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

[Scratch705]

you want to be sneaky with porn? get it sent in pieces. like a jigsaw puzzle.

of course someone who sends it in email/snail mail will have to get creative and not make it obvious by just cutting it in squares or sending it all at once. or hide it by painting over it with a water soluble ink. like get those porn jigsaw puzzles, and have them paint over it with water color to hide the real image and when you receive it, just wipe it with a moist towel and reveal the real picture.

but then again i'm sure the mail guys in the military have thought of that too?

[Cokebottle]

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.

At my last job, we were taken on a tour of the IT facilities.
All traffic in and out went through the corporate server.
Every web address request from every machine was logged.
Unacceptable sites were pre-blocked.
Unlisted sites that generated a lot of traffic during working hours were visited by the IT staff. If they were not related to the business, they were added to the blocked list of sites.

Also, all email communications routed through, and were stored, on the corporate Access server. The company had government contracts, so there was a requirement to store all emails whether the user deleted them or not.

They didn't log the actual traffic... simply the destinations.
If he was surfing pr0n, he was probably not doing it from Calguns.

One of my first boss's duties involved programming. Some of his programming tools and references came from "questionable" sites... and more than once he was called into IT and questioned about accessing sites that were known for piracy/cracking.

[fabguy]

OK I LOL'd on that one.

Got to watch the accidental pr0n too. Once I was doing market research on semiconductor companies, and I figured out that I could skip the Google search and just type the company name in the URL address bar. This will expand the company name to its web address. Worked fine for most chip companies, Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments, but when I tried that with Maxim Semiconductor, I typed in "Maxim" and got a little surprise, a gentleman's magazine instead of a chip maker website. I immediately ran down to the IT dept and told them what happened, then made sure it was documented in writing, copy to HR and my boss, in case it later came up that they needed to find something to hang me with.

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?

Yeah thats true, thats why you NEVER get a computer with a built in camera. Ever wonder how they get all that voyuer pr0n. Remember the last thing you were doing while your computer was facing you?

[sfwdiy]

Yeah thats true, thats why you NEVER get a computer with a built in camera. Ever wonder how they get all that voyuer pr0n. Remember the last thing you were doing while your computer was facing you?

Someone would need physical access to the computer in order to install software that would activate the camera and record video. Such software exists and has legitimate purposes but it can't be installed remotely without the user's consent.

Protip: Most voyeur pr0n is staged.

--B

[CSACANNONEER]

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

I heard that if you stick your right pinky in your left ear while smearing rotting bannanas on your face, it will block all outgoing signals from the chips "they" have installed in our brains.

[PRKArms]

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).

Thats not entirely true....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

[sfwdiy]

The scenario I'm considering is one in which the computer was issued to you by the organization that is supplying you with the access to the net. In the case of a corporation, it's the corporate issue laptop that's been pre-configured with the standard corporate software load, which could include the screen monitoring software.

If that's the case, then yes it's possible. I think it's unlikely that they would do this surreptitiously. If I were the sysadmin I'd make it quite clear that I had the ability to both see your Internet traffic and view your screen any time I felt like it. Also, ethically I'd have a hard time viewing another adult's screen without their knowledge unless I already had reason to suspect that they were violating a company policy or law in the first place. That's why most VNC software can tell you you're being observed.

Are the laptops used by deployed soldiers supplied by the military or are they personal machines? In either case I can see the military putting the required monitoring software on there to ensure compliance with the no-pr0n laws.

I'm pretty sure they're personal machines. I don't think the military installs anything on them either. In fact, I'm not sure they would be allowed to do so. It wouldn't really be necessary anyway. If you're on my network there are ways I can keep tabs on you without extra software.

One good policy is to require MAC address registration before a computer can join the network. That way I know exactly which machines belong to which users, and figuring out who is surfing tijuanadonkeyshow.com during work hours is not difficult.

Thats not entirely true....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

Anything's possible, but I'm much more worried about what's probable. Van Eck is really cool stuff though. I always wanted to try to build a Van Eck box but I don't have the time or the money.

--B

[racky]

I'm pretty sure they're personal machines. I don't think the military installs anything on them either. In fact, I'm not sure they would be allowed to do so. It wouldn't really be necessary anyway. If you're on my network there are ways I can keep tabs on you without extra software.

One good policy is to require MAC address registration before a computer can join the network. That way I know exactly which machines belong to which users, and figuring out who is surfing tijuanadonkeyshow.com during work hours is not difficult.

yeah the PCs i was talking about are personal laptops people bring with them. they don't get registered with the base. it's just free wi-fi all around. so that brings me back to the my original post of how some people think it's FUD. i can't figure out how the comm guys know who's doing what on their personal computers when they don't get registered with the comm office. i'd ask the comm guys myself but i don't know any.

[racky]

I would imagine the military IT guys (at a minimum) check the traffic incoming and outgoing to be sure there isn't any classified info being disclosed.

now that is what they're really good at. a person would get a pretty bad nasty-gram when something gets sent out and isn't supposed to.

so back to the pr0n, everyone send me their pr0n now that know it's unsafe. it's lonely here . so the whole foxyproxy thing isn't safe right?

[Paul]

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.

Skype sets off alarm bells on the non-secure Internet ("nipper net") big time. All traffic across the NPRNET is scanned in both direction as it crosses though the gateway firewalls connecting the military networks to the civilian Internet, Skype port numbers are well known. Within minutes someone is capturing and looking at the traffic. One of my contractors connected into a wireless access point and within a couple hours the phone call came into IT to pull the pull and provide an explanation.

[Swatguy10_15]

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

Lol exactly! Well get ya some stuff! just pm youre shipping.We got ya! To answer youre question. EVERYTHING you do at a foreign base down to a fob is tracked and recorded. Especially fobs and bases in "combat zones" its not always about the "porn" and such mainly its to prevent the dissemination of critical information to the wrong people. yea the rules pertaining to porn and stuff kindof suck but theres a reason for everything..(well sometimes) but youre still safe checking your accounts and such, everything they do is monitored and those monitors are monitored..There just making sure no ones freely giving haji intel..

[fabguy]

I heard that if you stick your right pinky in your left ear while smearing rotting bannanas on your face, it will block all outgoing signals from the chips "they" have installed in our brains.

My neighbor is a dentist and he says it's in the fillings of your teeth. He said they can track every movement you make, and everything you do. So they even know about The hair growing from your palms. muhahahaha...

[gn3hz3ku1*]

just remember big brother invented the internet...

[bigmike82]

"Even if it were just someone surfing pr0n, they have your IP address on every web page request and it's a simple matter to sniff the other packets you send on a daily basis to identify you. Your email packets would have that same IP address on 'em, etc"
Not always. Depending on the DHCP lease-time, you can have a different IP on different days.

And if you use, say, a Linux machine and change the MAC on your wireless card, you could browse for hours without being caught (changing your MAC every time you're blocked). Note that I do NOT recommend doing this, as you *will* get caught if you set off enough red flags. They may not be able to track you via the normal monitoring, but what they *can* do is triangulate your position fairly accurately. Then, all it takes is the guy pulling the camera feed, seeing you, and you'll have a nice little visit by your local MPs.

This is why you have friends with thumb drives back state-side.

[TonyM]

just remember big brother invented the internet...

Al Gore is Big Brother?