How the NSA Compromises Systems (Firefox and Tor Too)

A fascinating read.

How the NSA Attacks Tor/Firefox Users With QUANTUM and FOXACID

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The NSA creates "fingerprints" that detect HTTP requests from the Tor network to particular servers. These fingerprints are loaded into NSA database systems like XKeyscore, a bespoke collection and analysis tool that NSA boasts allows its analysts to see "almost everything" a target does on the Internet.

Using powerful data analysis tools with codenames such as Turbulence, Turmoil and Tumult, the NSA automatically sifts through the enormous amount of Internet traffic that it sees, looking for Tor connections.

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Tor is a well-designed and robust anonymity tool, and successfully attacking it is difficult. The NSA attacks we found individually target Tor users by exploiting vulnerabilities in their Firefox browsers, and not the Tor application directly.

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To trick targets into visiting a FoxAcid server, the NSA relies on its secret partnerships with US telecoms companies. As part of the Turmoil system, the NSA places secret servers, codenamed Quantum, at key places on the Internet backbone. This placement ensures that they can react faster than other websites can. By exploiting that speed difference, these servers can impersonate a visited website to the target before the legitimate website can respond, thereby tricking the target's browser to visit a Foxacid server.

See also:

• Silk Road Author Arrested Due to Bad Operational Security
• Why It's Important to Publish the NSA Programs
• Developments in Microphone Technology
• NSA Storing Internet Data, Social Networking Data, on Pretty Much Everybody.

Surveillance is a serious issue, but as an immediate matter, I worry more about the incompetent system designs for ObamaCare (and the amorphous access controls by poorly-vetted facilitators) compromising my personal info to hackers.