Snowden Documentation: Your Motherboard Is Spying On You

[ThinkWithPortals]

Sure... Do you have a lot of water at disposal?

We shall survive on cactus moisture, my friend.

[WereCat]

We shall survive on cactus moisture, my friend.

I don't know man.. Cactus may spy on us.

[as96]

inb4 we discover that microwaves oven are just a giant microphone and that the toaster has a gps tracker in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/s

[Starelementpoke]

-SNIP-

I'd want to know if I was being spied on rather than doing everything in a bliss.

[ThinkWithPortals]

I don't know man.. Cactus may spy on us.

You're right. We shall drink our own urine.

[Swndlr]

Tbh wouldnt even be mad if ISIS targeted the NSA headquarters

/rekt

[Arty]

Tbh wouldnt even be mad if ISIS targeted the NSA headquarters

/rekt

Don't Blame the little guys at NSA, they are being told what to do, go after the leaders in charge of the decisions =, 

[Swndlr]

Don't Blame the little guys at NSA, they are being told what to do, go after the leaders in charge of the decisions =, 

Yeh ik

Sucks to be an American at times

[Ren]

Do not misunderstand me, I certainly appreciate Snowden trying to save internet privacy, but I'd rather have lived in the dark, thinking I was safe (even though it doesn't affect me much)

Imagine if a company could predict what to sell you through information without metadata on the user? Perhaps first person shooters or action flicks are really popular in the german market now, and americans are starting to focus on RPGs and comedy movies. They can know exactly what and where you want to and WILL spend your excess money. That iphone 6s seems a little too expensive to europeans based on information gathered? Microsoft releases a slightly underpowered Windows 10 Lumia that's priced perfectly with a beautiful display and enough memory to house all the pictures people seem to be lacking by not owning a 6s.

What if your government, or ALL governments, knew what their citizens were thinking? Sounds cool right? You're spending all your time distracting yourself from your shitty wage job and stress of making bills on time. That could mean the government is going to reduce income taxes, right? No, now they know what the average person can or can't spend on certain products, so they could potentially implement legislation and relieve taxes on corporations that charge a bit too much on their products as a direct result of the average american's income. It would lower the price for the consumer, probably, yeah. Companies like thise idea because it broadens their profit margin, so they keep business going in the U.S. and don't transfer work or money overseas. It keeps the economy sustained in this area rather than boosting the economy of the other area. They can reword bills that already exist so that you think they've ended but are just reimplemented in the most current way possible. SOPA is a good example of this. The Patriot Act is another good example of this. TPP is another.

In the end it boils down to: Do you want to be able to think for yourself, not have someone prying at what you think or know? Or do you want a world where everyone well above you knows exactly how to methodically break down your rights, take just enough money to keep you living and not question your government, or what they can or cannot get away with based on what the average seems to think and/or know about a particular topic?

Imagine a meta-level "War on Iraq" but with everything. That's what happens when you give information away. Hard to understand the purpose of, likely built on bullshit, impossible for citizens to control.

[Dabombinable]

So it infects the BIOS similar to this:

 

Except without your computer permanently dying.

[Castdeath97]

Are you just trolling or are you going to actually make a point about exactly what Snowden has done wrong in your opinion?

There is no need to ask him.

 

Must be one of those :"He helped the terrorist and we have nothing to hide" kind of reply.

 

People are so deluded nowadays.

[Maslofski]

Right then, off to the moon in that case.

 

right on

[zacRupnow]

Fuck the NSA and all equivalents.

[Trik'Stari]

Snowden can go rot to hell.

Enjoy living under a totalitarianism regime. After all, you have nothing to hide......yet.

[Master Disaster]

If this is true then Microsoft are in on it seeing as Secure Boot is literally designed to prevent your boatloader from being modified by the OS.

I'm sorry but this is scaremongering nonsensical horse shit.

[Godlygamer23]

Ofcourse they can, the BIOS is a piece of software.

Technically it's firmware.

[Godlygamer23]

The only time a BIOS can spy on you is if it's connected to the Internet. And you need drivers for that for normal BIOSes which run in an OS environment. With the newer ones(which are UEFI) that have access to the Internet, I can see this being more likely, but even so, the UEFI still needs to have the components in order for them to do it.

[FakezZ]

At this point, i don't even care.

 

I've become apathetic to 2 things.

 

Cancer-causing foods and the NSA spying on me.

Welp, it seems like they won

[NumLock21]

What is the next thing to spy on me? My toothbrush?

 

 

your fridge

[SSL]

Why do people always say "I don't care if the government knows my fetish".

 

I figured the discourse was well beyond this point: apparently I was wrong.

 

The real concern here is that highly intrusive/bulk data collection will be abused. In the context of abuse, all bets are off. Even if you think you have done nothing that can be used against you, those interested in abusing such data will make something that you have done usable against you.

 

There are other concerns of course, many of them more realistic, but I hope that we can get past the "why should I care" argument.

[nj4ck]

There is no need to ask him.

 

Must be one of those :"He helped the terrorist and we have nothing to hide" kind of reply.

 

People are so deluded nowadays.

The funny part is that those people tend to be the same ones that claim to be literalists when it comes to the constitution... unless someone mentions the word "terrorist", in which case they immediately crap their pants and forget all about the 4th amendment.

[pablopg69]

This is great reading material guys

[patrickjp93]

This stinks to the high heavens. "Even the most tech savvy won't know". Really? Because if its sending data somewhere, my router has to be able to see it. If its able to cache EVERYTHING i've done offline, and send it the moment i am online, it has to be stored somewhere. Can't be memory, because that would be flushed upon power loss. Can't be in the bios, not enough space. Meaning it has to be stored on my disk somewhere, which would mean i would be able to detect it.

This looks like scare tactics to me. I need more proof before I believe this.

It gets stored in firmware for all devices on and attached to your motherboard apparently.

[TopDollar]

It does not matter how you sugar coat it, Snowden is no less guilty of espionage than any other individual caught stealing/disclosing controlled or classified information. With a security clearance you have an underlying duty to safeguard information that unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause damage, serious, or exceptionally grave damage to the national security. His actions are no different than if he sold/gave the information to another country's government vice releasing it to journalists. If that had happened, I doubt we would be having this discussion now.

 

Take for example, the recent sentencing of an individual who was caught trying to provide sensitive information about the new Ford Class aircraft carrier to the Egyptian government. Same act of espionage, just a different receiver of the information. Yet somehow Snowden is painted in a completely different light by some whereas I don't think the same people would think it was ok for the other individual to provide sensitive information to the Egyptians.

 

As far as "GODSURGE" is concerned: The existence of different tools and cyber-weapons used by intelligence agencies does not instantly mean they are being used widespread on individuals.

[Crowes]

+1 paranoia. True or not, I'm still a little shaken.

 

Right, I'm packing up and moving to the middle of the desert with no technology or communication devices. Anyone wanna tag along?

 

Drones.

 

/heretic