NSA Hides Spying Backdoors into Hard Drive Firmware

[Caring1]

if you're not doing anything wrong or illegal then what's the problem?

Chip, chip, chipping away ..... at your freedom

 

[Mr B]

Chip, chip, chipping away ..... at your freedom

Don't get any freedom anyway it's all a façade. They can gladly look at my holiday photos and see what games I'm playing on Steam!

 

[Frick]

This isn't the blanket spying stuff the NSA does.

 

[z1tu]

Don't get any freedom anyway it's all a façade. They can gladly look at my holiday photos and see what games I'm playing on Steam!

I think that someone with that kind of access to your computer could just simply plant incriminating evidence to anything. What if it stated "Criminal/terrorist organization hides spying backdoors into harddrive firmware", would you be more alarmed then?

 

[Mr B]

I think that someone with that kind of access to your computer could just simply plant incriminating evidence to anything. What if it stated "Criminal/terrorist organization hides spying backdoors into harddrive firmware", would you be more alarmed then?

There's too much scaremongering. Still I'm only one out of billions of computers, I think I'll take my chances with my holiday snaps!

 

[z1tu]

There's too much scaremongering. Still I'm only one out of billions of computers, I think I'll take my chances with my holiday snaps!

Couldn't agree more on that, but it's still wrong on every level.

 

[Mr B]

Couldn't agree more on that, but it's still wrong on every level.

yes it's definitely wrong, I think I'm going to put pictures of my ass in amongst all of my holiday pictures as a message to anyone looking at them! kiss my ass!

 

[MaKCuMyC]

hard drive firmware isn't loading into system RAM, it's run only at drive.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Thanks for this news article. Interesting. Informed. Warned.

 

[Fx]

This is in violation of the US Constitution which is the supreme law.

Thank you for this profound post. The NSA is out of control and information exposing its practices is always welcome.

 

[Peter1986C]

hard drive firmware isn't loading into system RAM, it's run only at drive.

Yeah, the controller board inside the drive needs that stuff. The PC/server could care less about that low level material.

 

[Frick]

This is in violation of the US Constitution which is the supreme law.

Thank you for this profound post. The NSA is out of control and information exposing its practices is always welcome.

You're as likely to be hit with this as with Flame.

And this story is getting stupid. We dont know who the group is, just that they might be affilated with the NSA somehow. And this is just spying, not blanket surveillance.

Yeah, the controller board inside the drive needs that stuff. The PC/server could care less about that low level material.

It's part of a larger thing. It also controls what is booting.

GrayFish is the crowning achievement of the Equation Group. The malware platform is so complex that Kaspersky researchers still understand only a fraction of its capabilities and inner workings. Key to the sophistication of GrayFish is its bootkit, which allows it to take extraordinarily granular control of the machines it infects.

"This allows it to control the launching of Windows at each stage," Kaspersky's written report explained. "In fact, after infection, the computer is not run by itself anymore: it is GrayFish that runs it step by step, making the necessary changes on the fly."

 

[qubit]

This spying so doesn't surprise me. I wonder if those longstanding rumours about backdoors in chipsets are true after all?

Tinfoil hats at the ready everyone!

 

[hardcore_gamer]

I'm scared that they will steal the blueprints of a mach 5 fighter jet I designed..


...in KSP.

 

[Ahhzz]

if you're not doing anything wrong or illegal then what's the problem?

http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/19/debunking-the-dangerous-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear/

Also, this essay, referenced and recommended by Bruce Schneier, one of the top security experts in the field today.

 

[jsfitz54]

This spying so doesn't surprise me. I wonder if those longstanding rumours about backdoors in chipsets are true after all?

Tinfoil hats at the ready everyone!

Pen and paper will escape / elude their scrutiny!

 

[qubit]

if you're not doing anything wrong or illegal then what's the problem?

This is an age old strawman argument that's been debunked many times.

It's a question that's usually asked by those who want to spy on and control the people and is an absolute favourite among tinpot dictators.

 

[Jorge]

Boo Hoo. Don't concern me one bit as I have nothing to hide.

 

[xfia]

guess i will be a strawman too then..
hard drives are not secure not like anything about windows or the internet in general is anyway.. only way your data is actually safe is to unplug the ethernet cable..
government agencies seriously don't care what you do as long as its not illegal plus there is no way for them to manually spy on everyone..
it goes pretty deep if your hard drive is being remotely checked out and you have already been flagged..

 

[Nabarun]

Is there any way to know if my hard drive's firmware is infected?

 

[Uplink10]

This story holds some truth. NSA has gone too far, these agencies should be shut down and the money that goes to these agencies should be used for helping develop open source software... And HDD manufacturers are also guilty, they can't release firmware source code? You can do that, if user gets ahold of source code he can`t make HDD out of pure air, he still has to buy your HDD. But we all know if source code isn`t released the software is not secure, that is why people choose Linux over Windows Server.

 

[techy1]

I'm pretty sure they don't care .....that you're stalking your ex on facebook after 2 beers

WHAAAT :O... noone has right to know that!! .... I mean - I have never ever done that... fuck - do not read this post - it was hacked .... ok ok, I admit it... but it was 3 beers

 

[jsfitz54]

"I pity the fool"...that doesn't own a typewriter.

What manifesto?

 

[Deadlyraver]

NSA: A place that tries to reincarnate old ideas.

Such as:

Breaching people's privacy.
Finding people's privacy.
Storing people's privacy.
AND
Telling people they have privacy.

I see democracy is still working for us.

 

[Fx]

"I have nothing to hide," said the fool.

It isn't that you don't have anything to hide; it is that they don't have any right to search your property (either physical or intangible) without a justifiable reason.

Anyone not concerned over their own privacy, and the breach of it, is most stupendously ignorant of history. This is a direct attack on one's privacy; a principle that was important enough to be included as a foundational law (4th Amendment). Men fought and died over the right to protect this aspect of their lives among other things.

Furthermore, surveillance is always used in the control of a population by governments who seek to enact sinister activity. Governments will tell you that they are using their tactics to fight "terrorism", and other such nonsense, but really they are the authors of it or have direct association with many of those groups -- a fact that most people are too lazy to investigate or even care about.

Stories like these drag out a lot of ideas to consider, but unfortunately most readers just read it as a topic of the day instead of really considering consequences, context and the past in order to connect some dots.