Hacker News Reader

Comment by atmosx | Hacker News Reader

What precautions can one take against their sysadmin? I can't think of many places that have stricter security policies than 3-letter agencies, still Snowden got away with a USB stick (man, can't wait to see the movie - I wonder if he really passed the USB stick out using the rubik's cube as in the movie trailer).

The thing is that that you can't do much against someone who has root access for a living.

There are other ways to make a point, especially when you're prepared to get fired. Damaging everyone else is selfish and stupid.

View on HN

Apparently the Rubix cube was Snowden's idea, but didn't actually happen: http://www.indiewire.com/2016/07/snowden-oliver-stone-joseph....

He did, however, hold a Rubix cube as a way for Greenwald and Poitras to identify him in an early meeting. http://www.cnet.com/news/edward-snowden-and-the-rubiks-cube-...!

> The thing is that that you can't do much against someone who has root access for a living.

In banks, significant decisions (like personally authorising multimillion dollar transfer) require two signatures (of two senior officers), so they can't be abused by just one person going rogue.

It can be imagined that we apply the same approach for system administration - "pair-programming" work only, perhaps with proximity cards which detect when one of the admins is actually not at the desk.

That's very theoretical and not analogous because the difference is that sys admins have to do things quickly and under pressure, sometimes at ungodly hours.

In contrast the banker has a more relaxing experience putting his signature on a document. It's stressful enough running root commands sometimes, and I can't imagine how horrible it would be to require a second person to be on-call/pair/double-check/etc. I would have long ago quit the profession, which would be impossible to do anything in. Also systems would take longer to fix, so organizations would be displeased.

Vet your sys admins correctly before hiring, keep an eye on people's stress levels, which in 2016 America apparently doesn't matter to anyone anymore in IT, and don't piss off the sys admin.

This idea was presented at Usenix LISA a few years back.

"Two-Person Control Administration: Preventing Administation Faults through Duplication" by Shaya Potter, Steve Bellovin, and Jason Nieh

https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa-09/two-person-control...

The video isn't there for some reason, but the paper and audio of the presentation are.

Ha, some banks can't even put a single required legal signature on documents properly. See: Robo-signing.

How does that actually work? I'm tempted to think it's down to one person who validates that two signatures are present.

I think the LISA paper does a good job describing an approach.

basically don't allow people to commit changes directly to the underlying system, require the changes from 2 administrators to be captured and then compare them for equivalence. (what equivalence means can be bit for bit equality at the most basic binary level, or perhaps some parsing that can verify equivalence at language level for configurations)

if the changes are equivalent commit them. otherwise point out the differences.

As the paper also discusses, can be used with a single administrator to make the administration auditable, simply capture all changes before they are committed.

Sysadmin is a position of trust, just like a CxO or a finance officer.

Wasn't Snowden's trick to use an inkjet printer to make blank CDRs look like music CDs, bring to work and burn data to them, and then take them home again?

If that's true, it's pretty unbelievable security would allow someone to walk out of an NSA building with a CD, just because the label had an album cover on it.

Are you going to make people get naked and cavity search them? Physically smuggling data seems not that hard in this day and age. MicroSD is so dense, can fit one in my nose.

Is there a medical file somewhere in the history of this amusing piece of knowledge?

Inquiring minds want to know.

No but I will microSD up my nose and take a picture for $10.

> All he needed, said multiple intelligence community sources, was a few thumb drives and the willingness to exploit a gaping hole in an antiquated security system to rummage at will through the NSA’s servers and take 20,000 documents without leaving a trace.

> Finally, Snowden’s physical location worked to his advantage. In a contractor’s office 5,000 miles and six time zones from headquarters, he was free from prying eyes. Much of his workday occurred after the masses at Ft. Meade had already gone home for dinner. Had he been in Maryland, someone who couldn’t audit his activities electronically still might have noticed his use of thumb drives.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/how-snowden-did-it-f8C1100...

I believe you're thinking of Chelsea Manning (Formerly Bradley Manning). If I remember correctly, she took a blank CDRW printed to look like a Lady Gaga album into the secure area to burn files. Even put on headphones to bop her head and mime listening to the music

Ah, thanks for the correction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com