, in collaboration with the NSA, and then sold to the telcos under a pretext, which was then altered by arm-twisting or payment to the telcos to sell out the US Constitution.
The reality is, some people found a niche and they filled it. This same type of functionality is needed for billing services and compliance with a number of government acts regarding lawful intercept, financing, security, and privacy assurance. Now maybe the NSA or AT&T requested added features to make this sort of activity easier. Maybe Narus came up with them on its own and sold them on it.
I certainly think it is being misused and in a way that violates the founding principals of our government. That does not mean it is some grand conspiracy and running off half-cocked spouting this sort of unsupportable nonsense isn't helping anything. All it is doing is reducing the credibility of those who argue to have this sort of thing stopped and distracting people from the real issue.
..or is that your intention? You certainly do enough rabble rousing and insulting. If you really want to help, stick to the facts, not the wild speculation.
I am suspecting that the ISPs who INSISTS the newbie/uninformed windoze users and Mac users install that ISPs crackware CD masquerading as an 'experience enhancing/improving' software tool is really just a Trojan to facilitate later offline decryption.
I seriously doubt this, but it is easy enough to find out. Make a vm of windows and save it. Install the software save it. Take a look at the bits and figure out what has changed. Has it touched any of the encryption libraries or programs? Just copy them off and checksum them even.
But, if LINUX users DON'T need the damned CD, why do windoze and Mac users need it.
They don't of course. Most of those CDs just run a script, some are even easy to look at. In fact, the one time I had to setup a mac for a cable modem I just looked at their script, grabbed the DNS server, mail server, and netmask, etc. from it and input them by hand in my config. It worked just fine. The reason they tell you have to run the CD is because they hire support moneys working minimum wage to read a script into the phone when you call. It is easier for them to tell you to double click a script then walk you through making manual configuration changes.