Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor

Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by dmayle on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:27AM (#37571309)

That's actually not true. It can do nothing about M of N cryptography. (That's when a key is broken up such that there are N parts, and at least M (less than N) are required to decrypt. It doesn't matter how many rubber hoses you have, one person can fully divulge or give access to their key and it's still safe.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by pixl97 on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:42AM (#37571567)

Lets say for example

Bob, Jon, and Tom have pieces of the key. Bob and Jon are in the US and arrested over and commanded by a court to give up the key. Tom is the holdout. The US will issue an international arrest warrant, and now Tom can never safely fly again or the plane will be diverted to the nearest US friendly airport where they will be extradited. So, yea, "safe" is very situational here.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by BurningFrog on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @01:11PM (#37573023)

Doesn't Tom's key fragment have to be on a disk somewhere for things to work?

That's the actual weak link to attack.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by hn_version_0023 on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:40AM (#37571528)

I always giggle a little when really smart people forget thugs exist and do what they’re told. If that includes breaking the knees of M people to get what they’re after, then M pairs of knees are gonna get destroyed.

This isn’t hard to understand, but it’s easy to forget our civilization hangs by a thread more often than any of us care to admit.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by Randomizer42 on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:54AM (#37571803)

That’s hyperbole

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by MichaelZuo on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:00PM (#37571892)

Any organization that is really really serious about security will obviously keep at least N-M +1 folks, along with their family, in other countries.

Which is a much much higher bar to clear for any would be rubber hose attackers.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by solardev on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:11PM (#37572072)

Your secrets aren't really safe unless Xi and Putin each have part of your key personally memorized.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by __alexs on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:03PM (#37571940)

I think you can probably get away with only breaking one pair of knees and sending a video of it to the other people.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by solardev on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:12PM (#37572094)

Youtube would delist that before they could all see it though.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by sofixa on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:40PM (#37572530)

You know there are other ways to have a video and send it to people than YouTube, right? You can just email a link from dropbox or gdrive, or an attachment, or send a WhatsApp/Telegram/etc. message, send a letter with a USB drive, etc.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by solardev on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:44PM (#37572592)

Yes. It was just a dumb joke :/

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by lmm on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @10:04PM (#37579603)

> You can just email a link from dropbox or gdrive, or an attachment, or send a WhatsApp/Telegram/etc. message

Why do you think governments are demanding those services give them access to quickly remove "misinformation"?

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by actionfromafar on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:23PM (#37572273)

Are we deep enough in the thread for the customary reminder that each measure makes it incrementally harder to attack a system?

(Including a system of people.)

Even nation state adversaries don’t have infinite resources to allocate for all opponents.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by ibejoeb on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @12:41PM (#37572539)

I don't remember the provenance of the quip, but somewhere at a def con or a hope, I heard, "The point of cryptography is to force the government to torture you."

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by jacquesm on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @02:19PM (#37573983)

They're perfectly ok with that, and depending on where you live this may happen in more or less overt ways. If the government wants your information, they will get your information. Your very best outcome is to simply rot in detention until you cough up your keys.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by ibejoeb on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @03:41PM (#37575315)

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was a session about root zone security, and Adam Langley was in the room. I was thinking, damn, kinda sucks to be the guy that holds Google's private keys. They want someone's information, so they let you rot...

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by jazzyjackson on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @03:45PM (#37575388)

power in numbers

can't torture us all!

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by kyleplum on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:29AM (#37571347)

That situation just requires a longer hose

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by snoman on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:41AM (#37571552)

Or M hoses.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by gabereiser on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:39AM (#37571523)

and more beatings.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by jacquesm on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:29AM (#37571342)

Sure, so you hit all of the people that have all of the pieces. Problem solved.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by saalweachter on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:40AM (#37571538)

Or you publicly announce you're hitting 1 of the N people with the rubber hose until M-1 of the other people send you their key fragments.

It's not like these keys are shared among disinterested strangers who have no attachment to each other.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by worthless-trash on Thursday September 21, 2023 @10:25AM (#37598100)

Somehow, somewhere you've just influenced a megacorp's internal crypto process.

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Re:Snowden leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA ... by LinuxBender on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:55AM (#37571812)

This probably works if each person has a cyanide+happy drug pill or a grenade and is willing to sacrifice themselves and the rubber-hoser(s). I think that requires a rare level of devotion. This process must also disable a signalling device to let the others know what's coming.

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