now how do they intend to get the physical access to do that??
I sense this story is Progpoganda for that very reason.
what they would want to spread this rumor is beyond me
Surely the NYT has more secrets they can release.
Yeah, when the NSA guys came to my house the other night, one of them asked if he could use my computer. So THAT'S what he was doing!
One set of paragraphs is subheaded “No Domestic Use Seen” . . . yeah right. They sure won’t be using them to keep Iran or the other Islamic terror nations in check.
I have often thought that it might be a good idea to build a Faraday cage around my computer. Maybe the time has come.
</rhetorical ? mark>
Reminds me of when I built a complex of servers, and needed to do some testing with some application folks at a remote site. The network guru was giving me grief, and wouldn’t let us past his firewalls in his routers. Brick wall. Time was running short, deadlines coming up, and bureaucracy wasn’t helping.
In desperation, I ran a single cable under the floor tiles from my servers to connections outside of his routers. Applications folks did their testing, then I undid the cable. Of course I protected the security of the network, as I previously had the the job the network manager now had. Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that get you past all the technological roadblocks in your path. What the NSA did is both simple and clever.
“N.S.A.’s activities are focused and specifically deployed against — and only against — valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements,” Vanee Vines, an agency spokeswoman, said in a statement.”
Hmmm... seems like I have heard something very similar before. Oh, yeah now I recall:
At the March Senate hearing, Mr. Wyden asked Mr. Clapper, “Does the N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
“No, sir,” Mr. Clapper replied. “Not wittingly.”
Mr. Wyden said on Tuesday that he had sent his question to Mr. Clapper’s office a day before the hearing, and had given his office a chance to correct the misstatement after the hearing, but to no avail.
In an interview on Sunday with NBC News, Mr. Clapper acknowledged that his answer had been problematic, calling it “the least untruthful” answer he could give.”
Freegards
as if nobody can open up a computer and see whats in it
There was a time when conservatives cared about the release of sources and methods. Apparently that time has passed.
that’s right all you need is hardware and a spy to install it… other than that it’s a breeze
Leakage of information via electronic noise is not a new field of study. I used to work in a company that produced some of its products to Tempest standards for various government and military customers.
Being able to beam information back INTO a computer? We’re talking serious sci-fi here, IMHO. Not that there couldn’t be possible back doors like WiFi drivers. (WiFi sci-fi?) But computers have a myriad of diverse designs. It’s not as easy as foisting a virus on Windows.
I’ll say it again.
That catalog of spy tech is a bunch of crap!
There is NO way that the state of the art in surveillance is reflected by that cheesy catalog...and no, it was cheap crap in 2008 when the catalog was supposedly produced.
That stuff would almost be believable if the catalog was dated in the late 80’s.
There’s just no way that the NSA sends a team to plant a circuit board in a PC.
The NSA runs it’s own state of the art chip FAB. Why would they buy retro stuff from contractors?
It’s now been possible for years to place a full rf transceiver inside an IC. They are even for sale to the general public now as cool new Internet-of-Things parts.
They would have ready made motherboards with modified ICs on them..ditto for HD controller boards, thumb drives..etc.
Stuffing a little extra board into a PC...it’s laughable.
I do believe that they grab computer gear in transit to a target and replace the boards inside....but they definitely don’t wedge in a small board that someone might notice.
The stuff described in that catalog is junk a bright 18yr old geek would put together at their workbench. If they actually are using crap like that then a lot of Engineers and technicians at NRO and NSA need to be fired.
The very idea that a group of spooks would hang out near a target with a briefcase radio unit is laughable. Why did NRO put up several large satellite systems in geosynchronous orbit? It cost a pretty penny to put up those sats with their monstrous dish antennas.
Now if I was told the FBI was still using such crummy gear, that I would believe. They still use GPS trackers on targeted cars that use huge battery packs..lol A guy found one on his car and put up photos on Hack-A-Day.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that catalog is a plant to fool the rubes.
Yet again, the NYT publishes information beneficial to our enemies.
A Cloudy PING.
Ping!
I remember this discussion going as far back as the 1970’s at least where computers can “broadcast” data through its bus via the RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) they put out. I think back in the 1950’s, someone did something similar where they were able to program the computer to “play music” on a nearby transistor radio by manipulating the RFI it puts out. They did something similar in the 1970’s I think either using an old TRS-80 or an Altair 8800.
I remember this discussion going as far back as the 1970’s at least where computers can “broadcast” data through its bus via the RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) they put out. I think back in the 1950’s, someone did something similar where they were able to program the computer to “play music” on a nearby transistor radio by manipulating the RFI it puts out. They did something similar in the 1970’s I think either using an old TRS-80 or an Altair 8800.
For a whole lot less money they could just look under the keyboard where everybody saves a copy of their password.
That is not true.