With reverse-engineering [1] (reverse engineering) based on Snowden's leaks, they created its eavesdropping devices NSA
[1] reverse-engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering
RADIO hackers, using reverse engineering, made some of the wireless spy devices used by the US National Security Agency (NSA). They relied on leaked documents from Edward Snowden, and researchers have created simple but effective tools that can be attached to parts of a computer to collect personal information in a number of intrusive ways.
Ο κατάλογος της NSA “Advanced Technology Network”[1] ήταν ένα μόνο μέρος από την χιονοστιβάδα των διαβαθμισμένων εγγράφων που διέρρευσαν από τον Snowden, τον πρώην εργαζόμενο ανάδοχης εταιρίας στην υπηρεσία. Ο κατάλογος περιέχει μια σειρά από συσκευές και φωτογραφίες τους, που οι πράκτορες μπορούν να χρησιμοποιήσουν για να κατασκοπεύσουν τον υπολογιστή ή το τηλέφωνο ενός στόχου (“target”, έτσι ονομάζει η NSA ένα άτομο που “ξεχωρίζουν” για παρακολούθηση από τα στοιχεία που συλλέγουν με την μαζική παρακολούθηση). Οι τεχνολογίες αυτές περιλαμβάνουν falseυς σταθμούς βάσης για την υποκλοπή κλήσεων και την παρακολούθηση κινητών τηλεφώνων και ασύρματων συσκευών σε USB sticks που μεταδίδουν το content a computer.
[1] https://www.eff.org/document/20131230-appelbaum-nsa-ant-catalog
see below. also: "NSA ANT catalog" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
But this list also lists a series of mysterious implantable devices on a computer, called "retro reflectors", and they feature a range of different masked skills, including even recording the sounds generated by the keyboard keys during typing and harvest images that appear on the screen.
Because no one outside the NSA and its collaborators knows how these reflectors work, security engineers cannot defend against their use (because the way modeς τους είναι άγνωστος, δεν μπορούν να φτιάξουν αντίμετρα ή ασπίδες προστασίας για αυτούς). Τώρα, μια ομάδα ερευνητών ασφαλείας με επικεφαλής τον Michael Ossmann[2] της Great Scott Gadgets[3] στο Evergreen του Κολοράντο, έχουν καταλάβει όχι μόνο πώς λειτουργούν αυτές οι συσκευές, αλλά κατάφεραν και να τις αναδημιουργήσουν.
[2] https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-22/dc-22-speakers.html#Ossmann
[3] https://greatscottgadgets.com/
Ossmann specializes in software-defined radio (SDR) software [4], an emerging field of technology in which wireless devices are created with software and not by manufacturing them from traditional materials such as modulators and oscillators. Instead of these circuits, an SDR uses a digital signal processing chip to allow a programmer to determine the waveform of a radio signal, the frequency used, and its power level. It works like a sound card on a computer, but instead of playing sounds or processing incoming sound, it creates and receives radio signals. An SDR can be switched to any radio band immediately, AM, FM, GSM and Bluetooth.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio
"The SDR allows us to build a radio system of any type we want too quickly so we can investigate the safety of a wireless network in any form of radio waves and if it works," says Ossmann.
A SDR designed and built by Ossmann and called HackRF [5] was the core part of the NSA reflector-replication-construction project. Such systems come in two parts - a plantable "reflector" bug and a remote SDR-based receiver.
[5] https://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/
Such a reflector, which the NSA calls Ragemaster, can be attached to a computer screen cable to intercept the images displayed on the screen. Another, Surlyspawn, snaps into the keyboard cable and collects the keystrokes. After many tests and mistakes, Ossmann found that these bugs can be extremely simple devices - something more than a tiny transistor and a 2 centimeter mesh antenna.
Receiving information from devices is the scope of the SDR. Ossmann found that the use of radio waves to emit a high-power radio signal causes a reflector to make it start transmitting data wirelessly from keypads to a remote intruder. The whole setup can be likened to a large-scale RFID-chip system [6]. Since the signals coming back from the reflectors are noisy and often scattered across different bands, the flexibility of the SDR is easy to use, says Robin Heydon of Cambridge Silicon Radio in the United Kingdom. "SDRs are flexible, programmable and can co-ordinate everything," he says.
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
Ossmann will present his work in August at the Defcon hacking conference[7] in Las Vegas. And other groups will be there to reveal ways to usurp the NSA's spying technology. Joshua Datko of Cryptotronix[8] in Fort Collins, Colorado, will reveal his version of a deviceof the NSA, which it has developed, with malware that can be reinstalled even after it is “discovered” by anti-virus software. It works by attaching a bug to an exposed part of a computer's wiring system - called the I2C bus - on the back of the machine. "This means you can attack someone's computer without even opening their box," says Ossmann.
[7] https://www.defcon.org/
[8] http://cryptotronix.com/
Having understood how NSA bugs work, Ossmann says hackers can now turn their attention to our defense against them - and have launched a website to gather this knowledge, called NSAPlayset.org [9] . "By showing how these devices take advantage of the weaknesses of our systems, it means we can make our systems safer in the future," he says.
[9] http://www.nsaplayset.org/
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From: NewScientist, “Hackers reverse-engineer NSA's leaked bugging devices”, 18 June 2014 by Paul Marks”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229744.000-hackers-reverseengineer-nsas-leaked-bugging-devices.html#.U6KAYJR_uHs
