better make your own USB Cables

[GURPS]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/u...n-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?hp


The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

you need to see the graphic to understand .....

 

[glhs837]

These are not mass produced cables, I think, but ones doctored in a lab and then given somehow (how many sources of USB cables can there be in the mud hut region?) to the target.

 

[GURPS]

These are not mass produced cables, I think, but ones doctored in a lab and then given somehow (how many sources of USB cables can there be in the mud hut region?) to the target.

are you sure ... have you cut yours open lately

 

[glhs837]

Nope, but unlike a software exploit, hidden in millions of lines of code, a transmitter in something as simple as a USB cable, that would be spotted by Q/A processes or even assemblers, or one of the thousands of "hackers" who carve stuff up for fun. When you figure the stupefying amount of makers of USB cables and products, much easier to hand make them and introduce them to the target in some way.

We knew where Osama lived, were we interested in surveying him vice snuffing him, easy enough to find the three closest markets selling USB cables, intercept the shipments of them replace them with jiggered cables and wait.

 

[GURPS]

yeah true ...... Hack a Day

would have found something

 

[Larry Gude]

I thought most people simply assumed that nothing is secure anymore.

:shrug:

 

[glhs837]

I thought most people simply assumed that nothing is secure anymore.

:shrug:

But most wouldn't assume that the $3.99 USB cable bought in Big Lots is transmitting RF. And really, this sort of thing, which really requires a team on the ground, meaning that they have to be focused on the person doesn't bother have as much as the vacuum cleaner type operations, where they just grab all the data from everyone "just in case".

 

[LibertyBeacon]

The N.S.A. calls its efforts more an act of “active defense” against foreign cyberattacks than a tool to go on the offensive.

War is peace … Offense is defense.



No worries --- the NSA says this is not in use in the US and A. I believe them.

 

[GURPS]

..... meaning that they have to be focused on the person doesn't bother have as much as the vacuum cleaner type operations, where they just grab all the data from everyone "just in case".

which is what the NSA does now, with the internet and who is calling who

 

[glhs837]

which is what the NSA does not with the internet and who is calling who

If they are focused on non-English speakers, I think you just popped up top

 

[Larry Gude]

But most wouldn't assume that the $3.99 USB cable bought in Big Lots is transmitting RF. .

Find me one person who is surprised to learn that.