Post: #201

Do you guys think we will get something from Vault 7 that would shine light on JFK and MLK assassination or even 9/11?

Post: #202

Come on Wiki, drop that Merkel shit! Our German bros need an assist like crazy.

I hope there is something juicier about her than the CIA/NSA. We already know they aren't good people.

I feel like the serial killer in Seven now. "Show me rage" lol

Post: #203

(03-14-2017 10:14 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Do you guys think we will get something from Vault 7 that would shine light on JFK and MLK assassination or even 9/11?

No. That shit is on paper files. Some of it was released but had redactions. Hoover probably took God knows what to his grave.

9/11? Who knows but I doubt they were stupid enough to keep digital footprints of something that treasonous and treacherous. I bet they did not even digitally keep receipts for the explosives they used on the buildings nor the shipping receipt for all the steel from all the buildings they shipped to China for scrap immediately after the tragedy.

Remember these people are evil. Not stupid.

Post: #204

New leaks suggest that the CIA has access to devices before you even buy it.

Post: #205

(03-23-2017 05:17 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

New leaks suggest that the CIA has access to devices before you even buy it.

What if you build your own?

Post: #206

Probably baked into the processor chips or memory chips. I recall reading about state level hacking tools that would get into the boot sector of a hard drive, for instance, so they couldn't even be removed by reformatting.

Intel for instance designs one chip to satisfy all of its customers at once, but big customers (Google, Microsoft, etc.) get special hardware partitions, more or less, that they can access via software, but others can't. I think Bloomberg had a feature article a couple months back where they discussed this.

Post: #207

UEFI is the standard they have back doors in.

It's what powers on and manages the lowest of low level on a computer. It's what replaced the venerable BIOS.

Every motherboard has this problem. From Apple, to Dell, to some rando board you bought from Newegg.

Nothing is safe on a computer!

Post: #208

Modern Intel and AMD processors we already know have at least one backdoor in them (IME and PSP respectively) so you can't have the latest laptop processor if you want to ensure no backdoors.

UEFI is a problem but you can replace it with Libreboot if you have compatible hardware. Though there is still a number of closed-source firmware components depending on the hardware you choose including the embedded controller, HDD/SSD, ethernet, WWAN, etc.

WikiLeaks - Dark Matter

Quote:While CIA assets are sometimes used to physically infect systems in the custody of a target it is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization's supply chain including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments (opening, infecting, and resending) leaving the United States or otherwise.

Don't buy hardware across borders, buy directly from the store where possible.

Post: #209

More on the Intel Management Engine backdoor:



And more on IME, AMD and the baseband processor on all mobile phones:

Post: #210

This kind of thing is why the Russians moved back to typewriters.

Seems like standard tradecraft now is 'Trust no electronics'.

Post: #211

The most shocking news here is not the depth and capacity of spying, but the fact that the tech corporations are going along with this willingly. We haven't heard a peep of protest from them in the last 15 years, and now it's finally clear why.

In fact, rather than the companies just being accomplices to this mass surveillance, maybe it's them who offered these capabilities to the CIA in the first place in exchange for providing suitable Congressmen / Senators / Presidents that will preserve their tax loopholes and monopolistic status.

Military-industrial complex indeed.

Post: #212

^And people say there are no conspiracies in the world. If that is no conspiracy, I don't know what it is.

Post: #213

What I find the most shocking is that they've deliberately handicapped the majority of modern desktops and laptops just to gain this capability.

Just imagine the situation this causes. Whenever anyone on a darknet hacker marketplace says they know how to hack the hardware the government is forced to pay for their exploit to get them to shut up and not tell anyone else about it.

If they don't then they could just leak it publicly, and overnight you'll have tens of millions of computers with a critical vulnerability which need to be patched immediately or they could suffer millions in damages and lost customers by the second.

Trust in American computer manufacturers would hit rock bottom instantly. Businesses would have to replace all this hardware because they are too dangerous to continue using knowing that another exploit may be just around the corner.

The situation worsens now that we know the entire hacking arsenal of the CIA has been leaked to we don't even know how many people. At any minute these could get into the hands of someone who just decides to publicly leak the whole thing, at which point you have computer doomsday.

Everyone goes back to pens and paper until transparent security via open-source for every single piece of firmware and software exists.

Personally I'm hoping this hacking holocaust happens as I see no other way we get a culture of security and privacy rather than one of totalitarianism.

Post: #214

If you're familiar with Snowden, you've probably heard of Lavabit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Quote:On August 8, 2013, Lavabit suspended its operations, and the email service log-in page was replaced by a message from the owner and operator Ladar Levison.[3] The New Yorker suggested that the suspension might be related to the US National Security Agency’s "domestic-surveillance practices".[16] Wired speculated that Levison was fighting a warrant or national security letter seeking customer information under extraordinary circumstances, as Lavabit had complied with at least one routine search warrant in the past.[13][17] Levison stated in an interview that he has responded to "at least two dozen subpoenas" over the lifetime of the service.[18] He hinted that the objectionable request was for "information about all the users" of Lavabit.[19]

Levison explained he was under gag order and that he was legally unable to explain to the public why he ended the service.[18] Instead, he asked for donations to "fight for the Constitution" in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Levison also stated he has even been barred from sharing some information with his lawyer.[18] Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to provide greater transparency to the public, in part to help observers "understand what led to a ten-year-old business closing its doors and a new start-up abandoning a business opportunity".[20]

Levison said that he could be arrested for closing the site instead of releasing the information, and it was reported that the federal prosecutor's office had sent Levison's lawyer an e-mail to that effect.[19][21]

Post: #215

Somewhat relevant:

Windows 10 has been logging every keystroke you make and sending the data back to Microsoft. I'm glad I switched to Linux recently.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/windows...type-stop/

Post: #216

Honestly "trust no electronics" should be the repetitive theme here.

