[rescue] Netra from NSA?

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

>> I may be wrong (and I probably am), but doesn't the 5th line from the
>> bottom say it was from the NSA? And it has a drive in it. Weird.

> Uhm this is definately not a NSA machine. Trust me.
> NSA in that case might mean something like Name Server Authentication
> or something...
> But not the NSA you know hehe...

I both agree and disagree.  It's incredibly unlikely that this system
was ever connected to NSA's internal classified network--although
the NIS domainname that comes up was perhaps a legal/believable one as
of several years ago.

My best guess, having seen something similar, is that someone who
used to work at NSA configured it in a test lab (or that some contractor
who was supporting NSA configured it as an unclassified shadow version
of a system that was operating on the classified network.)  Just because
it claims to be in a NIS domain with a believable NSA name doesn't mean
that the system was ever physically inside an NSA facility.  I can
easily put a system together on the network in my house and give
it the IP address of www.whitehouse.gov, and then print logs from
it and sell it on eBay.  I've proved nothing by doing so, however.

If it ever *was* operated on a classified network, the IP address
space is meaningless--anyone who operates a detached network doesn't
go to ICANN/ARIN (or other RIRs) to get IP address space.  Note that
if it was an unclassified mirror of a system on the real/production/
classified network, the test network IPs probably would match the
production IPs--that's how I've done similar things anyway (with a
NAT box configured as the default gateway, so that I could still get
access to external resources.)

I don't think anyone can *definitely* give a pedigree on this system
based on the info in the auction--but the checks and re-checks before
a system leaves a TS/SCI environment are pretty thorough.  I'm sticking
with my best guess(es) above.

  --Rip