Re: NSA able to compromise Cisco, Juniper, Huawei switches

[shawn wilson <ag4ve.us () gmail com>]

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 8:05 AM, Ray Soucy <rps () maine edu> wrote:

> This whole backdoor business is a very, very, dangerous game.

While I agree with this (and the issues brought up with NSA's NIST
approved PRNG that RSA used). If I were in their shoes, I would have
been collecting every bit of data I could (ie, I can't fault them on
PRISM and have some serious issues with most of these disclosures). I
don't believe that anyone has said "this isn't a big deal". I think
even the NSA has said the exact opposite (for different reasons).

I have no oppinion at this point of whether they put a back door in
routers - I think it's possible. Maybe even with multiple moving parts
(submit some HDL to a manufacturer for their own project and allow
them to use it for others under an NDA, knowing that the chip could be
used in hardware and knowing that something would hit that part of the
chip) and no one on either end has to know a back door has been
inserted.

It's also possible that ANT stuff is propaganda (though the ideas in
there are pretty cool and should be implemented under open source).