U.S. Government Hires Company To Hack Into Video Game Consoles 121
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Navy is paying a company six figures to hack into used video game consoles and extract sensitive information. The tasks to be completed are for both offline and online data. The organization says it will only use the technology on consoles belonging to nations overseas, because the law doesn't allow it to be used on any 'U.S. persons.'" Should be a doddle.
This sounds a little paranoid (Score:1)
I was thinking a late April Fools joke. (Score:4, Insightful)
What could THE NAVY possibly get from used game consoles?
And why go that route to get it?
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I was thinking a late April Fools joke. (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry for the delay, but military bureaucracy means it takes a while to get all the forms approved before posting AF jokes.
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In-game chat used to co-ordinate freedom-fighter manouvres?
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That's the sort of thing that poses a serious problem, since those voice chat services aren't necessarily as easy to eavesdrop on as say... anything on AT&T. Lots of terrorists are relatively young men, including for example the french guy who just drove around murdering people, presumably a number of the wealthier of that lot have game consoles.
Another option is just general data harvesting on potential spy, or turnable asset. You want to know who they talk to, maybe inject yourself into their friend
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It's also assuming people are always the same. A 17 year old with an xbox can be a 19 year old terrorist with a 2 year old xbox. People change after all.
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Certain countries like Iran have been buying PS3s to use for thee computational power. Maybe this has something to do with that?
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steganography? (Score:1)
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Turn it off by the socket. No more crazy paranoia!
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I have the reflex of always turning my webcams towards the wall when I don't use them. I just hate the idea that someone COULD be looking at me through my own webcams. I guess I'm a bit paranoid...
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I have the reflex of always turning my webcams towards the wall when I don't use them. I just hate the idea that someone COULD be looking at me through my own webcams. I guess I'm a bit paranoid...
I'm not paranoid and I'm not stupid enough to leave my webcams plugged into a computer or gaming console when not being used.
Re:steganography? (Score:4, Funny)
Woder what they are looking for.. Mostly wonder what can be found thats not already on facebook.
They're looking for clues to beat the Ironman Challenge in WoW.
Sensitive information? (Score:5, Funny)
They're looking for the high scores of Taliban insurgents or what?
Re:Sensitive information? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah that's what I'm wondering. What useful information could be gleaned from a game console? Do they think that the terrorists are using Xbox Live and PSN to communicate now or what? How would that be any more beneficial than the plethora of pre-paid cell phones out there that cost next to nothing and can be tossed regularly?
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Maybe terrorists like to relax with their buddies with a game every now and then? They're people too, and I wouldn't be surprised if some aren't all that security conscious. Contact networks of such people would be useful, but I would have thought the DoD could get such data from MS/Sony with a warrant/subpoena. Hard to know what could be useful on the console itself.
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They are looking for patterns of gaming behaviour. Psychopaths let the camouflage drop when they are gaming and, well, play like psychopaths.
Of course US intelligence will not spy on US citizens, that what Australians and Pine Gap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap [wikipedia.org] http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=pine+gap&hl=en&ll=-23.798833,133.737559&spn=0.006047,0.012392&sll=-25.324167,135.74707&sspn=3.058333,6.344604&hnear=Pine+Gap&t=h&z=17 [google.com.au] are for.
Re:Sensitive information? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not necessarily, you can buy XBL time cards for cash, also...that's what I do, I refuse to give them my CC#. Ditto with PSN (you've got to be insane to trust them with your CC#, after all that bullshit last year [consumerist.com].
As long as there is an alternative to using my CC#, I'm going to choose that. When they get rid of that ability, I stop spending money with them. It wouldn't really bother me much, anyway, to be honest; 99% of my gaming is on PC these days.
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Yeah that's what I'm wondering. What useful information could be gleaned from a game console? Do they think that the terrorists are using Xbox Live and PSN to communicate now or what?
It's been reported that that's exactly what's going on [thesun.co.uk].
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Yeah, that article reeks of FUD. I can't imagine a terrorist would sit here and fuck around with an Xbox or PS3 when they can spend $10 American and get a piece of shit prepaid dumbphone to communicate with their terrorist friends.
I think stupid people just see terrorists around every corner. They're the "commies" of the 21st century; convenient bogeymen to sell more papers and drive more hits to your ads.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
That is all.
