[117204] in Cypherpunks
Re: Black-bag jobs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay Holovacs)
Sat Aug 28 07:13:10 1999
Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19990828065739.013be74c@pop3.idt.net>
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 06:57:39 -0400
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
From: Jay Holovacs <holovacs@idt.net>
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Reply-To: Jay Holovacs <holovacs@idt.net>
At 01:36 PM 8/27/1999 -0700, Mark Allyn wrote:
>
>See the lights flash and hear the loud siran ring!
>
>See John's and Jane's ears pierce!
>
>See John and Jane screach and lose balance and fall on computer
>electrocuting themselves.
>
I think a lot of cpunks are missing the point. The trap doesn't need to do
bodily damage. The trap merely needs to spring in such a way that you, as
well as many others as possible, are aware. Their whole card is secrecy. If
you know your equipment has been compromised, then you can take appropriate
sanitation action.
Remember these are not like ordinary searches, where they look over
everything and search the premises top to bottom. They've got to get in, do
something, then get out *without* being detected, without leaving anything
out of place. That means they don't have time to look around for flash
cards or handhelds that may be secreted elsewhere in the building.
Particularly, if you machine is air-gapped, they will have no foreknowledge
of what software or hardware they may be facing. Preparing a complete set
of boobytrapped software/hardware including corrupted checksum programs to
exactly match those you are using will not likely be possible, at least not
on the first call.
There may even be an advantage to *not* letting on that you have discovered
their visit. Then *you* get to be in control of what they see and hear.
That might be fun...
jay
