[I sent this a couple of hours ago, hasn't appeared on my feed, lne.com. Apologies if you get it twice.] On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 11:49 AM, Sunder wrote:
Great and wonderful except:
1. If such spyware has already been installed on your system you can't trust your os therefore:
a. It may use your OS to hide the key capture log, so you won't be able to just watch files. Think of a kernel patch that removes all references to a specific file, not just sets it to be hidden.
Yes, but this is probably beyond current and foreseeable attacks. I don't dispute that all sorts of advanced attacks are possible, just that the fixes this guy suggested are "much better than doing nothing." Even _secure_ OSes (KeyCOS, for example) are vulnerable to attacks when physical access is gained...doesn't make it easy, though.
4. If you live in a crowded area, your iPod can be lifted off you in a false mugging, or break in, pick pocketting while you're at a restaurant, movie, etc.
This implies a level of surveillance/commitment beyond what most FBI attacks are at. More importantly, theft of my iPod would then trigger certain actions. Cancelling my existing key and generation of a new one. All of these kinds of "they've got your hardware" attacks are present with nearly all systems. All require more work than the simple insertion of a keystroke logger involves. It's all measures and countermeasures.
10. Ordered any new copies of a bit of software? Maybe they have a deal with FedEx, UPS, the Mailman. Maybe what you're getting is the upgrade and then some. How can you tell that copy of SmallTalk doesn't carry an extra bit of code just for you? How can you tell that the latest patch to MacOS you've just downloaded really came from Apple? Sure DNS said it was from ftp.apple.com but how do you know that the router upstream from your internet provider didn't route your packets via ftp.fbi.gov?
Paranoia can be a dangerous thing. --Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound" --Tim May "That government is best which governs not at all." --Henry David Thoreau