What a 10 yr old has in common with the NSA....

Apparently they can both gain easy access to (and control of?) your computer...

Seriously, I overheard my daughter's little friend talking about the great joke she played on her big sisters by making them think their computer was haunted...

How? Using nothing more than a hand-me-down i-pod (like an i-phone, except it doesn't make or receive calls), this little girl was able to download a free app (from The App Store), which allowed her to 'control' the mouse on her sisters' computer from the next room..

She changed their wallpaper and pulled up random files, having a jolly old time until she couldn't resist giving the joke away, at which point her Dad made her delete the app.

Of course none of the kids realized the implications here...

The child had full access to someone else's computer. Anything that could be done with the click of a mouse was accessible to her. She could have viewed anything she wanted in their files, downloaded anything from the internet, even created 'fake' files for some sinister, sisterly incrimination...

Now, am I wrong or could such an app be used by the general public to access computers that are not 'related' to them?


Mods, please move this if it's in the wrong place...

a reply to: lostgirl

Wireless means easier eavesdropping, yes.

We're hard line. WI-FI is off.

a reply to: lostgirl

Computer Mouse Controlling Apps Use Your iPhone As A Mouse (And More)

Apparently they work across a Wireless Network ...

It works very smoothly and has a very quick response time on my 802.11n network, and is still very usable on 802.11b/g.

I would suppose that a NORMAL-USER would need to install some software.

PROFESSION-USERS ... Who the Heck knows. My GUT says their software already comes with Windows or a Windows-Update.

It kind of reminds me of the "gotomypc.com". My brother is savvy with the computers. He set mine up to where he had full access to my computer anywhere in the world through that site. Of course i trust him but the implications are endless. a reply to: lostgirl

Well a huge distinction must be made here between different types of access. There is physical access and remote access. Physical access means doing what the girl did, basically being on that computer, in which case she ran the code which was designed for this task. Almost anyone can do this. But remote access is a different story. Sure, the same thing can be done remotely, but it is much more difficult and fewer people can accomplish it.

Just about anything that can be done at a computer can be done remotely. You can remotely give access to your computer to another machine by utilizing software, but we are talking about "hacking" here, used in the sense of blackhat stuff. To take over a machine the goal is to get superuser access, or in Windows I suppose it would be admin access. I find that most people don't understand what hacking is in its most common form.

People think of others plugging away at a keyboard or whatever, not really realizing what is going on. The most common way to get a remote machine to do anything is to find an exploit. The true hackers are those who write their own scripts to exploit a bug in a piece of software. There are various types of exploits that do different things. The scary part is that people who do not know what they are doing can still accomplish fairly sophisticated hacks because they can just download a script someone else has placed online, then identify their target and exploit a bug in the system. A bug could be a piece of software that hasn't been patched. This is why security updates are important.

Now of course it is more complicated than all that, but that is the gist. But one still doesn't have to worry about the majority of ten year olds doing something like this. They don't have to worry about most people. The ones I would worry about are those finding exploits and exploiting them. They are the rare breed, while the so called script-kiddies are just piggybacking off the work of others. And how do they get information? They read it on online boards. So there are good guys protecting systems by reading this information and attempting to fix exploits or alert the developer to the exploits. The sooner they get fixed the better.

But someone who is exploiting a piece of software but doesn't publish the fact, and if nobody else has found it, they can be quite dangerous. It all just depends on the system. Hacking wireless networks can work in the same way as well, although it depends on how sophisticated it is. When I was in the air force we used to crack wireless connections for fun. Relatively simple. One time I took my grandfather to Houston to see a specialist, and I waited in the car and realized the entire wireless network for the hospital had a freaking default password. I alerted them to this fact and hopefully they changed it, because this was not just the free wifi for the people. This was administration stuff. How I was the first one to see that is beyond me.

You try the simplest things first, like default passwords for certain routers or whatever. The weakest link in any security is usually the person making the password. It is relatively simple to brute-force a password if it is a dictionary word. Social engineering has also been used quite often to gain remote access. Although I imagine that with new privacy laws and whatnot this is a thing of the past.

When I was still in high school I remember seeing a url that was at the bottom of the homework we always got. So of course I had to see what that was all about. And I am not proud of this, and I didn't need to do this to pass or anything, but I used a bit of social engineering to get the login information for the site, and had all the answers, for homework and tests. A more corrupt individual could have used such information to make money, lol, but I just left it at that. I just like seeing what I can accomplish sometimes. I've wised up a lot since then however.

I guess my point is that there are knowledgeable people out there on both sides, and while you have criminals out there doing bad things, there are always good guys attempting to stay one step ahead of them. Now as far as the government's spying goes, it is virtually impossible to combat in all its forms. Especially if they have begun installing chips in hardware, like routers. No amount of security will protect you from spying if they have covertly placed something like that. And I don't know enough about cell phone protection to know if one can keep calls from being monitored. I would imagine that the NSA has some technology that is far ahead of consumer technology when it comes to cracking encryption and whatnot as well. Supercomputers likely abound within the NSA.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

I wouldn't provide a very high PEDESTAL for a Friend-or-Foe that has a ... Builtin-Back-Door.

As for the Encryption, after the Snowden-Releases, some TYPES were intentionally ... Weakened ( or backdoored ). This revelation caused the Linux-Community to go BALLISTIC and have since made some patches.

Yes, I do believe that the NSA ( and other World-SPIEs ) have "Backdoor" knowledges.

I see all of this as no different when the U.S. built the 1st Atomic Bomb THEN a few years later Russia had one AND a few more years Other-Countries had them.

CHITZ sort of ... Flows-Downhill.

-
OPINION: I don't believe that the NSA is the only one using these ... ALONE ... ( and therefore, Cyber-Warfare ).

SUSPICION: We know about the Snowden-Leaks ... BUT ... How MANY-LEAKS? do we NOT KNOW ABOUT ???
.

a reply to: FarleyWayne

What the girl was using was probably an app similar to team viewer.

It is a program I use daily to control my desktop from my laptop. You can even(by the other person giving you an id and password that is randomly generated) log on to someone else's computer from anywhere you have internet. i.e. I can access and control my grandmas computer remotely so i do not have to go over there to work on it every 3 days. (seriously, most baby boomers just don't get computers.)

The app is free, and you can use it as much as you want for free, as long as it is for personal use and not for a business(although licensing for commercial use is available).

This is nothing like what the NSA uses, however. It is more akin to what an IT guy would use at a place of business, and you have to have set the software up on the computer in person.

a reply to: lostgirl

Yes Microsoft put it into windows long ago. It don't matter if your pc is hardwired or wifi, there are back doors on all windows computers. One choice you can have, is remote assistance, where you "let" someone help you with a problem.
Let that sink in... that is an easy way to hack, because it's built into windows, so the hack is already in place.
Linux is way better for security. The last kernel kinda changed a LOT of things tho.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

I remember in high school, I used the software the IT for the school uses to gain control of my teachers computer during class. She didn't know it was me until the kid next to me gave it away by laughing extremely hard.

i wasn't doing anything too bad, just changing slides, and moving the mouse pointer to aggravate her. Luckily, she was fond of me(in a favorite type of way, not the other way.... although she wasn't bad looking ;-)) so I got off with a slap on the wrist.

ITT older people and those not familiar with technology make a fuss about something as simple as a remote desktop connection. Heaven forbid teamviewer, skype, and the windows BUILT IN remote desktop connector program. Not a big deal folks, joe schmo on the street is not going to gain control to your ATS/Facebook pc via their ipod

a reply to: lostgirl

The answer is no. This is not new technology, the ability to do this has been around forever. It's big in the corporate world, call tech support and they log in and take control of your computer to diagnose it. Put a password on your wifi ... if you don't you are asking for trouble.

just accept the fact that if big brother want something that is on any device you have, they will have a way to get it.

Remember when i worked at a local uni in the late 1990's using VNC to cause some fun with people and also we had to use it to catch them viewing pr0n in the student labs

originally posted by: GeekOfTheWeek
Yes Microsoft put it into windows long ago. It don't matter if your pc is hardwired or wifi, there are back doors on all windows computers. One choice you can have, is remote assistance, where you "let" someone help you with a problem.
Let that sink in... that is an easy way to hack, because it's built into windows, so the hack is already in place.
Linux is way better for security. The last kernel kinda changed a LOT of things tho.

Technically it's not a "back door" which is something that's not widely known, and this is widely known, but yes if you don't have an immediate need for it, it's a good idea to disable it:

Why Should I Disable Remote Assistance or Remote Desktop?

Simple. Either could be used or exploited by an attacker to gain remote access to your system, allowing them to run programs on your computer or use your computer to distribute spam or attack other computers.

If you have it disabled and then call tech support they can always have you re-enable it if you want them to look at your computer.

The NSA would use more of a true "back-door" which could be some kind of spyware or malware that's not widely known, and it may not even be detected by an antivirus program either by design or if NSA pressured the AV company to leave it out of their virus/malware database.

So many great posts, informational as well as fun! Thank you all for participating!