'FLYING PIG' Soars Over Internet Privacy Protections

[Guest]

The British government has devised a method dubbed "FLYING PIG" to access encrypted Internet communications.

'FLYING PIG' Soars Over Internet Privacy Protections : Read more

 

[Guest]

Sooooo, they're literally conning you in order to steal your data? Please remind me how this is legal.

 

[MANOFKRYPTONAK]

People should read 1984.

 

[a20052020]

This type of MITM attack only works if you control the certificates (you have to get the companies certs or get a cert authority to give you ones otherwise the users will know for sure that they are under attack). Companies do this regularly to monitor internet access (It is also very legal in most areas and has even been tested in court) as company workstations (their network, their hardware, their property, so its pretty clear cut for corporate monitoring) can have root certificates installed that are required and trusted for network access as well as transparent http/https proxy monitoring.

Companies even install keyloggers, video recorders, time tracking software, remote admin/wipe/lockdown... (It is quite surprising that the NSA didn't have that in their network)

 

[Spooderman]

1984 here we come!

 

[Shaun o]

There banking on the fact people don`t read 1984 to be honest.
Until it is too late to see that fiction, has become a fact.

 

[ddpruitt]

Please check your article's for technical accuracy.

This isn't an SSL attack this is a spoofing attack, this isn't a problem with the SSL protocol. And this isn't used by the NSA or GCHQ, this is mostly a hacker tactic to gain access to financial information. The advice is good but it applies to general hacking attacks. If the government wants your financials all they have to do is ask, very few banks will refuse this type of request. On top of that they already have access to most of this information, there are a number of companies that have made billions providing this type of information (think about it for minute will you?).

 

[agnickolov]

The only way this type of attack can work for the general public is when a Certificate Authority company (like VeriSign as the best known of the lot) is compromised so a third party can generate a malicious certificate. This most famously happened a couple of years ago to a less known CA courtesy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's cyber division and was used to target Iranian dissidents. Of course in the case of NSA they could very well control a few of the Certificate Authority companies directly, considering the biggest ones are American-based...

 

[fixxxer113]

@athulajp

Yeah, It's nice to see governments will even resort to using criminal methods in order to "protect us"... I feel so safe now, don't you??

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yep. Certificates are a guarantee that the other end is who you think you are. If the CAs hand out spoof certificates to the spies, it's all over.

 

[freddyk1]

What if you keep your data in an encrypted storage like SaluSafe?

 

[f-14]

doesn't surprise me, the u.k. are marxists.

so·cial·ism (ssh-lzm)
n.
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

socialism [ˈsəʊʃəˌlɪzəm]
n
1. (Economics) an economic theory or system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community collectively, usually through the state. It is characterized by production for use rather than profit, by equality of individual wealth, by the absence of competitive economic activity, and, usually, by government determination of investment, prices, and production levels Compare capitalism
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any of various social or political theories or movements in which the common welfare is to be achieved through the establishment of a socialist economic system
3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (in Leninist theory) a transitional stage after the proletarian revolution in the development of a society from capitalism to communism: characterized by the distribution of income according to work rather than need

 

[TheLoneWolf989]

Since you can never be sure if the government is secretly spying on you, you can never sue the government for spying on you. And because unless you were actually spied upon by the government, you cannot sue to keep other citizens from being spied on by the government. And you can't know if you were spied on by the government because the government doesn't have to tell you if it spied on your communication. So looks like I'm screwed with all the illegal stuff I do that shouldn't even be illegal, brilliant.