The problem is, everything is becoming more and more electronic based.

Even counter measures can be proved futile.

Post: #217

Are there no Chinese or Russian-made CPUs, RAM and Motherboards in this world? Looking at the list of top computer chip manufacturers, everything is from either US or a close US ally.

Post: #218

(03-24-2017 03:09 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  Are there no Chinese or Russian-made CPUs, RAM and Motherboards in this world? Looking at the list of top computer chip manufacturers, everything is from either US or a close US ally.

Fortunately not.

Most of the semiconductor industry was created in the USA. The one huge exemption is memory, which has been dominated by Koreans for a long time.

One of the huge examples of how little our so called elite cares about the USA is how much of this industrial base was transferred to the chicoms in the last 15 or so years. Yet , most of the design and capital equipment is made in first world countries.

If you have some basic understanding of how embedded computing and microchips are made, none of this seems surprising. Or new.
See the clipper chip from the 90s (with the Clintons, how suprising!).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

What this requires is two things, one is (almost brazen) will to make it happen and the other is the ability to keep one's mouth shut as to not compromise the backdoor.

So why would china and russia, two countries with a long and established history of espionage and suppressing domestic political opponents with violence not take advantage of this (given the technological means to do so)?

The real problem to me seems to me that our intelligence-defense apparatus is more concerned about expanding their bureaucratic fiefdoms and creating domestic enemies rather than addressing any external threats.

If the CIA/NSA/ETC have such widespread access it would not seem to difficult to detect things such as troop movements (say in the easternish part of europe) or maybe who is buying equipment to make a uranium enrichment plant or a bomb (say in Pakistan?). Yet all these have been massive intelligence failures.

I wonder what James Jesus Angelton would have to say about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jesus_Angleton

TL;DR version, nothing new or particularly surprising. Maintain good radio discipline.

Post: #219

Are the chips in smart fridges, kettles and microwaves able to spy on you with the same compromised tech?

Post: #220

(03-24-2017 05:57 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Are the chips in smart fridges, kettles and microwaves able to spy on you with the same compromised tech?

Maybe not with the same capabilities but (again, if the will is there) I don't see why they couldn't be made to do so.

You would need wifi (or more specifically some external communications abilitity) but other then that why not?

The problem then becomes how do you sort this information into something useful? Lets say each one of your devices (phone, tv, thermostat, etc) collects data on you, what then?

Post: #221

(03-24-2017 01:47 AM)Valentine Wrote:  More on the Intel Management Engine backdoor:

If there is an autonomous CPU gathering information about you on the motherboard...how is that information transmitted back to home base? There are plenty of tools you can use to capture where transmissions are going. If this was happening it would either have to be covered as something innocuous or it would show up and your average everyday computer geek would be pissed. It wouldnt be as easy as knowing Windows 10 captures keystrokes but it would show up in one form or another.

If this ME is correct, is it possible the autonomous CPU has access to cellular data you also dont know about?

Post: #222

(03-24-2017 06:20 PM)ivansirko Wrote:  

(03-24-2017 01:47 AM)Valentine Wrote:  More on the Intel Management Engine backdoor:

If there is an autonomous CPU gathering information about you on the motherboard...how is that information transmitted back to home base? There are plenty of tools you can use to capture where transmissions are going. If this was happening it would either have to be covered as something innocuous or it would show up and your average everyday computer geek would be pissed. It wouldnt be as easy as knowing Windows 10 captures keystrokes but it would show up in one form or another.

If this ME is correct, is it possible the autonomous CPU has access to cellular data you also dont know about?

See the video in that post - it has full access to your peripherals, networking (even bypassing firewalls) and RAM.

There are tons of ways to exfiltrate data - with RAM access it could send invisible emails through your email client, with networking it could just periodically open a direct connection and with peripheral access it could send a high-pitched signal from your speakers that you can't even hear but can be recorded and decoded by other infected devices. All whilst fooling your monitoring systems.

Even if you were to remove internet access, speakers and other peripherals, researchers have demonstrated you can still exfiltrate data using fan noise, LEDs, thermals (CPU or GPU heat), or electromagnetic channels.

Don't forget it can even remotely use some of these methods whilst your computer is still turned off too.

There are plenty of examples of attacks on air-gapped computer setups such as the above just using the in-built hardware, so access to additional implanted modules isn't even necessary.

Post: #223

^the more exotic forms of data exfiltration are for when other ways are not available and for targets where the juice is worth the squeeze. Iran centrifuges on air-gapped systems? Sure, bring in the binary fan speed transmission. Housewives emailing "secret" recipes? Forget it.

Post: #224

(03-24-2017 06:10 PM)ms224 Wrote:  

(03-24-2017 05:57 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Are the chips in smart fridges, kettles and microwaves able to spy on you with the same compromised tech?

Maybe not with the same capabilities but (again, if the will is there) I don't see why they couldn't be made to do so.

You would need wifi (or more specifically some external communications abilitity) but other then that why not?

The problem then becomes how do you sort this information into something useful? Lets say each one of your devices (phone, tv, thermostat, etc) collects data on you, what then?

The reason I ask is because there is or was a push for smart fridge-freezers to have network capability. You're out of certain foods, it orders it or searches for a refill and all you need to do is confirm it via online shopping. It communicates with other household white goods too.

Remember that voice recognition gadget from Amazon?

We had a massive hack on the US where innocent, unprotected devices were used as a launch pad for massive attacks against networks.

These devices are baby monitors and home CCTV. Any gadget with a chip and software is compromised it seems.

Post: #225

Does this qualify as a genuine Chinese CPU? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson