

Dell, Cisco 'Deeply Concerned' Over NSA Backdoor Exploit Allegations - bloodyhipsters
http://www.crn.com/news/security/240165053/dell-cisco-deeply-concerned-over-nsa-backdoor-exploit-allegations.htm

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mariuolo
Deeply concerned their involvement came out?

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us0r
while I would like to believe them - just how concerned are they for their
largest customers?

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streetnigga
Right-o. I don't understand why people latched onto shipping carriers as being
the most likely suspect for hardware bugging by operations like NSA's TAO.
They have very slim timelines to hand over a package without someone noticing
it's been in Reston, VA for two days.

Really, to me at least, the most probable corporate suspect would be the
hardware vendors themselves. Dude you're getting a Dell.™

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mrobot
Wouldn't it be easier and less visible to everyone to bug at ship time? Why is
two days your estimate?

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streetnigga
Never underestimate government bureaucracy. :)

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salient
As Schneier recently said, assume everything is _vulnerable by default_ [1],
and work with the machines having that in mind. Until everything from the
hardware level to the OS and applications is open source (which is pretty much
the way FSF has always told us it should be, because they feared the outcome
we've already seen), we can't trust them, and even then we have to be very
careful about bugs.

[1] - [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/an-interview-with-bruce-
sch...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/an-interview-with-bruce-schneier)

