Magic Lantern

Over at wikipedia people are having a major dispute over Magic Lantern and neutrality. From what I understand, it is designed to record keystrokes, which the FBI will wade through to find cryptographic keys to encrypted documents, correct?

 

Is it the same magic lantern as here from 8 years ago? Of course, it still needs to be installed on the subject's computer:

Magic Lantern
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/11/27/av_vendors_split_over_fbi/

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rich

 

Wow 8 years ago? That must outdated.

...Oops, I didn't do my homework.

 

If that was 8 years ago just think of what they probably have now....especially since George W Putin has been in power.

 

There are references in several court cases involving the FBI that indicated that they simply use off the shelf programs such as Spector and nothing specially prepared for the FBI. In the infamous Nicky Scarfo trial which was a high profile case involving encryption and keyloggers, it came out in the course of the trial that the FBI had simply used Spector Pro to get Scarfo's PGP password.

 

Well, maybe it's just propaganda.

 

hmn? Thats odd can you please give a link to your source? because I read that they used Magic Lantern in that case because it was designed to record the users keys as well as their passwords, Spector Pro can only record passwords not keys...

I highly doubt they would use a majority of off the shelf software for their investigation tools, caspian is right, their technology is advancing and they probably have an array of new tools that are undetected by our security tools!

 

A wise man wrote this at once upon a time long ago.

 

Ya, and once upon a time I believed everything I read on the internet, LOL

you actually think their going to share their secrets with you? wouldn't be much of a secret if everybody knew about it...

Its all another plot, just like fascism, it was designed to fool you! You have your right to believe anything you want, but the truth remains the same, Classified remains Classified!

 

Is the information solid enough for an encyclopedia? (ML)

 

Quote:
HERE'S the reality. Court order given, they break into your house and install a GHOSTKEY device ... it looks like an adaptor that plugs in between the keyboard plug and your motherboard (how often do people look at the BACK of their machine? It's a hardware device, is NOT connected to the operating system, does NOT have files or device drivers, does NOT hook the operating system.


Or more probably something like this:

http://www.keelog.com/hardware_keyboard_logger.html

 

Yeah you wouldn't see that. I hope it is not available to just anyone.

 

Here's something interesting. I saw Homeland Security guy Chertoff (sp?) on TV talking about checking laptops at the airport. He said if a laptop was encrypted and the guy refused to open it, they would just take the laptop and decrypt it. He said it in a very confident nonchalant way that definitely gave me the impression that they and decrypt anything......no problem.

 

He must have been talking about the borders. There are no questions about encryption at airports.

 

I read that they could randomly search laptops at airports and copy the contents. If they see an encrypted file then they ask you to open it.

But anyway, do you ever worry about encrypting your entire hard drive? I mean what if something goes wrong? Do you feel comfortable and believe that your computer is in a stable working state.....and will remain that way?

 

Caspian, I don't worry a bit about full drive encryption on my laptop. It's performed flawlessly with no performance hit that I can tell. I also use Paragon Drive Backup PE (free!) and I imaged the drive decrypted and then put the image on an external drive that is encrypted. I have restored the image to make sure all works as advertised and it puts it back to the exact same state as it was before. I tried several imaging programs before finding one that works for me. It's perfect. So, what I am saying is that even if the encryption somehow crapped out on me (no reason it should), it is no worse than any other drive going out. I would just put another drive in, slap the image on and away I go.

 

Are all AV vendors required to "whitelist" ML?

 

No. In fact, several vendors stated openly they would never do so. Also, one or two of the big vendors said they would NOT flag it. You might Google it. I don't know which said what. It was several years ago when this was all talked about. Of course, now we know there really is no "Magic Lantern." But your question is valid as something else could come along with a different name and the question would still be kosher.

 

I'll bet most (if not all) AV and AS companies in the US would have it whitelisted. I think I remember EMSI (makes A²) saying they wouldn't, but who really knows.

 

It is! Though it takes a little skill to install it, and a lot longer to do than the simple Hardware keylogger Controler mentioned.

 

That was not something I read on the internet. Personal e-mail to me

 

You're absolutely right, Controler. Looking through court documents and publically available information regarding this topic, it is clear there is no "standard use" of any one method that is used by Law Enforcement, not even within the FBI itself. It's also very clear the so-called "Magic Lantern" was never deployed and was seen within the FBI as a dismal failure. Why remake the wheel?

 

The statement I made was not based solely upon "Magic Lantern", I was implying their is and have been other method's of spying techniques/software, "Magic Lantern" was just the tip of their IceBurg, maby just a ploy to deceive people into believing what they wanted them to?
It wouldn't be considered Classified if it were public, It wouldn't be Public if it were classified, Another pawn in their little game of fascism and Brainwashing techniques? they gave you what they wanted you to hear and think, their obviously not going to share their secrets with you, classified cases will always remain classified and will not be released to the public, at least not until they come up with something better, and times change!

2 Words

GAG ORDER

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order

Classified

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information