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Comments: 325 +- Your Rights Online: FBI Remotely Installs Spyware to Trace Bomb Threat on Wednesday July 18 2007, @10:22AM
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privacy
cnet-declan writes "There have been rumors for years about the FBI remotely installing spyware via e-mail or by exploiting an operating system vulnerability from afar — and now there's confirmation. Last month, the FBI obtained a federal court order to remotely install spyware called CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier) to find out who was behind a MySpace account linked to bomb threats sent to a high school near Olympia, Wash. News.com has posted a PDF of the FBI affidavit, which makes for interesting reading, and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to a magistrate judge. It seems as though CIPAV was installed via e-mail, as an article back in 2004 hinted was the case. In addition to reporting the computer's IP address, MAC address, and registry information, it also gave the FBI updates on which IP addresses the user(s) visited. But how did the FBI get the spyware activated and past anti-virus defenses? Two obvious ways are for the Feds to find and exploit their own operating system backdoors, or to compromise security vendors..."
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How long will it be before ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Open letter reply to that kind of law (Score:5, Insightful)
The Germans already proposed something like that. It was retracted when they realized that it pretty much opens the door to any kind of espionage, and that this could quickly turn AGAINST them.
No backdoor is secure. Word will get out and it will be abused. Worse yet, if you force AV and firewall manufacturers to keep that hole unplugged, you open yourself and all the businesses in your country to industrial sabotage and espionage.
Think the feds are THAT stupid? Even if, do you think their lobbyists will allow them to?
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Re:Open letter reply to that kind of law (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, to both! The lobbyists aren't exactly rocket scientists themselves.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So if anything, they'll want this on the PCs of normal people, but certainly not in a system they might use themselves!
Re:Open letter reply to that kind of law (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul07/5280/1 [ieee.org]
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NSAKEY (Score:4, Informative)
Where have you been [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:How long will it be before ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I only use my credit card to pay for my phone bill. So why should I be against complete surveillance of CC payments? Hey, it doesn't affect me, ya know?
I only...
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Re:How long will it be before ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then they came for net access records, you did not care because you don't need privacy there
Someday they will come for you, and there will be no one left to care
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The warrant isn't really the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The warrant isn't really the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no magic at play here. If it's a secret, someone can learn it. If it's a method, someone can learn it. If it can be done by one, it can be done by all and whether or not you trust your government or your legal system is almost irrelevant to the larger point. If there exists that serious of a chink in your armor, SOMEONE will exploit it and it may not always be for the right reasons or by the right people.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long will it be before ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm kind of new here (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly do you want?They got a warrant. Isn't that kind of oversight what we want? I don't understand why you think making a comparison to the Gestapo (and did they really have warrants?) adds a single thing to the conversation.
Please tell me what your solution is, so I can put your comment in some kind of context. I've seen it and its like from several other posters, but not a single one of them goes on to make a coherent argument after making it, and neither did you.
The FBI has a job, in this case it seems a job that we'd all like them to be proficient at, that of preventing bombings. They pursued evidence through the correct channels, got a warrant, set up an operation, and did their jobs. In light of that, doesn't the "Gestapo" comment seem a bit reactionary and irrational?
So what the hell is with the specious Gestapo comparison? Do you think someone's rights were violated somehow, or the FBI overstepped their authority, or what exactly? Or is it vogue here to toss out inflammatory comments for no reason other than to provoke a reaction? I thought that's what the "troll" mod was for?
Lastly, the Gestapo also pandered to the fears and insecurities of the populace, so I'd be careful throwing around such comparisons if I were you.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what I want? I want to be able to TRUST that the executive branch of the government (law enforcement included) really has what's best for the country in mind, but I'm just not feeling it.
The executive branch of our government has recently, been found guilty of large scale domestic spying "for the greater good", torture, and any number of other egregious offenses. Of course, it's up to some interpretation I guess, but I say they're blatantly illegal offenses at worst and c
Re:How long will it be before ... (Score:5, Funny)
[2] Then they came for the end-of-sentence punctuation Nazis, and I did not care because I punctuate my sentences.
