Dept of Homeland Security is hacking into Xbox, game consoles

The Department of Homeland Security is working on ways to hack into the Xbox, as well as other game consoles, to obtain whatever personal information they can from the devices. DHS plans to target overseas consoles to avoid Privacy Act issues related to US citizens.

DHS is getting interested in game consoles because they see those devices as evolving into more of a personal computer than simply a toy. Originally this project called the “Gaming Systems Monitoring and Analysis Project,” began in 2008 as a possible way to go after pedophiles who were using the consoles to target children. That project has evolved to include terrorists in the groups of people who could potentially be targeted.

A San Francisco company called Obscure Technologies is at the front of this project. The small San Francisco company responsible for computer forensics has been granted a $177,237 contract to develop “hardware and software tools that can be used for extracting data from video game systems.” The contract was awarded by the US Navy.

In the wake of privacy concerns revolving around hacking game consoles, the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has decided to get involved in this issue. Parker Higgins, a spokesman for the online privacy group talked about the potential information stored on the console saying,

“These consoles are being used as general purpose computers. And they’re used for all kinds of communications. The Xbox has a very active online community where people communicate. It stands to reason that you could get sensitive and private information stored on the console.”

Higgins adds that all of the information stored on your Xbox like who you played games with, who you were chatting with, message logs, and other online activity could reveal a great deal. “Taken in context, it could end up revealing more than you expect,” Higgins warns.

There is an obvious issue with privacy and this type of work. The DHS is very aware of those issues. “This project requires the purchasing of used video game systems outside the U.S. in a manner that is likely to result in their containing significant and sensitive information from previous users,” states the contract. Simson Garfinkel, a computer science professor at the Navel Postgraduate School (NPS) adds,

“We do not wish to work with data regarding U.S. persons due to Privacy Act considerations. If we find data on U.S. citizens in consoles purchased overseas, we remove the data from our corpus.”

Another issue with this project is whether or not manufacturers will cooperate with these efforts. None of the three gaming hardware manufacturers made any comments to the Foreign Policy website regarding the issue, but the EFF’s Higgins spoke a bit about these companies.

“I’ve spoken with privacy people at Microsoft, and they’re aware that it’s something that can be personal and sensitive. If you don’t use Xbox, you might think it’s just a frivolous video game. But a lot of real communication happens between people in this form. Just because it’s a form associated with games doesn’t mean it deserves less privacy protection.”

Regardless of how people feel about this project and the related privacy issues, it is moving forward. If DHS finds some way to expand this to U.S. consoles then the gaming space won’t be safe from monitoring for anyone anymore.