Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

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Not that I have any specific evidence this is the case, but it wouldnt surprise me to later learn this is an attack on encryption by the NSA.

AT&T in San Francisco is ground 0 for some of their bulk collection.

    After The Times disclosed the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program in December 2005, plaintiffs began trying to sue AT&T and the N.S.A. In a 2006 lawsuit, a retired AT&T technician named Mark Klein claimed that three years earlier, he had seen a secret room in a company building in San Francisco where the N.S.A. had installed equipment. [1]

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-ns...

Thank you for voicing this despite the downvotes. I don't think it's the most likely scenario, but it hurts to see how harshly people on HN reject speculation about other paths of possibility than the most obvious, especially considering AT&T's history.

Never forget: "NSA documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as 'highly collaborative', while another lauded the company’s 'extreme willingness to help'."

I would think that if that room did/still exists they would most likely use passive optical taps, not interfere with transit traffic. Optical taps simply mirror a fiber optic signal one way to a tap aggregation switch/packet capture devices. They would also be mostly undetectable, you will just see a reduced light level.

I'm pointing out that flipping bits could be a form of cryptographic attack (potentially against an implementation bug, not necessarily against the math/algo) .

For example flipping a bit possibly could cause a checksum failure and retransmit.

I'm not saying something _is_ happening, mostly just musing on the possibilities.

LOL

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