how does "big brother" know what you're doing

[racky]

a question for the infotech guys. so i'm in an area where pr0n isn't allowed anywhere in the country. i'm at a base that has wireless internet. it's run by the base and not by the host nation. it's rumored a person actually got in trouble for having skype sex with his wife. how is "big brother" able to know that they were skype sexing and how are they able to find out who the guy was being that the internet was wireless? i asked around and some think it's a FUD scare tactic, but others say they can see everything you do on you're computer monitor. makes me wonder if it's safe to check my bank account using the wireless connection.

[bigmike82]

It's somewhere in between.

Unless there's some sort of program installed on the machine that records the activities (or there's a camera set up watching the screen), they can not see what's on the monitor.

That said...given a good packet analysis tool, they can pretty much reproduce *any* non-encrypted traffic that leaves your machine. Emails, VoIP calls, video streams...it's all fair game. Encrypting the traffic does make it more difficult to spoof, but if they're in charge of the network, it's possible for them to MITM (man-in-the-middle) that encrypted session, especially if it's only SSL (used mainly for encrypting websites).

[gn3hz3ku1*]

use a proxy

[racky]

will using a proxy make me anonymous? won't that make me more vulnerable? foxyproxy with firefox ftw?

[Barbarossa]

They read your brain waves. Oh man, I hope they didn't hear that.
(lalalalala Pelosi lalalalalalla)

[gn3hz3ku1*]

will using a proxy make me anonymous? won't that make me more vulnerable? foxyproxy with firefox ftw?

end of the day it matters who big bro is.. if he has three letters. you are SOL either way...

[Decoligny]

If it is the Military that is running the server that makes the hard connection to the World Wide Interweb, they sure can see everything going on at any particular computer.

I have seen the Comm Group people with a wall of monitors with randomly chosen computer screens showing exactly what was being done on each computer.

There is no way they can live monitor every single computer at the same time, but they have the capability to mirror every single thing going on on all the computers.

[DarkHorse]

When I was in SWA, a guy got busted for looking at pr0n on one of the PC's at our worksite. I don't know how they found out, but they did.

He went from E4 to E2 overnight.

[stormy_clothing]

Trying to cover your tracks can be viewed in a very negative way. service in and out of any military or government facility is heavily monitored for all the reasons that it needs to be. Even if they don't know it's you but see the traffic in especially if it's through TOR ect there going to find out wtf's going on just in case of espionage at the very least.

[stormy_clothing]

give us an address and we'll get some porn sent to you

[gn3hz3ku1*]

yea dude def dont try TOR

[gn3hz3ku1*]

some o6 used my desktop to look at whatever he wanted too after hours....

GROSSSSS! last i heard.. the was trying to dodge the book they threw at him.

[tatso7]

If a simple computer tech in India can troubleshoot a computer in the US thru screen sharing session, they (military) definately has the capability to remotely look into your computer.

[racky]

When I was in SWA, a guy got busted for looking at pr0n on one of the PC's at our worksite. I don't know how they found out, but they did.

He went from E4 to E2 overnight.

well yeah on a goverment PC it's obvious they'll get busted. but i was talking about people's personal PC's

[sfwdiy]

I've long suspected the IT dept can view what's on your monitor. I know there are programs where you can take over the screen and mouse of any computer as if it were your own. Seems it would be a much easier task to just monitor the screen so why not?

There's a huge difference between sniffing traffic being transmitted over a network and viewing what's actually being displayed on a monitor.

In order to actually view what's being displayed on a computer's screen that info in it's entirety has to be transmitted to another machine over the network. This is done all the time. See here: Virtual Network Computing. Viewing someone's screen without their knowledge or permission would require you to install software of this type onto their computer and turn on the necessary network services without their knowledge. Doing this remotely is so close to impossible that it might as well be.

However, any traffic you send or receive over the internet can be viewed by anyone with access to a computer positioned between you and the information source. See image below:



Your computer would be any of the ones on the far right side, on the LAN. The machine labeled "Proxy Server" sits between your computer and the rest of the Internet. Anyone with access to the proxy server and the proper knowledge can see what you're sending or receiving over the Internet. If they have access to the proxy, it's a safe bet they know what they're doing. For instance, if you type "OMG i can haz pr0n" into the Google search box, they can view that text going out. They can also see all the pr0n that Google responds with coming back in.

Are there ways around this to hide your privacy? Sure. Do you want to try to circumvent this setup at a .mil installation? Probably not. I'm sure you'll attract far more attention by attempting to hide what you're doing than by actually browsing a few pr0n sites. That, and unless you're absolutely certain that your Tiger Style is more powerful than your SysAdmin's Dragon Style, you're probably gonna get busted.

--B