Re:What worries me most about the NSA fibre issue...
by marshray on Monday June 17, 2013 @12:43PM
(#5894195)
You are right to worry.
> what if they were to perform covert MiTM attacks?
Then you would be pwned.
However, active MitM attacks are generally targeted. They can only get away with so many for so long before they are detected. Their scope can be quite large however. The entire country of Iran was MitM'd for some weeks before a single Chrome user reported seeing a cert error in Gmail. The Flamer malware MitM'd unattended systems apparently for years.
So if I were the target of the NSA, I'd expect them to get me with drive-by malware. A bit of malware is much easier to replace than backbone fiber access if the capability is 'burned'.
However, there are an unlimited number of other attackers out there in the world, most with 'catch as catch can' capabilities. That public Wifi or hotel internet could easily be hostile and the attacker may not have much to lose.
> what if they were to perform covert MiTM attacks?
Then you would be pwned.
However, active MitM attacks are generally targeted. They can only get away with so many for so long before they are detected. Their scope can be quite large however. The entire country of Iran was MitM'd for some weeks before a single Chrome user reported seeing a cert error in Gmail. The Flamer malware MitM'd unattended systems apparently for years.
So if I were the target of the NSA, I'd expect them to get me with drive-by malware. A bit of malware is much easier to replace than backbone fiber access if the capability is 'burned'.
However, there are an unlimited number of other attackers out there in the world, most with 'catch as catch can' capabilities. That public Wifi or hotel internet could easily be hostile and the attacker may not have much to lose.