How does government spying by the NSA work?

[On Fire]

Just curious what people think.
Is the AES encryption compromised (probably just by the NSA) or is just basically every device in the world compromised either through back doors or exploits?
AES is open source and made by a competition from academics. Maybe we should trust it.
I suppose it does not really matter, I don't personally have anything to hide, but this encryption is used worldwide, so if it was broken, that would be a massive advantage to the USA over say China or Russia.

 

[Pickman's model]

Tbh you don't know if you have anything to hide because you don't know what they'll look for in the future

 

[bemused]

The NSA got caught intercepting Cisco equipment being shipped to customers and installed monitoring devices, they also exploited PIX firewalls for years by extracting the keys. Makes me chuckle when people talk about the risk Huawei presents to national security when the NSA bugged every movement using hardware from US companies.

 

[A380]

GCHQ work by establishing popular radical message boards and making a list of who the wrong uns are when it comes to cheese/beans.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Beans/Cheese, ffs

 

[weltweit]

Governments normally won't permit their people means of communication they can't eavesdrop.

It seems presently with things like iOS and Whatsap this is being a bit challenged on a few fronts.

 

[muscovyduck]

Beans/Cheese, ffs

Cheese, no beans

 

[A380]

Cheese, no beans

Top of the list.

 

[Ming]

GCHQ work by establishing popular radical message boards and making a list of who the wrong uns are when it comes to cheese/beans.

The cheese/beans thing is actually a subtle 5 dimensional mind game to root out certain types of thought patterns which are deemed to be a potential threat. It seems simple but it just seems that way.

The FEB? A Rorschach test.

I wonder if we’ve still got a spy cop or they’ve just given up? I reckon the spy cop types probably register names years ago and then use them when the budget starts to dry up.

 

[WhyLikeThis]

Just curious what people think.
Is the AES encryption compromised (probably just by the NSA) or is just basically every device in the world compromised either through back doors or exploits?
AES is open source and made by a competition from academics. Maybe we should trust it.
I suppose it does not really matter, I don't personally have anything to hide, but this encryption is used worldwide, so if it was broken, that would be a massive advantage to the USA over say China or Russia.

It’s most often not the encryption algorithm that’s at fault but the software it’s used in that’s exploited.

Would undermining AES be advantageous to the yankies? Yes. However, the NSA have plenty more tricks up their sleeves to achieve their goals.

If you’re curious about breaking encryption read up on he looming quantum computing algorithms that can break many encryption methods the world relies on. Spoiler: it may not be the US that gets there first.

 

[WhyLikeThis]

The NSA got caught intercepting Cisco equipment being shipped to customers and installed monitoring devices, they also exploited PIX firewalls for years by extracting the keys. Makes me chuckle when people talk about the risk Huawei presents to national security when the NSA bugged every movement using hardware from US companies.

It pretty much a matter of choosing which nation state you wish to be compromised by when selecting kit.

 

[moochedit]

* makes notes on all posters in thread to send to handler *

 

[David Clapson]

Presumably they still tap the internet's undersea cables. I don't suppose they stopped doing it just because everyone found out.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Read what Edward Snowden says.

 

[On Fire]

Read what Edward Snowden says.

I have. He says the NSA compromise devices, and that the encryption itself in the form of AES is not broken.

 

[A380]

I wonder if we’ve still got a spy cop or they’ve just given up?

Replaced by whichever spy work experience lad really pissed of the sergeant that morning...

 

[WhyLikeThis]

Presumably they still tap the internet's undersea cables. I don't suppose they stopped doing it just because everyone found out.

GCHQ Bude is still there last time I checked.

 

[salem]

Your security is only as strong as the weakest link. So your messages may be encrypted by whichever super strong method but you will also have a bunch of other bits of software, hardware and humans involved in sending it and managing your encryption keys. It just needs one of those to be compromised.

In determining who to target, analysing who is communicating with who can be done easy enough by them even if encryption is turned on in your mail client, chat app or phone system.

With a target they can then look at applying zero day exploits, social engineering, physically intercepting the device etc.

Encryption is great, use it wherever possible. It's one part of a bigger ecosystem though and that's where most of the vulnerabilities are.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

You know when they kill these Al Quaeda guys, they are locating the cell phone?
They get the number, Boom that's it. Deploying a drone with 6 blades that shoot out at impact to shred the victim. Wtaf.
The drone then pickpockets the corpse and retrieves the fully intact pristine passport to return to base.