Questions tagged [government]
A group of people that governs a community or unit.
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Our fingerprint were leaked from the vulnerable voting system made by our Government, should I avoid using biometric system from now on?
Way back in 2016, our government's Commission on Election database was hacked. I am one of those 55 million people whose personal data was leaked and exposed including our fingerprints.
We are now at ...
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Why encrypted internet connections can't be censored or blocked by a country willing to do it? [duplicate]
Is it possible for a country to restrict any encrypted internet connection to some computer outside of the country, or if absolutely necessary just use a mitm(man-in-the-middle) to guarantee they can ...
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Country code top-level domain (ccTLD) hijacking?
Imagine a country ruled by a non-democratic government with an explicit disregard to local and international laws. The national registry for local domains (Country code top-level domains) falls under ...
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XSS reflected in a parameter via POST (Body)
In the last few days, I received a challenge. This challenge was based on an XSS vulnerability reflected in a website.
When the site makes a certain request via POST, in the body there is a parameter ...
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What strategies can I use to negotiate security terms in vendor contracts for vendors in high geopolitical risk countries?
Please assume the following in responding:
Data being passed to vendor is subject to data protection laws in the USA such as GLBA
Data itself resides within the United States
Switching vendors will ...
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Taking encrypted devices across borders
I am moving to a country where the government can compel you to reveal passwords for your devices at the border, rendering the full disk encryption on my linux laptop useless.
Other than uploading ...
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How does the government install a trojan horse on somebody's mobile phone?
I am reading a news article (in italian) in which the police snooped on the Dean of a university by a trojan horse that the police had installed on his mobile phone.
In particular, the trojan horse ...
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How does a person under surveillance safely download tor or tails in a hostile environment?
One of tor's stated goals is to help individuals such as journalists, activists and whistleblowers protect against surveillance, and in many countries people in those lines of work or activities are ...
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Where can I find a list of all government agencies with CAs in PKI root stores?
Is there a source that monitors popular root stores for CAs controlled by government agencies?
There are several "root stores" that maintain a list of trusted root CAs. These root stores are ...
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Possible data leakage and traceability regarding mobile personal hotspots
The question
Say, one may use a mobile phone's personal hotspot functionality to broadcast a message locally via the ESSID, like "Happy Birthday Lilian" or "Stand with Hong Kong".
Assuming such ...
user235516
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Can government track VPN traffic if it has control on both ISP and website server?
Let's say I access a website called example.com with VPN.
Here's the flow: me → ISP → VPN → example.com
Do typical VPN providers use the same IP address to receive data from ISP and send data to the ...
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What additional privacy impact does using the COVIDsafe app have for people in Australia who are using their phones normally?
I've been trying to encourage some people I know to install and use the COVIDsafe app. Some people have raised privacy concerns as a reason to not install the app (there's other concerns, such as it ...
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Why are many US Department of Defense certificates not trusted by Firefox?
There are a number of US Department of Defense (DoD) websites that I need to access on a regular basis (e.g., https://ataaps.csd.disa.mil/ and https://web.mail.mil) that Firefox issues a Warning: ...
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Untraceable software development
My goal is to develop a piece of software which is illegal in my country. Obviously I don't want anyone to be able to trace the code back to me or prove that I developed it after deployment.
What ...
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How can you stay safe from spyware used by governments? [closed]
It is a fact that antivirus software can't detect all the spyware/viruses/malware that exist. And when they get detected, new ones are created.
An example is the pegasus spyware for ios created by ...
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How an ISP can detect if someone having a WhatsApp call or video call? without detecting or blocking the rest of the app [duplicate]
I am asking the questions because of the latest news: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50095448
I wonder how the ISP can detect the use of call and video calls, without detecting or ...
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How were nuclear launch codes authenticated?
What is the history of authenticating nuclear launch codes? Were hashes used for verification? How would a nuclear launch base be able to verify that the code is correct, and how were new codes ...
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Was the Raspberry Pi-related NASA JPL network breach primarily caused by the failure to keep an updated list of authorized devices?
The question What information was stolen from JPL during the Raspberry Pi hack? refers to an event in recent news (e.g. Engadget's A rogue Raspberry Pi helped hackers access NASA JPL systems) and ...
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Is there a "no-spy, no-backdoors standard" for telecom hardware manufacturing?
The BBC News article Huawei says willing to sign 'no-spy' agreements reports the following:
Huawei has also said it is independent from the Chinese government, but some countries have blocked it from ...
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What is an Albert sensor?
Recent news articles have started to talk about government networks deploying "Albert sensors" (e.g., this article). What is an Albert sensor? And how effective is it?
Going purely from context, it ...
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Let's Encrypt is based in the US and subject to US laws
Let's Encrypt is based in the United States and subject to the laws of the United States, including National Security Letters. What are the implications for foreign sites that use Let's Encrypt?
Here'...
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Is there a way to make sure my government does not swap out SSL certificates?
I was recently wondering whether there exists a way to make sure my government is not swapping out SSL certificates in order to intercept the traffic.
I know almost all browsers are complaining in ...
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Is strategic cyber-warfare feasible today?
Cyber attacks that target a nation's infrastructure are a documented fact and as such a danger that political and military leadership across the world needs to worry about and act proactively. These ...
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How do US government agencies open their email attachments?
I suppose the FBI receives email with attachments, like any other government agency: documents, resumes/CVs, etc. I also suppose they are very careful not to get infected, more than the average user, ...
