NSA Spying on Offline Computers via Radio Waves

[vvvvvvv]

From the New York Times:

The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.


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.


The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack. In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user.


The N.S.A. calls its efforts more an act of “active defense” against foreign cyberattacks than a tool to go on the offensive. But when Chinese attackers place similar software on the computer systems of American companies or government agencies, American officials have protested, often at the presidential level.


Among the most frequent targets of the N.S.A. and its Pentagon partner, United States Cyber Command, have been units of the Chinese Army, which the United States has accused of launching regular digital probes and attacks on American industrial and military targets, usually to steal secrets or intellectual property. But the program, code-named Quantum, has also been successful in inserting software into Russian military networks and systems used by the Mexican police and drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union, and sometime partners against terrorism like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, according to officials and an N.S.A. map that indicates sites of what the agency calls “computer network exploitation.”

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/u...partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld&_r=0

It takes true insanity to still trust the government.

 

[Wheel Gun]

Thank goodness our government is only doing this to foreign countries. It would be terrifying to think that they might actually use this technology against the US citizenry.

You know, it also demonstrates how good Tom Clancy's insider info was. A decade ago, he wrote a plot line into one of his books about the US implementing similar tech into a Chinese computer. In that case, the target PC was given a virus that caused data to be sent out via an internal modem that showed no activity lights/sounds. Methinks someone was whispering secrets to Mr. Clancy.

 

[reddog1]

You tin foil hatters!!!!

Reddog has been telling you ALL this for years....

But i'm bat **** crazyyyyyyy

Somebody stop me!!

 

[Spata]

I hope they enjoy tyranny porn.

 

[CastleB]

On my way to the store for more tin foil now!

 

[reddog1]

On my way to the store for more tin foil now!

Wow, you STILL this everything is just a conspiracy theory huh?

Prayers sent.

 

[Spata]

Wow, you STILL this everything is just a conspiracy theory huh?

Prayers sent.

We should get together and build some Faraday cages.

 

[Old Timer]

We should get together and build some Faraday cages.

Where is the like button..

Of course it would use up all of the tin foil :-)

 

[cjjtulsa]

Not true. I trust my government to run my healthcare, modify my food, and inject chemicals in my arm so I don't get the sniffles. This is just paranoia.

Besides, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

 

[twoguns?]

Not true. I trust my government to run my healthcare, modify my food, and inject chemicals in my arm so I don't get the sniffles. This is just paranoia.

Besides, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.



"Some of us are often accused of always crying 'wolf'. But it is worth noting that one day the wolf came".
Pat Buchanan

Yep....Hah...8)