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yes it is the red scare of the 21st century. there are people who grew up in that time that don't like living without that. there are companies that base them selves on what this entails on a national level too.
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Here's an example that is admittedly a bit of a stretch.
The military busts up a terrorist cell and finds a PS3. Turns out the PS3 was owned by a highly-wanted terrorist previously as evidenced by credit card/bank info still in the console (if it exists as such). They now have a definitive link from that cell to another person of interest.
I dunno, it's either something like that, or maybe they just want to look on the friends list?
"Oh yeah, look at this friends list. It's like a who's who of the scum of the
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A lot of people are asking, "What's the point? Why are they wasting their time doing this?" It makes me think that many people, if they saw a smartphone, a PC, and a game console, would take the PC and smartphone and perform data forensics on them, while leaving the game console behind. If that's the case, then it would certainly make sense to use the game console for one's crimes, essentially leaving the PC and smartphone as honeypots.
In reality, I'm sure that the military and intelligence agencies are
My console - MY PROPERTY (Score:2)
and that includes the data on it.
Besides, I wonder how they'll get the data if the thing isn't networked, eh?
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You wish. Take a very careful look at the "Patriot Act" and its unconstitutional permissions for warrant free monitoring of US citizens. Then take a look at the history of the NSA and other international "security" agencies monitoring citizens, and trading data with foreign "security agencies" to gain the security data on people they're not legally allowed to monitor themselves.
The data's potentially useful. Credit card data, passwords, and information on when someone is home is very useful for tracking any
Re:They can hack my original game boy and SNES. (Score:5, Funny)
Information (Score:1)
Some of the information provided in the article:
“This project involves furnishing video game systems, both new and used, and creating prototype rigs for capturing data from the video game systems.”
-- U.S. Navy listing
"“R & D effort for the development and delivery of computer forensic tools for analyzing network traffic and stored data created during the use of video game systems.”
-- Federal Business Opportunites website
Some links from the article:
Statement of Work [DOC] [navy.mil]
Contracti [navy.mil]
Oh good.. spying only on those overseas people (Score:2)
As someone living 'overseas' I am not exactly relieved to hear that.
On the other hand I don't own a gaming console.
But why do get the strong feeling they meant to say 'after PCs now consoles too'? Am I reading too much between the lines here?
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But why do get the strong feeling they meant to say 'after PCs now consoles too'? Am I reading too much between the lines here?
Quite the opposite: you're reading too little.
They're interested in game consoles because they already have the capability to hack into PCs, just like every other script kiddie on this planet.
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not your property any more (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I support the Navy (?? what? why Navy?) doing this stuff, or paying so much, but there is possible precedent. It's been pretty clear for a long time that anything you throw out in the trash is no longer your possession. So, before you toss that old game console, take a hammer to the memory bits.
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I can't remember enough details to find any links supporting it though, so y
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anything you throw out in the trash is no longer your possession.
Hah, as if those things "were" your property in the first place, considering all the DRM installed.
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practically, sony and ms would both kick you out for having a hacked(modded) console.
it's just money thrown out of the window - or inside the window of this r&d company.
and for what? those few consoles that have eyetoys and kinects attached?
Uh, yeah... (Score:4, Insightful)
As if that ever stopped them before. **rolls eyes**
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That's like someone claiming that politicians lie and you saying "WHERE'S THE HARD PROOF!?"
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Alternatively, I'm wondering if this violates the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA.
Even if this hacking would otherwise be legal, the anti-circumvention clause does not allow for such a defense.
More gratuitous behaviour (Score:1, Offtopic)
More government spending, more invasion of privacy, more unauthorised behaviour, more deficit and debt, more government jobs (paid for with debt of-course), more government contracts, more money printing - inflation.
Less real economic activity, less freedoms, less real value in money.
Only one good thing hopefully will come out of this: fewer people supporting government actions, less desire to have this type of government, getting closer to the point when this becomes completely unbearable (of-course this w
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The REAL drain on the system is GOVERNMENT.
Are you referring to the current US government, or are you one of those people who think "all governments are evil, therefore we should get rid of the idea of government" and we should change to some variation of Anarchy (Anarcho-capitalism, Anarcho-syndicalism, etc)?
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Are you implying that some form of government is immune to corruption?