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Server protection measures from authorities
I am on a project which is illegal in my nation but is not illegal anywhere in the world. In order not to get a 100yr sentence I should be prepared for seizures and forensics.
I am running a server ...
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Understanding ANSI/AAMVA encoded data (pdf417 data matrix) on back of NYS ID card
Background
I am developing an Android application for work which runs on a Zebra TC51 bar code scanner, which I have been playing around with.. I scanned my NYS drivers license and inspected the ...
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How significant is the invalid SSL cert at aoprals.state.gov?
For up to 4 weeks, the US Department of State's Office of Allowances web site has been using a security certificate whose chain of trust only goes to the State Dept's own CA, with no root CA. Browsers ...
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Is there some type of x-ray that can see through HSM or shielded integrated circuit?
I know that security-oriented products can easily protect their contents from even the most sensitive commercial x-rays, which can see objects at about 0.5µm. But let's put cost limits aside (or ...
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International communications after nuclear fallout [closed]
Is there a (nuclear fallout) scenario imaginable where international communications are thrown back to the stone age?
Meaning:
Satellites are EMP'd out of the sky
Transoceanic cables are cut
...
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What would 'best practice' look like in protecting critical infrastructure against state actor cyber attack?
I was reading this article from the New York Times, which details the alarming degree to which the IT systems running critical civic infrastructure have allegedly been compromised by Russian cyber ...
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How do people in China get past the Great Firewall in practice?
I know that China prevents access to many resources/content on the Internet via a "great firewall".
While there are multiple ways of getting past/through this firewall - some are more involved and ...
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Are there technical reasons why state actors may be more able of carrying out malware cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, than individuals?
The US and the UK have publicly accused the Russian military of orchestrating attacks using the NotPetya malware:
Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said: "The UK government judges ...
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Possible setup for a direct democracy voting system to prevent fraud
My Government is designing a direct democratic voting system and would like the system to be open sourced and unable to be corrupted by individuals and other stakeholders.
Some requirements as of now:...
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Risks and challenges of an online voting system. Any recent updates? [closed]
I'm studying and preparing a document for implementing an online voting system (internet based system) which can be used for governmental voting purposes. I would like to ask for your advise and ...
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What Does "State Sponsored" Cyber Attacks Mean? [duplicate]
I am hearing on the news this morning that a government of country "A" found tens of thousands of instances of "state sponsored attacks" against it's information systems.
What is meant by "state ...
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Why not use a national ID as username for every website?
Everyday we visit many websites, including our university's website, maybe Google, Yahoo, etc. But on each of them, we have a unique username, while each person in a country can have a "national code" ...
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Is it possible for a company such as Apple to encrypt users' data such that they cannot trace identities? [closed]
More precisely: is it possible for a company such as Apple to encrypt users' data such that neither they nor anyone else can trace identities while still being able to monetize demographic data?
If ...
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Can I have the same military grade security standards with Fedora than Red Hat? [closed]
Can I have the same security Government Standards with Fedora than with RedHat?
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What countries are at highest risk of espionage on personal devices? [closed]
When co-workers travel internationally for business there seems to be risk of bringing a regular work laptop to some countries: the risk is that the government might try to spy on the dta stored on ...
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Differences in classified data handling
Is the difference in the strength of the cryptographic algorithms the only difference between handling TOP SECRET and SECRET information? Say in NSA Suite B, the following is recommended:
- SECRET: ...
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Are there any modern governments which use a proprietary encryption algorithm?
Germany used Enigma during WWII. The Soviet Union used GOST during the cold war. USA used to use DES. Now that encryption algorithms are believed best as open source, are there any modern governments ...
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Is encryption key length limitations by governments norm?
Today my internet service provide gave me a customer agreement form to fill in. I found following line in it:
Permission limit for Encryption is 40 bit key per length in RSA algorithms, If customer ...
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Can encryption really be "overcome" (by government) and how?
I just came across this article. I am confused as to how, save MITM attacks or similar nefarious tactics, anyone can "overcome" PKI, which is founded on the substrate of asymmetric encryption, meaning ...
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How do government organizations eavesdrop on its citizens? [closed]
I know many governments perform this act for various reasons from state security to political gains. I heard more of them are performing SSL strip attacks and are listening to https communications as ...
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A government agency sent our website admin an email that our website had been defaced
We got an official email saying that our website had been hacked. They cited the URL to use to see the new suspicious file that had been dropped in our web root folder (s.htm). Just some text about a "...
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Why would an organization like the DoD prefer to use its own Root Certificate(s)?
While browsing some US military and governmental sites, I noticed their HTTPS connection to rely on DoD Root Certificates. As most of us know, web browsers are pre-loaded with a default set of root ...
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Mutually Assured Destruction and Cyber Warfare [closed]
During the Cold War, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union pursued a policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD). I am wondering if it is safe to assume that organizations such as the National ...
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Can a Government block a specific app traffic, even with a VPN running?
A few minutes ago, there was a terror attack on a nightclub in Istanbul/Turkey(Thoughts and prayers to the victims and families), usually, the Government limits most of the communications apps traffic ...
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How can intelligence services be so sure that Russia is the culprit? [closed]
Recently,
US and non-US media has been publishing many articles regarding Russia being involved in the "Podesta-hack" or even accusing Putin of being directly responsible.
For example:
"Putin ...
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What would be the effects of a limited Russian/US cyber conflict be on cyber-security professionals? [closed]
In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that is airing Friday on Morning Edition, Obama said, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our ...
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