I didn't mean to distract with a big long discussion of freedombox & blackhat. Not worth it. Distracting.
My main point for the FreedomBox project remains: 1) Don't act so surprised if we experience overt or covert resistance. 2) A vigorous market for countermeasures to our network hardening and stealth communications features won't be surprising either. What I really DON'T want to do here - aside from distract from the mission - is have us all brainstorming attacks and countermeasures. That can get not just distracting but downright counter to mission, quickly. Thanks. One last reply, from me, for fun, breaking my own brainstorming rule just this once: On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 10:31 -0800, Matt Joyce wrote: > Most large networks I've been to that care about security would notice > a machine hardwired into their network that wasn't pre-approved based > off the mac address of the ethernet interface alone. They'd be able > to locate it just by the wirepath. You don't a mac address to sniff ethernet. You do need unusual hardware. My point is that, having done that -- FreedomBox style robust / stealth comms software helps your mission. Also it's not only network. As the article mentions: "Attach a camera or other sensor payload and use as an over-the-internet video bug." A (very slightly) sophisticated MAC-less ethernet tap would be an example of a "sensor payload". > Wireless is a different issue, but most internal wireless is > configured to only allow vpn traffic to their own gateway... so again > blocked. As the article puts it: "Most locations have multiple 3rd party networks overlapping their physical space, which, if cracked, could be used as back channels for the plug computer to phone home." Of course, in spaces that don't have such 3rd party networks, an ambitious party could create some at just barely enough power and just barely the right locations to work while hopefully being unnoticed by anyone sitting across the hall hunting for them. Again, the mesh features we're talking about are an example of what really helps with that. I should emphasize that the emerging threat is not unique to plugs or solely related to plugs. There's a whole trend in building "smart buildings" and "environmental sensors" with lots of very low power, mesh-forming, very dumb devices. It will be easy to hide stealthy IP connectivity and such in all that noise. _______________________________________________ Freedombox-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