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no, but that doesn't mean you give up on the idea of government entirely, If you don't have a government-based system, you will end up with a corporate-based system. At least the government PRETENDS to be beholden to the voters, corporations don't even pretend, they are already quite used to telling their customers what to buy, how to dress, and how to think. There isn't even a FRAMEWORK for enforcing corporate responsibility, at least with politicians you can recall them and have a new election.
What do you
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Perpetuum mobile is fiction. Government workers do not actually pay income taxes and judging by your comment you understand that.
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I'm fairly confident the GP was making a joke, but I think you were serious. Government workers do pay income taxes. Unless of course, soldiers are not govenment workers, because they pay federal income taxes, and, depending on the state, state income taxes as well.
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I am very serious, I already talked about it at length here [slashdot.org] and many people didn't understand this simple concept then either - government workers do not pay income taxes.
To understand this you have to ask yourself a question: what is income in the first place? I argue [slashdot.org] income taxes are illegal and collected illegally, but that's not the point here.
The point is that under the definition of what income taxes are: they are taxes upon revenue or pre-tax profit (and thus you can read my argument about illegalit
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Maybe I'm obtuse, but I'm reading what you've written, and I think you're just playing word games.
From your definition of what income takes are, you say they or on revenue OR pre-tax profit. Revenue is the money coming in, right? That's incoming money. Income. And money that is left over after subtracting the expenses from this income, is called profit. I would argue that people can have profit, and it would be called savings. This savings would be the money left over that they didn't yet spend.
I agre
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Government workers do not add any value into the system, whatever they are doing, they are spending value that was added to it by people who actually produced something that market in fact was willing to spend real savings on (or real investment).
Government workers can only spend what they have taken away, and they are spending it not within normal market, they are insensitive to market signals on everything that deals with prices, thus they cannot by definition argue that they are adding value, they are al
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I must disagree. Roads, schools, and other public works provide value to society, and are paid for by the government, who has workers at least overseeing these projects. Just because the value isn't monetary doesn't mean it has no value.
Payment for labour may not be profit directly, but it can be if the worker values their labor at a rate lower than what they are being paid. However, it is still an incoming fund to the worker. If you get money from any source, it is income. Is there a difference betwee
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As to you not caring about income taxes - most likely you don't pay any, or you pay very little, and just like the case is with the government workers, majority of people in USA are not paying income taxes (50% pay only 3% of all income taxes, those are bottom earners), so to them income taxes are a direct subsidy from the top earners, so obviously they want the taxes to go up on top earners, because bottom earners don't pay them anyway!
So it's a direct subsidy, a direct wealth transfer and it is part of th
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I didn't say I don't care about income tax, but that I don't have a problem with the concept. The current implementation leaves a bit to be desired, but the day everything is perfect is a day I doubt I'll live to see.
It's true, I don't pay much in income tax, but then again, I don't make much, either, so that's expected.
I like the idea of graduated income tax brackets, because it enables those who do make more to contribute more, but without burdening them as much. They have more money total, so they can
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This:
but that I don't have a problem with the concept
and this:
It's true, I don't pay much in income tax, but then again, I don't make much, either, so that's expected.
- my point exactly.
It's a direct subsidy from some people to majority, that's why those who pay disproportionate amounts into that try their best to minimise it and now just move their investments and work out of the country.
I like the idea of graduated income tax brackets, because it enables those who do make more to contribute more, but without burdening them as much.
- you are disregarding the fact that with a flat income tax it would be actually at least FAIR while those with greater income would still contribute much more, because for example 20% of a million is 200,000, while 20% of 100,000 is 20,000.
So it is completely wrong and
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If we had this discussion about a week ago, I would have agreed with a flat income tax across the board for everyone. However, a flat income tax is more unfair to the lower income earners than the graduated income tax is to the higher income earners. Even with the higher tax, they still have more money to live on than those in the lower tax. I get that life isn't fair and all, but those who are earning more are doing so because of what the government is providing. Yes, they would be paying more (amount-
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If we had this discussion about a week ago, I would have agreed with a flat income tax across the board for everyone.
- so what changed in a week, you didn't mention?
My point is of-course that it is unfair to hit people with higher rates, this allows a gradual increase of rates, so that the majority of voters don't face the same rate of taxation so from their perspective increase of marginal rates is a direct subsidy - immoral, unconstitutional and just bad for economics from every perspective:
1. It diminishes available amount of capital investment.
2. It grows government.
However, a flat income tax is more unfair to the lower income earners than the graduated income tax is to the higher income earners.
