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Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

>> Who were they giving the laptops to?

Other leaders. Leaders who were coming to visit [UAE] sheiks... “Thanks for coming. Just as a sign of our appreciation, here’s a bunch of stuff.” One of those things happened to be a laptop. We do know that they were turned on sometimes. What happened after that we don’t aways know the answers to.

Got to be some sort of basic rule of being a leader not to take electronics from a foreign government and turn it on - or even do more than accept it to be gracious and then ensure it never goes anywhere near you.

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The laptop part made me laugh :)

Even at work we are not allowed to accept electronics from other companies.

I can’t imagine government officials or security people of a country using a full blown laptop provided by the government officials or security people of other countries!

Sounds like a joke!

Perhapse most would just regift them or something. "Here, young nephew, a laptop I don't need"

Or resell it. Looks like I've finally stumbled on my idea for YCombinator: TroHorse.io, the online marketplace for compromised electronics.

Seems like an excellent counterintelligence opportunity. "Handing us an obvious trap we can flip around and use to deceive you / see what information you're looking for? Thanks."

Though I imagine UAE intelligence would also probably be accounting for that possibility, given it seems like such a natural thing to do in that scenario. Or maybe I'm overestimating both sides, depending on who's receiving the gift.

Given that decades ago, the Russians embedded completely passive microphones inside paintings and have them as gifts, undetectable to most equipment…yeah a full blown laptop should almost be an admission that “hey we’re trying to bug you”.

There was The Thing, a Soviet passive transmitter that was a replica of the Great Seal and gifted to the American embassy in Moscow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

The Thing was designed by Soviet Russian inventor Léon Theremin,[4] best known for his invention of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.

Little known non-fact: Theremin repurposed the unsuccessful theremin banjo edition as the passive transmitter.

Yep this is the thing (no pun intended) that I was thinking of. Unreal.

Dont take a laptop from a stranger!

Nah, then they will try to get the information over other channels. Take the laptop and gift it to someone over craigslist or a similar site. It will take them some time to realize they are not monitoring you, using a persona, but a soccer mom from the suburbs who is really into social media and cooking.

It won't make anything more secure, but it can buy you some time and waste the attackers resources.

Now I'm picturing a series where actually it turns out that the person you sold it to is a major drug dealer or something and it plunges them into a web of international intrigue when the foreign government tries to blackmail them and then they come after you as revenge.

I would watch this movie / tv series

You would think so. Or perhaps they chuck it to their kid as a freebie.

Goodie bags with phones and cameras etc are popular at celebrity events. Perhaps this is how the celebrity nudes get leaked?

Get free phone at party > go home and film a sex tape > featured on internet.

The celebrity nudes (if you're referring to the fappening) were mainly phishing attacks from someone claiming to be icloud.

I believe this episode talks about it: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/34/

Chuck it to their kid? Now you're on their LAN.

I think that is probably the plan ... I doubt the president is going to use it as their work laptop. Best case scenario you get into their home network somehow.

Yeah, this is absolutely insane. I worked briefly for an eastern european government (low level person, def not a senior official) and they even warned against having certain foreign apps on your personal/work mobile device. I don't remember them ever explicitly mentioning not to take and use electronics from a foreign government, probably because they thought it was so obvious it wouldn't be worth mentioning!

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