The NSA Furby Documents
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I'm amused at page 8 of the listserve doc, in which someone points out that the ongoing discussion may at some point be released to the public under FOIA and to consider how it might look after showing up on the front page of a news site
Some of the people receiving these furby emails were probably already conceiving of (or actively working on) Stuxnet-like capabilities. Maybe a future FOIA request will reveal several teams quietly emailing up the org chart to absolutely not relax the rule for furbies.
When it comes to actual day to day operations however the deputy director (who is required to be a technically experienced civilian) actually runs things and reports directly to the president. The director isn't actually in the deputy director's chain of command however one of their job roles is to provide advisory support to the director when needed.
Intelligence agencies like the CIA, FBI, et al are non-military. NSA is explicitly a military agency and operates under military authority. The easiest way to tell the difference is that the Director of military agencies is always an active military flag officer. It isn't just a superficial distinction, they operate quite differently.
The issue here seems to have been that in 1999, it was a relative novelty for random consumer devices to have a recording functionality. Hard to imagine now, but there we are.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
[2] https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/index.htm
For added context, the plot of the movie Charlie's Angels from the year 2000, was about stopping an evil guy from using some evil software he developed to ... track people using their cellphones. (ㆆ _ ㆆ)
This makes me think we should have a big revival for that movie.
On the other hand, essentially the same functionality in a more grandiose presentation was prominently featured in Batman Begins (2005) and the explicit message was "not even Batman should be able to do this".
The NSA FOIA form is actually really easy: https://www.nsa.gov/about/contact-us/Submit-a-FOIA-Request/
I simply asked for what I wanted (information about policy memos about 'Furby Alerts' and recording devices at the NSA from late 1998 to early 1999) and submitted the form. About a month later I got a response back from the NSA acknowledging they got my request, and located records that were part of another FOIA request being processed as well, so I'd get those documents as well once released.
And then... yesterday afternoon I got the message "hey what did you get from the DoD?" - bewildered, sending me a photo of the cover (in the full article). They finally delivered, and I hastily scanned my spoils for everyone. :)
I always wanted to see the chain of events that led to the Special Branch turning up on my door step in England.
[0] I FOIA'd this a couple of years back, but I changed address and never got the documents, only a letter to say it was being worked on.
So, look of concern at whomever thought it was a good idea to bring an effectively blackbox electronic device with a microphone into a secure area where those were prohibited. Kudos to whomever raised the issue.
Someone should've done a proof of concept mod (firmware or hardware) of a Trojan Furby to appear (to visual and X-ray inspection) to have the stock hardware, but do something nefarious. Or shown how, say, the stock Furby hardware and firmware turned sound into RF leakage.
It's not so different from the fundamental fear of Alexa/Assistant/microphones that's fairly well diffused now.
Except the Furby actively claimed to learn how to speak based on your speech, and had a built-in feedback loop to make it appear as such.
In retrospect it looks like it more was "shift mix towards English based on how much you've heard" than "add words you heard to your speech patterns"
[^1]: https://www.listenandlearn.org/blog/no-you-cant-teach-your-f...
e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeI...
Is there a portion of my comment that indicated otherwise? I can still edit it for clarity (I thought that wasn't allowed after a reply occurred)
The idea the Furby was "[not] real" persisting after reading the comment, is probably why it seemed like I was saying the voice assistants don't record voice.
A Furby didn't have the capacity to meaningfully spy on you. You could be afraid that it actually does but it didn't. A voice assistant is already, in a sense, actually spying on you and you know that - the manufacturer tells you upfront. These aren't the same kind of fear.
The first comment, 10 comments up, was specifically written to provide that context: the Furby manufacturer was up front about spying.
Working with you, and steel-manning your contributions:
- You're trying to explain a distinction you see between local data processing and remote data processing. i.e. a microphone in a room recording you isn't spying, but a microphone with a data connection is "in a sense, actually spying" on you "meaningfully".
- example: "the Furby didn't relay audio data anywhere other than the Furby, and I'd like to point out the voice assistant does - your comment intends to highlight the Furby listened, but it only listened locally. Mentioning voice assistants and using them in an analogy may give a reader the understanding voice assistants process data locally, like Furbys"
If you’re the NSA and you need your security assured, you’ll absolutely balk at having novel machines with recording equipment and unknown possibilities placed around your office.
Unknowns translate to unknown consequences. For a risk-averse agent, I don’t see a meaningful difference between the unknown consequences of technology you understand and unknown consequences of technology you don’t. Sometimes understanding a technology means the unknown consequences can be bounded more precisely, and you might be okay with those bounds once you have them, but that’s not always true.
Pick it up and carry it? It's not like analog tape recorders are permitted in these places either. All outside recording devices are banned. See the link in the now top-comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39107224
> The Thing was designed by Soviet Russian inventor Leon Theremin,[7] best known for his invention of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.
