The FBI Is About To Get The Power To Hack Millions Of Computers And Congress refuses to even talk ab

katsung47

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The FBI Is About To Get The Power To Hack Millions Of Computers
And Congress refuses to even talk about what that means.
11/30/2016

WASHINGTON — Congress had six months to debate granting President-elect Donald Trump’s FBI new legal powers to hack millions of computers, and Republican leaders objected to doing so on Wednesday.

That means that starting Thursday, a Department of Justice official will be able to go to a single judge, assert that a computer crime may involve millions of networked devices, and get a warrant that lets the FBI hack all of those devices.

According to three senators who tried to put the brakes on that new authority Wednesday so Congress could at least discuss it, there are no concrete assurances from law enforcement officials that privacy won’t be violated or that devices won’t be damaged. Nor was there any explanation of how authorities will hack Americans’ wired equipment.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-hacking-congress_us_583f03dae4b04fcaa4d619fc

Evil power seize President power through their candidate Donald Trump. Now they want to legalize their criminal action of hacking into your computer practice.
 
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hedrick

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1. This has nothing to do with Trump. All parties are equally guilty in setting up the surveillance state.

2. Encryption won't help. There are enough bugs in software that the government can break into any computer they want to.

3. The UK is pioneering legislation that will likely spread here. It requires technology companies to provide holes for the government (and anyone else who can figure out how to use them) to get around encryption.
 
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super animator

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2. Encryption won't help. There are enough bugs in software that the government can break into any computer they want to.
No, they can't. You can't break into a computer that is not connected to the internet for example. You are over estimating their ability to do so.
 
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hedrick

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No, they can't. You can't break into a computer that is not connected to the internet for example. You are over estimating their ability to do so.
Ask the Iranians about that.

However encryption doesn't seem relevant in cases where they can't get to your computer. If you're concerned about surreptitious breakins (which you might be) I think you'll find that if someone is physically present with your computer, it's very unlikely that encryption will stop them from getting your data. There is encryption good enough that brute-force attacks on a good implementation with well chosen keys won't succeed with current technology, but there are almost always enough holes in the implementation, key management, etc., to find a way around it.

If you want to stop unconstitutional searches, the legislature and courts need to start dealign with the issue.
 
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hislegacy

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The FBI Is About To Get The Power To Hack Millions Of Computers
And Congress refuses to even talk about what that means.
11/30/2016

WASHINGTON — Congress had six months to debate granting President-elect Donald Trump’s FBI new legal powers to hack millions of computers, and Republican leaders objected to doing so on Wednesday.

Evil power seize President power through their candidate Donald Trump. Now they want to legalize their criminal action of hacking into your computer practice.


Pssst.... Donald Trump has been President elect for six weeks.... before that EVERYONE was expecting Hillary to win - so they were not debating granting President Elect Trump diddly door

Just another great example of media bias and twisting.
 
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LoAmmi

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Pssst.... Donald Trump has been President elect for six weeks.... before that EVERYONE was expecting Hillary to win - so they were not debating granting President Elect Trump diddly door

Just another great example of media bias and twisting.

Many liberal outlets have been speaking out against expansive executive branch powers for years now, long before Trump even started running. It's one of those things that the very liberal do worry about. Libertarians probably worry about it as well. Unfortunately, it isn't something that will probably get addressed until it is seriously abused.
(I'm not saying Trump will abuse it so let's not go down that path).
 
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super animator

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Ask the Iranians about that.
How about we ask computer scientists?

However encryption doesn't seem relevant in cases where they can't get to your computer. If you're concerned about surreptitious breakins (which you might be) I think you'll find that if someone is physically present with your computer, it's very unlikely that encryption will stop them from getting your data. There is encryption good enough that brute-force attacks on a good implementation with well chosen keys won't succeed with current technology, but there are almost always enough holes in the implementation, key management, etc., to find a way around it.
Once again, your over estimating their ability and under estimating security. Hacking is not some trivial task, by simply finding holes and use to "find it a way around it".

Good luck trying to hack a latest linux kernel.
 
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hedrick

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Good luck trying to hack a latest linux kernel.
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerab...n-7/cvssscoremax-7.99/Linux-Linux-Kernel.html

Admittedly those are mostly only accessible to logged in users. But it still shows that there is a continuing stream of bugs. Unfortunately the ones state actors know about are often intentionally not reported.

The reference to Iran was because the US managed to destroy the centrifuges they were using to purify uranium. They were not connected to the Internet. There are a surprising number of ways to compromise non-connected systems. Because military and intelligence groups typically don't connect systems with sensitive data to the Internet, developing ways to compromise them is a high priority for the NSA and CIA. The techniques require specific circumstances, which means it takes a lot of work to set them up. So the FBI probably would only use them in extreme cases. If the systems are in the US, a covert breakin would be easier. I'm unsure whether those are authorized by the new procedures.

This kind of hacking absolutely is not easy to do. But we spend huge amounts of money on organizations whose job it is to develop techniques. I believe they would be available to the FBI.

Incidentally, I worked with an FBI hacker a few decades ago, who was concerned about one of our systems that had been compromised. I was surprised at the level of sophistication that was being used for this battle. (In that case they were defending against attacks.) I doubt their sophistication has lessened in the interim.

I'm in charge of computing facilities for a computer science department. I haven't published since grad school, so I'm not sure you'd really call me a computer scientist, but I'm close.
 
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hedrick

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Now, on cryptography. The Feds were (by inference) caught not long ago having inserted provisions in a cryptographic standard that appears to have intentionally weakened it. Your first reaction (and the actual reaction of most of the security community) is to say that we can no longer depend upon any cryptographic technology that has had government input.

But that has its dangers. First, industry often cooperates with them, so it’s hard to know what’s actually independent. Second, because of the huge budgets available, their knowledge is often ahead of the outside world’s. As an example, the DES spec had unexplained changes made by the NSA (I think -- maybe the CIA). In retrospect it appears that they knew of a type of attack that no one else did, and they strengthened the spec to defend against it. If you avoid anything with their input, you may end up adopting technology that they know how to compromise.
 
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https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerab...n-7/cvssscoremax-7.99/Linux-Linux-Kernel.html

Admittedly those are mostly only accessible to logged in users. But it still shows that there is a continuing stream of bugs.
Bugs does not by definition mean security holes.

I'm in charge of computing facilities for a computer science department. I haven't published since grad school, so I'm not sure you'd really call me a computer scientist, but I'm close.
No your not even "close", not until you get a degree.

Again you overestimating their hacking ability, and under estimating the security here.
 
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