> It's just a demo instance, but, these front ends are barely revealed to the public
This genuinely doesn't look any different from the control panels of commercial infostealers and RATs sold on Russian hacking forums. Those usually sell for between $200 and $20,000 depending on features and pricing model (one-time vs. ongoing subscription).
These spyware companies hype themselves up, but they're really not any different from Ivan's RAT-as-a-Service, besides having extra exploits to burn and wealthier customers.
walletdrainer 1 hours ago [-]
As it turns out, you just can’t make malware for targets like these much better.
It's too bad that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" has become "we can download a full copy of all of your files at any time, or continually, if we feel like it, even if we don't suspect you of a crime".
Looks like image was removed and maybe only a demo?
efilife 50 minutes ago [-]
Can somebody please explain to an idiot (me) how is this possible for this to keep going? I thought that the world has decided that spyware is illegal and can't be produced. Is this company related to israeli government? If not, why is it allowed to function?
muvlon 16 minutes ago [-]
The world has not decided that spyware can't be produced. Mostly, the powers that be treat it like weapons of war.
That is, companies can make and sell it as long as they only sell it to governments and only the ones that we like.
general1465 13 minutes ago [-]
What is allowed to companies is not allowed to private citizens. If you want to systematically break copyright laws or steal data from people, do it as Joe's LLC. Joe would go to prison for copyright infringement or hacking other people, Joe's LLC can do as it please.
moralestapia 2 hours ago [-]
Awesome.
Moxie's "unbreakable" end-to-end communication protocol.
thmsths 2 hours ago [-]
The message can't be intercepted in transit, since we are talking about spyware, I assume they get it from the device, hard to defend against that if they have access to your process' memory space.
lmm 45 minutes ago [-]
Certainly very hard to defend against that when the messenger you're using won't let you use a device you control.
Hamuko 2 hours ago [-]
Surprising that end-to-end encryption doesn't really matter when you get into one of the ends.
ASalazarMX 2 hours ago [-]
Even if you had to input your private key every time you wanted to read or send a message, having malware in your phone voids practically any form of encryption, because it has to be decrypted eventually to be used.
akimbostrawman 2 hours ago [-]
not at all. there is no encryption that can save you when one of the legitimate participants is somehow compromised. doesn't even need to be a sophisticated device compromise, literal shoulder surfing does that too.
moralestapia 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
coldtea 49 minutes ago [-]
The parent said "it's surprising". It's not surprising.
Talanes 27 minutes ago [-]
You're correct in the literal sense that they did say those words, but the entire comment clearly demonstrated a lack of surprise that reveals the opening words to be intended ironically.
moralestapia 2 hours ago [-]
>The message can't be intercepted in transit
Lol, so like ... all encryption schemes since the 70s?
sowbug 2 hours ago [-]
They do have stronger schemes, which are called hash functions.
Before being pedantic at least check out the url in that comment to get the basics going.
sowbug 40 minutes ago [-]
This entire thread should be annihilated, but since you mentioned being pedantic...
You're correct that a pure encryption algorithm doesn't use hashing. But real-world encryption systems will include an HMAC to detect whether messages were altered in transit. HMACs do use hash functions.
AlotOfReading 44 minutes ago [-]
A good hash function is surjective. Encryption is bijective. They're very different things.
Thank you for that link. Your original comment implied that Signal's threat model should have included an attacker-controlled end. The only way to do that is to make decryption impossible by anyone, including the intended recipient. A labyrinthine way to do that would be to substitute the symmetric-encryption algorithm with a hash algorithm, which of course destroys the plaintext, but does accomplish the goal of obfuscating it in transit, at rest, and forever.
Apologies for being dense. Could you spell out how you went from Paragon Solutions to the Signal Protocol?
ale42 35 minutes ago [-]
I guess they've seen a Signal icon in the photo. Of course the interception is done locally on the phone (so it's basically "man-in-the-client" rather than a "man-in-the-middle"), therefore the Signal protocol is not really worth being mentioned as it has nothing to do with local interception.
Insanity 26 minutes ago [-]
Yea I knew which Moxie it was but that didn’t help at all haha
amai 1 hours ago [-]
I read Pentagon instead of Paragon.
Rendered at 22:47:12 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
> It's just a demo instance, but, these front ends are barely revealed to the public
This genuinely doesn't look any different from the control panels of commercial infostealers and RATs sold on Russian hacking forums. Those usually sell for between $200 and $20,000 depending on features and pricing model (one-time vs. ongoing subscription).
These spyware companies hype themselves up, but they're really not any different from Ivan's RAT-as-a-Service, besides having extra exploits to burn and wealthier customers.
That is, companies can make and sell it as long as they only sell it to governments and only the ones that we like.
Moxie's "unbreakable" end-to-end communication protocol.
Lol, so like ... all encryption schemes since the 70s?
Hashing is not encrypting.
You can learn more about the topic here, https://www.okta.com/identity-101/hashing-vs-encryption/
Load this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard
Ctrl-F "hash". No mention of it.
Before being pedantic at least check out the url in that comment to get the basics going.
You're correct that a pure encryption algorithm doesn't use hashing. But real-world encryption systems will include an HMAC to detect whether messages were altered in transit. HMACs do use hash functions.
> Hashing is not encrypting.
> You can learn more about the topic here, https://www.okta.com/identity-101/hashing-vs-encryption/
Thank you for that link. Your original comment implied that Signal's threat model should have included an attacker-controlled end. The only way to do that is to make decryption impossible by anyone, including the intended recipient. A labyrinthine way to do that would be to substitute the symmetric-encryption algorithm with a hash algorithm, which of course destroys the plaintext, but does accomplish the goal of obfuscating it in transit, at rest, and forever.
See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike