[liberationtech] huawei

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> -----

Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:09:40 -0700
From: Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com>
To: Scott Helms <khelms at zcorum.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: huawei
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On 06/14/2013 05:34 PM, Scott Helms wrote:
> Is it possible?  Yes, but it's not feasible because the data rate would be
> too low.  That's what I'm trying to get across.  There are lots things that
> can be done but many of those are not useful.
> 
> I could encode communications in fireworks displays, but that's not
> effective for any sort of communication system.
> 

You're really hung up on bit rate, and you really shouldn't. Back in
the days before gigabit pipes, tapping out morse was considered
a data rate beyond belief. Ships used flags and signaling lights well
into the second world war at least. The higher the value of the
information, the lower the bit rate you need to transmit it (I think
this might formally be information entropy, but I'm not certain).

You might think that there is nothing of particularly high value to be
had within the confines of what a (compromised) router can produce,
but I'd say prepare to be surprised. I'm not much of a military guy, but
some of the stuff they dream up makes you go "how on earth did you
think that up?". And that's just the unclassified widely known stuff.
Part of the issue when you say "it could be done cheaper somewhere
else" presupposes we know the economics of what they're trying to do.
We don't, so we should assume that routers just like everything else are
a target, and that you almost certainly won't notice it if they are.

Mike


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