Ooh, looks like this Furby has learned the English words "new", "nuclear", "facility" and "Ohio"!
/s
Fun fact: If you mess up and need to reset the furby, the procedure is to turn it upside down and hold down the tongue while pulling the tail for ten seconds.
> • Understand large parts of Furby's BLE communication protocol
> • Open a secret debug menu in Furby's LCD eyes
Then I looked at the project logo again and it spooked me out
To look at another example of how dishonest marketing tends to be aimed at kids, Kevin McCallister had a Talkboy in Home Alone 2 that, for purposes of the film, had absolutely insane fidelity when it came to recording a playback. As someone who actually owns one (I collect and repair old electronic toys and computers as a hobby), I can tell you that the film and marketing definitely oversold the devices capabilities. The playback in particular is really quite awful, and this assessment comes from a fully restored device.
Another interesting point in your comment reminds me of a parrot my grandma had when I was young. Not a visit to Grandma's would go by without little me trying to secretly teach it cuss words while nobody else was in the room. What a time!
Wrote added support for it to Ghidra which was a cool learning experience
I guess phone calls would be over a secure line. Are there secure cell phone towers/whatever? I'm curious how gov phones are hardened.
Internet access is via SIPRNet (for classified) or NIPRNet (non-classified, but secured). Phones are through dedicated secure switchboards.
The above is common in the DC area (lots of DoD contractors).
Google and Amazon as the biggest voice assistant makers are, of course, our competitors. But they are competitors to I would say most software companies in some fashion.
Tangental story about how serious the Gov takes OpSec. When I was in Iraq, a Marine in my unit found a roll of red Classified tape. He thought it would be cool to put a strip on his personal laptop, which was confiscated almost immediately. It was very clearly a personal machine, but policy is policy, and he never got that laptop back.
Many years ago, I worked part-time for a small construction cost management contractor. They did some TS work for DoD/State (usually combo projects, where NSA/CIA/Army had a wing of a consulate that State managed).
I did not have a TS (or any other clearance) at the time. One day, I'm tasked with counting the windows and doors in an old hospital in Munich. All the room numbers are Sharpied out in one half of the building.
So, it's pretty obvious "men in black pajamas" are using that wing. I just don't know the room numbers.
Seemed super weird to me that only the numbers were considered secured info. I'm sure there was an explanation.
Years later, a friend-of-a-friend was moving to Munich to do "State Department" work (he was an HVAC contractor with a TS). Off hand, I said "oh, I bet you'll be in wing X, floor Y or Z in the old hospital". He about fell over that somebody in no way associated with his agency would know that. Got a chuckle from me.
Regardless, WikiLeaks already spilled the beans.
Yes and no.
CUI was created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Unclassified_Inform...
The number of SCIFs increased a ton, especially in contractors being allowed to have their own SCSI rooms. The number of clearances also went up a lot, and the cycle time on granting a clearance got much faster. Overall some things got relaxed, other things got stricter, scale increased everywhere.
IMO the biggest factor in the increase is just the ever-increasing DoD budget
Did he test it on any other items?
...and yet, Chelsea Manning walked in with nothing more than a CD player and a self labeled CD-RW and exfiltrated tons of data from a secured facility.
> and he never got that laptop back.
There are several morals to this story.
I think the combination of biometric authentication with a display that is immune to cameras and shoulder-surfing is really powerful. If the device has anti-screenshot protection and automatically logs the user out when removed from their head, there's virtually no way to quickly transfer sensitive documents out of it.
SCIF policies are usually strictly enforced. But, that's the most secure workplace available to civilians and they aren't all that common. They also tend to be located in facilities that are higher-than-normal security. Out here in Reston, all my friends who work in SCIFs are also in fenced/gated complexes with paramilitary guards.
There are secure (but not SCIF) facilities that probably vary more. My father's little 6 person contracting office had a secure room, with a Dod approved design and a safe inside, for contracts that required that level of security (State/DoD facilities in China and Russia required TS clearance, other projects varied).
The people that work in SCIFs also generally take it seriously. TS+poly is worth a big chunk of salary here in DC and not something to risk (and that's ignoring that flaunting those laws is a felony for anybody not named Trump). And most believe in the mission (whatever that happens to be). The work spans everything from military hardware to CIA or NSA operations. And a lot of stuff that probably doesn't really need to be TS, but that's a whole other discussion.
If individuals in this particular demographic are hired but lack self-control and are sexually frustrated, then they're potentially huge liabilities to being recruited by adversaries (MICE). It would seem that before issuing clearances, these factors should be assessed rather than going through a standard clipboard audit by the FBI. And, while holding clearances, positive socialization opportunities should be encouraged if not artfully arranged. Who's ever going to leave a job or be disloyal when your boss or some coworkers expedite the love lives of those who aren't already full in that regard? This implies fostering a layer of socially astute managers. It would be a radical departure for government culture perhaps, but a necessary one to ensure the integrity and stability of a clandestine community. Happiness isn't just recognition or sufficient autonomy, but total happiness beyond work. (Throw away the "work-life balance" cliche that is tired and paid lip-service to.)