[3] Then they came for tense agreement Nazis, and I did not care because I know that 'do not need privacy' (even abbreviated as don't) is present tense while 'did not care' is past tense.
Then I realized that it matters not, because if someone can't read, they aren't going to care about net access records regardless of the privacy issues.
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NSAKEY (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY [wikipedia.org] is a good primer.
It was covered extensively at the time by the likes of Bruce Schneier and others, his comments [schneier.com] said:I think the jury is still out on exactly what was really going on; if it was an NSA backdoor, it was a pretty boneheaded one. Alternately, if it was just Microsoft being redundant, then it shows that they didn't plan very well and don't seem to understand security very well. Given the choice between the two, I think boneheadedness on MS's part is more likely.
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User (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that nothing quite so sophisticated was necessary since the user downloaded and ran an unknown attachment from an email message
Occam's razor at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Assumption 1: He doesn't know jack about computer security like 99% of the users out there and simply clicks everything sent to him.
Assumption 2: The FBI keeps a hole open in Windows that only they know about.
Assumption 3: AV vendors are forced to keep holes open, as well as firewall vendors and everyone else who could technically find it.
Assumption 2 and 3 bear a heavy load. Assumption 2 implies that EVERY Windows OS can be remotely exploited. Now, it IS possible to reverse Windows. And since there are Windows emulators out there that can handle calls to functions most people don't even know exists, it's safe to assume that quite a few people already reversed some parts of Windows. A hole would have been found by now. More important, such a hole could easily be used against US companies when, say, China finds them and uses it to eavesdrop on confidential data. If such a hole existed, the first thing the FBI would do is make sure that no US company dealing with critical or sensitive information (nuclear, biological, you name it) uses Windows as their main operating system.
Thus I consider it rather unlikely.
Assumption 3 includes that every AV vendor on this planet knows about the hole/malware and keeps his mouth shut. Now, a good deal of such AV vendors sit in countries that are not the US, worse, some of those countries are economical competitors to the US. Think they'll keep silent? Or that they would include it into their software? Hardly likely.
I'd stay with assumption 1: He was careless, clicking on everything and running no AV kit.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most likely the case.
However:
Why is Microsoft's DoJ settlement supervised by a FISA court judge (Kathleen Kotar-Kelly). These judges are the only ones cleared to review cases where espionage techniques may be revealed and there is a need to keep such information out of the public record.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance, the NTLMv2 response in NT authentication.
NTLMv2 Specs [sourceforge.net]
Scroll down and you'll see:
0x00000000 (unknown, but zero will work)
This is simply the best place to put a password bypass, a flag in the authentication packet itself. If it's the right value, then just don't check the password and let
Re:Occam's razor at work (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hold it, hold it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Heuristics and spyware (Score:5, Insightful)
Would it even be necessary to compromise security vendors? While heuristics and malware detection has been something long promised, it is my understanding that the vast majority of security software works purely by comparing against their dictionary of known attacks. If the police have highly specialized, very limited deployment spyware, it seems that most security software wouldn't have any inkling that it's malware in the first place.
I have no doubt that organized crime and government agencies are aware of and abusing exploits. Given that they don't blast it to the world like a giddy teenager looking for attention, no one knows what to look for.
Click here for free movies! (Score:5, Funny)
Subject: Click here for free movies!
Attachment: not_spyware.exe
Hello! You have been selected to receive free movies at no cost to you! All you have to do is install the attached program to start downloading all the latest Hollywood hits free of charge!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Our Investigation Was Going Nowhere Until We Thought of Posing as a Nigerian Prince," Says FBI Agent
Hello World (Score:2)
-Social engineering (either against the person, or his mother)
-Breaking into the basement^W house and installing the damn thing
-Hiding it in porn
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
s/pay/blackmail
There, fixed that for you.
Getting past defenses? (Score:5, Insightful)
Something seems fishy about the whole story, though. This guy was apparently savvy enough to use a proxy in Italy to send his Gmail bomb threat emails, so he was at least trying to cover his tracks... But he was dumb enough to open a random email attachment? It strikes me as more likely that the CIPAV is deployed through a browser exploit (or perhaps even "legitimately" as an ActiveX control or BHO, people will install anything).