- no, it's not 'unfa
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A week ago, I had a discussion with a few people about income tax. Prior to that, I hadn't given it much thought, just that a flat tax would be the easiest and simplest way to do it. I started to like their point, so I was looking into it. I think I could be for small government without the constitution, but I don't think I want to. A flat tax would treat everyone equal, which would be necessary under the constitution.
I agree that the progressive tax is a money grab by the government, but I didn't think
don't spend too much time on him... (Score:2)
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but I didn't think of limiting the goverment's power by limiting its income. I guess I figured it would just print more as it needed.
- US government is not allowed to issue bills of credit, which is currency. It's only allowed to coin money by the Constitution. The Fed was set up as a supposedly independent body, with a dual mandate of 'price stability' and 'maximum employment', it was set up after 100 years of prices falling! What is its record on both of those things? Well, when it was introduced it was specifically prohibited from buying gov't Treasury bills. Shortly after the Congress lifted that prohibition and introduced so called
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This is my concern.... GEOHOT was criminalized and attacked using government resources based on his so-called violations of EULAs.... And now government directed entities do similar things but are not comparably criminalized....
No. Getting sick of the corporations.gov concept here... the abuse of citizens is so blatant and the preference fr corporations is absurd.
More Roman_mir nonsense (Score:3)
Let's take a look at some examples you just provided:
more invasion of privacy,
This makes no sense in relation to the article. The summary plainly states that the Navy is purchasing used c
Incidentally... (Score:2)
It makes me wonder if the law(s) that probably do make almost any sort of spying legal also enable otherwise illegal tools, or whether the MPAA just isn't going to be suing the Navy as a pragmatic matter?
the hacking is the easy bit (Score:2)
The constitution protects people, not citizens. (Score:1)
If you need a warrant for citizens, you also need a warrant for non-citizens, no matter where they are. The jurisdiction of the constitution constrains American government employees no matter where they are in the Universe.
Sounds like the Navy is a bit bored (Score:2)
maybe we should scale their budget back, since they have 6 figures and all that manpower to waste all while running a TV ad ever fucking hour, slash it to 25% and give them a real challenge
cock minded morons
But I thought that was impossible (Score:3)
Microsoft says Xbox hacking claims are ‘unlikely’. [bgr.com]
"A report emerged last week from a security researcher claiming Microsoft’s Xbox lacked important security features that might protect owners who sell used consoles from having personal information stolen. Ashley Podhradsky of Drexel University claimed to have purchased a used Xbox console and used readily available hacking tools to recover the prior owner’s credit card number and other personal information. “Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information, but they don’t do a great job of protecting the user’s data,” Podhradsky said at the time.
Microsoft has since responded to the researcher’s claims, stating that they are likely inaccurate."
Whew! (Score:2)
"the law doesn't allow it to be used on any 'U.S. persons.'"
Well that's a load off my mind. It's nice to know all we US persons have to worry about is being flagged as a terrorist and executed with no due process in a drone strike, but at least they won't hack our game consoles.
company resells tech to other countries (Score:2)
they will then spy on americans.
hey, its the free market!
Blowback (Score:2)
I always find it an odd amusement, us US'ers being so hell-bent on interfering with everyone's business--but our laws say you can't do it to us. Then we complain when some guy we don't like in a country we don't like does the same, as if our displeasure at being treated the way we treat others is acceptable.
Then again, like hell they aren't going to do it to us Yanks if they can find loopholes.
why not just get MS, sony, and Nintendo to do it? (Score:2)
why not just get MS, sony, and Nintendo to do it? they can use there own code and make it easier and maybe even hide it better.
act of war (Score:2)
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Espionage is something that international law will never allow and that every country does, has always done and will always do.
If you're thinking "Oh, those nasty Americans" you are incredibly naive. The Chinese, Israelis, British, Russians and everybody else who thinks they might be able to get your information are already in there, or trying like hell to make it so.
That is, if they happen to think that you know anything worth stealing. For most people, this means that they're not being watched, because
Beowulf cluster fuck? (Score:1)
Hacking the USAF playstation cluster?
x-box camera (Score:1)