Kerry goes on the offensiveFollow

It is weird how the guy manages to be worse secretary of state than HIllary ( Syria portion being particularly amusing ).

But now, apparently, as the government was embarrassed yet again with the revelation that UPS helps NSA "inderdict" packages in order to install backdoors,, Kerry decided that enough is enough and returned to the previous narrative of "coward" and "traitor". ( linky here. ).

It is interesting as even Hayden now shies away from the "traitor" talk ( the people are the enemy meme still floats around ); he just calls him a defector.

I don't know. It is just getting more and more weird.

Pfft. Thinking through is for democrats. And since everyone knows that democrats are lefties and lefties are communists, thinking is clearly a communist affliction. I keep away from that.

Seems to be his station in life.

Kerry is pretty awful, that's not really disputed. But... Are people actually taking Greenwald's wild speculations seriously? NSA installs backdoors in computer and routing equipment by intercepting the finished boxed product during shipping? That's.... ridiculous.

It should seem completely unbelievable to everyone. Not that the NSA may be implanting backdoors into the hardware layer of routing equipment (I posted months ago that this is precisely what they would do rather than attempting to hack people's networks directly if you recall), but that they'd so it by intercepting individually packaged boxes with the finished products as they're shipped to customers.




Um... Not the point. Let's say I'm the NSA, and I've built a clever bit of hard ware component that looks exactly like one in a CISCO router, fits right into the same spot on some board on said router, will appear to perform precisely like that component when tested with CISCOs routing software, but contains a hidden backdoor we can use anytime we want. When is the best time to sneak into the production process to replace the "real" components with my backdoor equipped ones? Would I wait until CISCO has received all the components for its router, assembled them, tested them, and then is shipping the completed box, with all the components soldered into their respective parts to an end company?

No, you moron. I'm going to swap those parts out during delivery from the 3rd party company that makes them for CISCO and where they are assembled for CISCO. Hell. I'd probably just own/obtain/influence the tiny little company that builds that component for CISCO (and every other maker of network equipment in the world) and be done with it. The idea of a few people showing up at a UPS loading doc with a subpoena, opening up a shipping crate, then opening up the box, then opening up the router, then taking the damn boards apart to replace the component in question is ridiculous in the extreme. It's the kind of approach someone writing the plot of a children's cartoon villain might come up with.

Um... Not the point. Let's say I'm the NSA, and I've built a clever bit of hard ware component that looks exactly like one in a CISCO router, fits right into the same spot on some board on said router, will appear to perform precisely like that component when tested with CISCOs routing software, but contains a hidden backdoor we can use anytime we want. When is the best time to sneak into the production process to replace the "real" components with my backdoor equipped ones? Would I wait until CISCO has received all the components for its router, assembled them, tested them, and then is shipping the completed box, with all the components soldered into their respective parts to an end company?

No, you moron.

Hey, fuckstick. Shockingly, it's easier to corrupt the 50 routers of organizations you want to target with custom hardware than it is to mass produce pre-broken hardware and distribute to the entire community of network security analysts on the planet. Guess which one is notices more often? Jesus you're a ******* moron. "What police would do, you see, is bug every home built in the US rather than pose as repair men to place bugs in individual homes, how stupid!"

Holy ****, the lack of basic conceptual thinking is just staggering.

Total Mass Surveillance.

Um... Wait. Let me think about this. The one which involves federal officers serving a subpoena to a bunch of folks at a UPS shipping annex, then walking in, opening up the packaging container, then the box the system comes in, then the system itself, and replacing hardware, then taping everything back up and hoping no one notices? That was the answer you were looking for, right?



Don't make fun of Jesus! The man in the sky will get you for that! ;)




And yet, that's precisely how phone taps have been operated since like the 80s when we moved to digitally switched networks. Seriously? That was your example? You actually think the police have some repairman on a phone pole operating a tap? They show their warrant to the phone company and have them simply connect to the damn switch and direct all data/voice for a given number to a second line to be recorded. That's it. No taps. It's already in the damn equipment.

You really have no clue what you're talking about, do you?

Um... Wait. Let me think about this. The one which involves federal officers serving a subpoena to a bunch of folks at a UPS shipping annex, then walking in, opening up the packaging container, then the box the system comes in, then the system itself, and replacing hardware, then taping everything back up and hoping no one notices? That was the answer you were looking for, right?

Yeah, or they swap a retail package that's already been modified for the existing retail package and tape the ******* box back up and apologize for the 35 wasted seconds it cost UPS. It's not like there's a big mystery which routers get purchased most frequently. No wait, what am I saying, you know what makes more sense? Literally taking spy hardware out of the US, handing it to a manufacturer in China, and convincing them to reproduce it in the product line they produce that's part of the supply chain of some other OEM, because **** KNOWS that **** never changes. What could more stable than Super Power Glory RabbitCon continuing to supply Cisco, and who would you possibly trust more to keep that secret. What could possibly go wrong??

The most amazing part, really, is that you think someone would FABRICATE a story this incredibly banal.

Except that's not what the article claimed was happening, nor what the photo that accompanied the article seemed to be showing. I was specifically and directly responding to that article and that picture. The idea that the NSA taps into routers by intercepting them during shipping is ridiculous. What the hell are you trying to argue, that this isn't ridiculous? You honestly think that the picture of the three people standing around opening a cardboard box with a CISCO router in it is a realistic depiction of how the NSA does this sort of thing?

I laughed when I read the article. I laughed more at the picture. And I'm laughing at you trying to defend it. It's just that absurd. There's like 10 better ways to put hardware backdoors into equipment than those suggested in the article (by Greenwald actually). I'm not sure if Greenwald is just seeing how gullible people are, or if he's been suckered himself, but there's no way in hell that's how the NSA does anything.

Great point, man.

Except that's not what the article claimed was happening, nor what the photo that accompanied the article seemed to be showing. I was specifically and directly responding to that article and that picture. The idea that the NSA taps into routers by intercepting them during shipping is ridiculous. What the hell are you trying to argue, that this isn't ridiculous? You honestly think that the picture of the three people standing around opening a cardboard box with a CISCO router in it is a realistic depiction of how the NSA does this sort of thing?

No clue. Maybe? Really not *at all* that far fetched. I'm not sure why you assume government or the intel community is some sort of super efficient machine doing everything perfectly. The fact that they farm so much stuff out to idiot contractors like Edward Snowden should indicate this isn't the case to anyone with a functioning cerebrum.

laughed when I read the article. I laughed more at the picture. And I'm laughing at you trying to defend it. It's just that absurd. There's like 10 better ways to put hardware backdoors into equipment than those suggested in the article (by Greenwald actually). I'm not sure if Greenwald is just seeing how gullible people are, or if he's been suckered himself, but there's no way in hell that's how the NSA does anything.

Yeah, who gives a ****? Firstly, the chance that any of your ideas are actually "better" is virtually non existent. Lets try to remember that this was your primary "better" idea:

" I'm going to swap those parts out during delivery from the 3rd party company that makes them for CISCO and where they are assembled for CISCO. Hell. I'd probably just own/obtain/influence the tiny little company that builds that component for CISCO (and every other maker of network equipment in the world) and be done with it. "


That said, the picture you find so ludicrous is of three people taping up a Cisco box. What's the laugh out loud silly part, the tape?

Coincidentally you never know where to end, and tend to be lost near the middle as well.