> Are you saying that you see actual traffic go out when Knoppix boots, and that some if that traffic goes out to some of the sites that you referenced in the lower part of your post, including sites in China?
C: Yes, I am!
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> If so that sure doesn't sound good and I would like to know what is going on too.
C: No, it certainly doesn't, but I found a bit amazing that you are so shocked about that
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Where do you live in Europe? Here in the states the US gov has been doing all kinds of "fancy" things for a very long time, in short privacy/security in modern days is "the Santa of adulthood"
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I have been detecting all of this bs and much more for a long time,
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http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14977259
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for example, the only way I can work online is using an external drive attached to a knoppix-based box with no hard drives. I download things, physically kicked myself off line by powering down the modem and then connect my external firewire drive and transfer stuff in order to keep working ... Yes, it is annoying, but your life gets "interesting" ... and no, the "if you aren't a criminal there is nothing you should worry about" mentality doesn't exactly work in this case, they apparently f#ck!ng think they own your fr3@k!ng life.
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But giving politicians/police the attention/credit they deserve, let's look at the technical/physical matters/context. To me the only possible ways for them to do such thing are:
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1._ by making sure you download a "by-them-crafted" version of knoppix (this is why I think that a central repository of signature info based on https is important)
2._ somehow hacking into my computer's BIOS ...
3._ somehow hacking into my computer's NIC ...
4._ somehow physically bugging my computer ...
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I consider #4, but I don't think they would do it, because you would then have an obvious physical evidence.
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Am I missing any other option there?
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IMO knoppix would only be involved in the first case, even though it could be used to detect 2. or 3.
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> I'll break out the hub and ethereal and give it a look, once I'm clear on what we are talking about.
I am not using a hub I am connecting to the internet directly from my NIC in a "NIC <-.-> dsl modem <-.-> outgoing cable" configuration
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> How did you establish the information that you posted?
I have been noticing unexpectedly weired things right after I downloaded knoppix 5.0.1, so I run ethereal (from within knoppix) and detected connections going out of my computer these places (the IPs aren't really important since all ISPs MUST set up back doors into their services for for the US gov to do their so-called "intelligence" work)
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> Is there later traffic going to the same addresses?
No, but notice my comment above. These guys are even a bit amusing I just came from vacationing in China (Aren't these smart pants!?!)
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> Have you pinned down what is in the packets that you see?
That I didn't do, my mistake. The thing is that you are trying to get stuff done and must try really hard to consider this just an annoyance. Also, I would try to read into any of these, till I make sure to a safe extent that my base (knoppix) is a trustworthy one.
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Is there anything else or new you would recommend to me?
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Thank you
Albretch