Re:Getting past defenses? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because someone does something the "average Joe" cannot or does not do, doesn't mean that he knows more than said Joe. He might just have gotten some clue from a pal, without said pal telling him the whole story.
It's simple script-kid style. Yes, some of the malware that circulates is pretty well written, but the people using it are sometimes so dumb that you wonder if they ain't better off serving fries. They're bound to be caught.
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Not the guys only issue (Score:2)
Where's the provision for any federal police squad (Score:2, Interesting)
Is a bomb threat considered piracy?
Is a bomb threat considered treason?
Is a bomb threat considered counterfeiting?
If it isn't, there is NO Federal allocation of power to go after bomb threats, period. What the FBI is doing is not just unconstitutional, but any political leader who took an oath to uphold the Constitution is violating the only oath the
Re:Where's the provision for any federal police sq (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
At the Federal level it surely is, regardless of what the Supreme Court wrongfully interpreted. Let us read a very simple part of the Constitution, a document written specifically to declare what the Federal Government can do, and what it is restricted from doing:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the fre
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting speculation (Score:2)
The Feds would have the $$$ and be able to hire the skill labor to build some pretty sophisticated spyware tools. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to find out Microsoft included a back door in Windows. That rumor has surfaced before.
The problem with either of those options is if they get out in the wild. How many people have access to those tools and how is their deployment managed? Who wouldn't be tempted to do a little sideline testing if they had those goodies in their tool chest.
Woot! (Score:3, Funny)
Why is this even on /.? (Score:3, Insightful)
Law enforcement is very deep into every aspect of computer activity. It's been this way for more than a decade.
The
The Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that technology is getting closer to us all the time. The barrier between man and machine is becoming much narrower. And that is a good thing. At the far end of the spectrum people have long been getting artificial hearing enhancers, and now we are starting on intelligent artificial eyes and limbs. People with epilepsy are getting electronics embedded in their brains. At the nearer end of the spectrum, a large percentage of the population now carries a small computer with them everywhere (their cell phone). The man/machine split is disappearing.
So what? Well, we have a problem developing if the government assumes that anything that does not have your genome is fair game for them to crack. Today it is the suspect's computer. This already poses a problem if the suspect is, for example, engaged in legitimate contracting for some corporation - should the government have the right to compromise the security of that corporation because one of their employees is breaking the law?
But what of the more tightly coupled technology? Should the government be allowed to plant a bug in my hearing aid? Should they be allowed to tap the signals coming from my artificial eyes? Should they be allowed to monitor the same brain activity patterns that my seizure mitigating device monitors?
The problem is that we are becoming more closely coupled with technology, and that is a good thing. We are the first species in history to actively engage in our own evolution. But if we cannot trust our technology, it creates a barrier to that evolutionary step. I have the right not to self-incriminate. But if a computer is part of me, where does the line get drawn?
Read the real version of the story (Score:5, Informative)
Happening right now. (Score:3, Interesting)
- E-mail account made at a foreign e-mail hosting site that has an extremely terse address so as not to be hit by spambots (i.e. 4433dakjikk83726jj@somewhere.org)
- E-mails are sent from a stolen laptop through a public wireless access point that are copycats of this crime to illicit the same FBI response.
- E-mails are then checked each day from different public access points each day using a different MAC address at each access point. [The only e-mail that should be coming into this account would be the one from the FBI. Probably easy to verify by checking DNS records of the e-mails originating IP or IP block.]
- E-mail is received and copied to disk.
- Laptop is destroyed.
- CD with e-mail is then analyzed on a Linux/Unix machine that has no internet connection.
- Backdoor/exploit vector is discovered and used for "other" purposes.
Grey-market exploits (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the answer is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:the answer is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
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Real or just FBI PR? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the answer is simple (Score:5, Funny)
From the summary:
A MySpace account linked to bomb threats sent to a high school.
Chances of this system being secure, updated, well-managed? 0
Chances of this system being a Gateway laptop that takes 10 minutes to boot, loads 5 IM apps on startup, has 4 different IE toolbars, and constantly warns that the Norton Antivirus subscription lapsed 16 months ago? Our survey says yes!
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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