Revealed: The Internet's Biggest Security Hole

Revealed: The Internet's Biggest Security Hole

blog.wired.com

"It's a huge issue. It's at least as big an issue as the DNS issue, if not bigger," said Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, noted computer security expert and former member of the L0pht hacking group, who testified to Congress in 1998 that he could bring down the internet in 30 minutes using a similar BGP attack, and disclosed privately to government agents how BGP could also be exploited to eavesdrop. "I went around screaming my head about this about ten or twelve years ago.... We described this to intelligence agencies and to the National Security Council, in detail."

(visit the link for the full news article)

Isn't it nice to see a major exploit in a widely used (and pretty much required) protocol remain unfixed for 12+ years?...

This brought to mind a recent news story about a possible "i-9/11" attack and an "i-Patriot Act" as a result.

That story can be seen at the following link and summarized here...

"Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that "There’s going to be an i-9/11 event" which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet."

www.blacklistednews.com...

I'm wondering how many of you feel the same in that the two of these could be directly related as a means of facilitating such an attack and ultimately ushering in (forcefully) this new Internet version and control.




blog.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The reason it didn't get patched was because it wasn't a "Security Hole" These things are found all the time by the general public but are pretty much designed that way for a reason. Not too long ago,(I'll have to dig up an article), there was a news story on slashdot.org about a "Security Hole" in many of the consumer grade routers out there that would allow full access to a person's network.

hehe, caught off guard, a loophole a decade old?

goes to show that 99,99999999% don't even try to break or hack stuff, doesn't it? spreading the info might actually alleviate the threat of internet shutdown a bit, but not by much, because once it's down, where are you going to go?

ask your dumbfounded neighbor what he thinks about censorship, so he can turn you in as an 'unstable element'? the web is a supplemental service, it can't substitute reality, iow, if they want to remove it from existence (likely imho, just for completeness' sake) i'd wager they will first tr to physically control us.

still, the signs are there for people to see.

Everyone, even hackers and terrorists, use the internet and accounts for a large percentage of their work, information, discussion etc. Even with the knowledge, no one would dare shut down the internet. It would be like cutting off the air for the entire planet - it just doesn't serve a purpose for anyone.

If this DOES happen, and they blame it on some hacker, I will definitely know that it was some sort of plot to stop the only source of free information we have left. No glorified TV for me thanks.

reply to post by metro


I don't know, I can't see the Internet being able to continue expanding at its current rate without without some sort of streamline control being imposed on it (and us).

The rate at which information is being shared now since the Internet's inception is incredible. I can't help but think that for a lot of reasons, this "really, really, really, good thing" is going to come to a screeching halt.

I've searched all of slashdot and can't seem to find the article I was referring to. I remember seeing it not too long ago (less than a year). I was an article about someone who found backdoors in almost every router that was available on the market and provided a way to close the backdoor. I don't know if the post was removed from slashdot (it seems that way to me) I remember I was going to post the info here on ATS when I got home from work after reading it, but I guess it slipped my mind. Anyway, here is an article from two years ago:

Insecure by Design

CALEA (Computer Assistance Law Enforcement) is quietly in the background of current news again, because the FBI is pushing congress to mandate that all future routing equipment manufactured will include back doors for law enforcement. Like in CALEA mandates for telephone switching equipment, such back doors require no warrant to activate, and hence can be secretly enabled at will. Some vendors have already eagerly embraced CALEA inspired backdoors to internet routing equipment in anticipation of future intercept mandates, thereby already compromising the integrity and security their current and future customers. This approach of using backdoors on Internet connected systems, even more so than the original CALEA mandates for wiretapping backdoors in telephone switching centers, is a danger to both our infrastructure and our society.

Quite interesting if you ask me. So much for privacy..