# “What Is That Box?” — When The NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company



## kro (Jul 21, 2013)

Was just having a jack at

http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/what-is-that-box-when-the-nsa-shows-up-at-your-internet-com

p 

NSA rolling up to the DC with hardware to start monitoring. But what can you do?
I didn't even consider gag orders. I always thought blowing the whistle would be easy.

It'll be more and more common know that its all out in the open I guess.


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## BlackoutIsHere (Jul 21, 2013)

He should have made them pay colo rates


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## jarland (Jul 21, 2013)

It's outrageous. The sad part of it is, the only people who care are the people who lean toward a different political party than the one that holds the seat of president. Everyone trusts "their guy" and the government that sits under him, be the name George or Barry.


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## wdq (Jul 21, 2013)

Through all of this I have been very curious about one thing. That is, how secure is this data monitoring? From my understanding the government has setup a backdoor in some of the major fiber uplinks that feeds data to a big datacenter that archives it all.

What would happen if one of these so called "terrorists" finds a way to get in between this monitoring? What would happen if a malicious person or program sneaks its way into this datacenter and captures a lot of this data?


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## jarland (Jul 21, 2013)

wdq said:


> Through all of this I have been very curious about one thing. That is, how secure is this data monitoring? From my understanding the government has setup a backdoor in some of the major fiber uplinks that feeds data to a big datacenter that archives it all.
> 
> What would happen if one of these so called "terrorists" finds a way to get in between this monitoring? What would happen if a malicious person or program sneaks its way into this datacenter and captures a lot of this data?


That can't be possible. The US government is far more intelligent than anyone in the private sector.

It's worth noting that I was laughing as I typed that.


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## BlackoutIsHere (Jul 21, 2013)

jarland said:


> The US government is far more intelligent than anyone in the private sector.


 
SO TRUE! Oh wait....


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## MannDude (Jul 21, 2013)

Even more interesting, whats preventing local DC staff from 'accidentally' doing something to that server? Not like DC staff haven't absolutely messed up servers before.

The article said the box had no internet connection for remotely managing it. It could have sat there for 9 months powered down and they'd have no clue. Questioned about it by the fed? Just say 'Sorry, we'll leave it running for the next 9 months with a sticky note to DC staff alerting them to not mess with this."


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## jarland (Jul 21, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Even more interesting, whats preventing local DC staff from 'accidentally' doing something to that server? Not like DC staff haven't absolutely messed up servers before.
> 
> The article said the box had no internet connection for remotely managing it. It could have sat there for 9 months powered down. Questioned about it by the fed? Just say 'Sorry, we'll leave it running for the next 9 months with a sticky note to DC staff alerting them to not mess with this."


"Sorry, I sold it to North Korea."


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## MannDude (Jul 21, 2013)

jarland said:


> "Sorry, I sold it to North Korea."


I hope you like the warm Cuban weather.


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## BlackoutIsHere (Jul 21, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Questioned about it by the fed?


 Sorry, I guess a delusional tech confused it with a burrito and microwaved it.


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## peterw (Jul 22, 2013)

Nasty detail:


```
A number of [larger] companies are getting paid for the information. If you go establish a tap on Google’s network, 
they will charge X amount per month. Usually the government pays it.

It isn’t worth it to me to do that kind of wholesale monitoring at any price, and lot of companies disagree with 
that, because it is a financial issue for them. [They say] if it is worth this much profit, let’s go for it.
```


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## kro (Jul 22, 2013)

MannDude said:


> Even more interesting, whats preventing local DC staff from 'accidentally' doing something to that server? Not like DC staff haven't absolutely messed up servers before.
> 
> The article said the box had no internet connection for remotely managing it. It could have sat there for 9 months powered down and they'd have no clue. Questioned about it by the fed? Just say 'Sorry, we'll leave it running for the next 9 months with a sticky note to DC staff alerting them to not mess with this."


Wonder what uptime service they would use ahahahah


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