On Sun, 2017-04-16 at 18:25 +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
> Yes. And despite what people think, those agencies don't have super
> powers. They have tools to help them, and lots of resources, but
> nothing out of the ordinary.
Untrue. They are in advance of mainstream developments. Spying has
existed for thousands, of years *and* it is their job to discover and
then discretely monitor what is going-on.
It is never one team doing everything but many highly specialist teams
dedicated to particular aspects of intelligence gathering which they do
expertly, and impressively, well.
All countries monitor, by all available means, what is happening in
their own territory and around the world. Just because, for example, the
USA and Russia are not officially loving buddies it never ever prevents
their intelligence agencies covertly sharing intelligence of mutual
interest. It is a incestuous world with an international web of contacts
doing favours and often disregarding their own government's official
political pronouncements.
> There is nothing that the NSA can do that can't be done by other
> agencies or even individuals (or enough individuals working together).
Mmmm, you forgot physical access to targets :-) That is one of their
advantages together with links into national infrastructures and
seemingly endless money. They are much more audacious than "normal"
people.
> There is no doubt that every single security agency in the world has a
> team working on discovering exploitable code in all operating systems.
> It's what they do. Any exploit they find that has been reported is
> probably because some other agency has found it as well so they want to
> stop them using it.
Not only software but hardware too. Most hardware has backdoors which
may not be routinely disclosed to purchasers. The question then arises
if the "official" backdoor is the only one. Difficult to detect if the
logic is coded on a chip.
> The only truly secure machine is one that is at the bottom of a mine
> shaft, turned off and dismantled. :-)
Nope, just protected from public networks like the Internet and from
radio transmissions of all types. Faraday-cage types and 'high-security
rooms' don't have to be buried at the bottom of mines; they exist
everywhere.
--
Regards,
Paul.
England, EU. England's place is in the European Union.
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