The phones and networks are hardened by being their own separate network from public networks. The lines are all buried and protected and utilize hardware-encrypted point to point tunnels to merge with public backbone fiber. I've told an anecdote here many times of working at a facility where AT&T contractors dug too close to a JWICS fiber cable and had an unmarked black SUV show up in minutes to confiscate all of their gear and question them.
Keep in mind the military has been encrypting radio traffic over hostile territory for a century, so they don't even necessarily require the lines themselves to be physically secure as long as the endpoint devices are. Encryption keys are loaded from hardware random number generators that are synced manually on some rotating basis determined by local command or national policy, depending on the intended reach of the comms device. The NSA has something called a key management infrastructure for the wide-area computer net that replaced the legacy system a few years ago that is similar to PKI, but keys are only issued in-person and stored on unnetworked hardware key loaders that are kept in locked arms rooms on military installations (or with deployed units). There is, of course, also a DoD and IC PKI so they can still use develop and use regular web applications and browsers, but it is also more restrictive than regular PKI. Everything requires client certs and mutual TLS and you need to be personally sponsored to get your personal certificates.
It's actually really cool the way the JWICS websites work because your client cert provides an identity that is linked to your sponsoring agency's clearance database and web apps automatically redact content on the server side that you are not cleared to see. It's possible I'm making up memories but I think I've seen at least a few cases where some applications can do this inside of a single page, but typically you get a denial for an entire application if you're not cleared for the highest level data it provides.
I almost hate to say it because it's antithetical to the Internet and Hacker News ethos, but it's a testament to how well networked applications could work with a central authority and no anonymity. You don't need passwords. Accounts are provisioned automatically. SSO is global to the entire network. You only need one identity. But no, your office can't have Alexa.
I don't think it's necessarily a dealbreaker if you consider this: from a purely technical standpoint, there's nothing really stopping anyone from setting up a certificate authority- the only issue is getting service providers to trust it enough to accept those client certs as sufficient identification. I could easily imagine a world where I receive an "official" client cert from a government (which I can use to thoroughly prove my identity if needed) as well as several "pseudonymous" certs from various other CAs that I may use from time to time.
The main difference between CAs would be the kind of attestations they provide for a given certificate holder. For example, I could imagine a CA which (for example) is set up to attest that any holder of a certificate signed by them is a medical doctor, but will not (by policy) divulge any additional information.
Or perhaps a CA which acts as a judge of good character- they may issue pseudonymous or anonymous certs, but provide a way for application owners to complain about the behavior of a user presenting that cert.
I'm sure there are plenty of holes that can be poked in this model but I don't think it'd be completely out of the question?
How so? It would seem fairly trivial considering we have ways of sending data over phone lines as sound for decades.
https://gdmissionsystems.com/products/encryption/secure-voic...
In fact, that's why your 56kbps modem would often fall back to 38.4kbps or 28k8, until the phone company installed a fancy new exchange that demodulated the 56kbps stream and didn't compress it. The 56kbps was also due to sampling limits/bandlimiters, on the same copper line you could also get a fully digital ISDN line that did 64kbps. (And if they remove all the filters and band limits, you can reach DSL speeds.)
There's nothing inherently special about voice-compression compared to any other kind of interference/distortion you can get on an analogue line.
Also, faxes still work?
I'm guessing there are still a few taped up in various Labs at less-used portals.
AI hasn't changed.
Marginally interesting, the source uses standard MOS assembler syntax, but Intel-like xxH notation for hex values, rather than $xx.
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[Edit] According to Wikipedia, actually a Sunplus SPC81A microcontroller using the 6502 instruction set, but lacking the Y register:
> The first Furby model was based around a 6502-style Sunplus SPC81A microcontroller, which had 80 KiB of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM. Its core differed from the original 6502 in the lack of the Y index register. The TSP50C04 chip from Texas Instruments, implementing the linear predictive coding codec, was used for voice synthesis.
in terms of the furby's unmodified hardware capabilities, the microphone was simply used for volume level reaction. reading through the furby's firmware, the mic was used as a peak volume input.
No non-agency bought assets or assets which are not screened completely should never be in their offices. Toy or not.
For the same reason you’d expect them to ban USB sticks within the premises
The NSA is an intelligence agency. The NSA doesn't want people bringing things in that might have the ability to exfiltrate voices or other signals, and in any event the NSA doesn't want random employees talking about it to the press. Where's the element of surprise here? I don't understand why it was even newsworthy in the first place.
As for the intelligence agencies "owning our politicians," LOL. If there were the slightest truth to that, Trump's headstone would read "1946-2016."
You think if IC had their way, Trump would be in theirs? How so, lol?
Haha. So Alexa, Siri and Google are not "security comcerns". Only the "stuffed critters". /s