[Advocacy Advisors] law enforcement buying vulnerabilities on black market & leaving them unreported for surveillance

[James Salsman]

That the FBI has been buying security vulnerability exploits on the black
market for several tens of thousands of dollars each, leaving them
unreported and unpatched for use in surveillance, is by far the worst of
the privacy revelations of past months. Even the worst plausible NSA abuses
from X-KEYSCORE queries specifically targeting Wikipedia editors and
readers don't create the economic demand and exploit libraries opening
everyone using any kind of a personal computer or smartphone up to
blackmail and extortion by organized crime and exposure of all files and
communications to anyone with sufficient ability to pay.

To the extent that the community and Foundation want to mount and effective
response to the abuses exposed by the recent revelations, I am merely
suggesting that we should focus on those which put our users at greatest
risk.


On Tuesday, August 20, 2013, Seb35 wrote:

> I aggree with JP Béland: the computer security obviously affects the
> Wikimedia users, but imho we shouldn’t do more than we can and let the
> responsability of their own security to the users -- although we should
> contribute for a decent security.
>
> For the specific topic you brought about 0-days, I’m not personnaly
> surprised, this type of market was revealed some time ago, see for instance
> <http://www.forbes.com/sites/**andygreenberg/2012/03/23/**
> shopping-for-zero-days-an-**price-list-for-hackers-secret-**
> software-exploits/<http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/23/shopping-for-zero-days-an-price-list-for-hackers-secret-software-exploits/>
> >.
>
> ~ Seb35
>
>
> Le Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:30:09 +0200, JP Béland <lebo.beland at gmail.com> a
> écrit:
>
>> I'm not sure what is your point here. How exactly readers of Wikimedia
>> projects are at risk here because of that story? Are you trying to say it
>> is the Foundation responsibility to protect the readers from the
>> vulnerabilities of their operating systems?
>>
>> JP Béland
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/8/19 James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com>
>>
>>  While the trickling release of Edward Snowden's revelations from bad to
>>> worse in weekly incremental steps has been enormously effective in
>>> swaying
>>> public opinion, it has made formulating a meaningful response very
>>> difficult.
>>>
>>> A few weeks ago we learned that the FBI has been purchasing personal
>>> computer operating system vulnerabilities from gray and black-hat hackers
>>> on the black market, often for several tens of thousands of dollars each,
>>> and leaving them unreported and thereby unpatched for use in future
>>> surveillance operations:
>>> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/**2013/08/01/how-the-fbi-hacks-**
>>> criminal-suspects/<http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/01/how-the-fbi-hacks-criminal-suspects/>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, this means that the vulnerabilities remain available to
>>> the
>>> criminal computer crime underground, affecting everyone including
>>> Foundation project readers and contributors alike.
>>>
>>> Very recently a well respected group of researchers characterized this
>>> state of affairs as "preferable" to the complexity of additional
>>> surveillance network and systems infrastructure:
>>> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/**papers.cfm?abstract_id=2312107<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2312107>
>>>
>>> This is a false dichotomy which directly places Foundation project
>>> readers
>>> and editors at risk, but does so along with virtually everyone else who
>>> uses personal computer or smartphone equipment. However, I think it is an
>>> important aspect to address because none of the other recent
>>> eavesdropping
>>> revelations put people at risk to organized computer crime, blackmail,
>>> and
>>> extortion in the same way.
>>>
>>> Is there any reason to exclude action on a particular issue just because
>>> it
>>> effects everyone else along with our users?
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