CIA and FBI can neither confirm nor deny they know about TAILS operating system

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/cia-and-fbi-can-neither-confirm-nor

by raybb • 4 years ago

39 3 4 years ago

lunduke.substack.com

knaik942• 4 years ago

This was an amusing read. Unsurprisingly, you can learn some basic things about how three letter agencies operate from job postings. There was also an interesting issue that happened in 2013, a WaPo article listed some names of various programs and people subsequently were able to find additional names of programs by searching Linkedin profiles [1]. The NSA has a Github full of open-sourced tools, besides Ghrida [2]. And the NSA also has a youtube channel [3]. I came across a short 15 minute film about a cyber training exercise the NSA held in 2018. Seemed like a more involved CTF event, with a bring your own device policy, with most people running windows and using a VM when necessary and some people using linux, at least one person using Ubuntu.

It's funny that the response to a FOIA sounds so general and opaque that it makes the existence of these topics feel like matters of national security. Maybe asking about about this advisory [4] could help hit Ubuntu. Searching the National Cryptologic Museum for IBM related things could help hit some ancient DOS.

1. https://www.techdirt.com/2013/06/18/discovering-names-secret...

2. https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQcAx00RzXQ

4. https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/press-releases/nsa-a...

5. https://nsa.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/comp3321.pdf

RonMarken• 4 years ago

Considering past events such as this.[1] I think it is more likely that the F.B.I are aware of TAILS and its limitations against certain adversaries and choose not to comment.

[1] https://gizmodo.com/report-facebook-helped-the-fbi-exploit-v...

knaik942• 4 years ago

Every single major intelligence organization will send people to Def Con. They'd probably won't advertise who they work for, but most years there's a "spot the fed" contest where if someone is informally confirmed by those near them, they get a free t-shirt. I'd assume every agency knows every mainstream tool. I find the contrast between an NSA presentation at Def Con 26 and the CIA not having any documents about Gentoo Linux pretty funny. It's surprising to me because ChromeOS is built on Gentoo.

CIA and FBI can neither confirm nor deny they know about TAILS operating system

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