Privacy Advocates Protest FBI Warning of 'Going Dark' In Online Era 135
CWmike writes "CNET's Declan McCullagh reported last week on the FBI's argument that the massive shift of communications from the telephone system to the Internet 'has made it far more difficult for the agency to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities.' The law has already been expanded once, in 2004, to include broadband networks, but still excludes Web companies. The FBI says its surveillance efforts are in danger of 'going dark' if it is not allowed to monitor the way people communicate now. Not surprisingly, a range of opponents, from privacy advocates to legal experts, disagree — strongly. On key tech hitch with the plan, per ACLU attorney Mark Rumold and others: There is a difference between wiretapping phones and demanding a backdoor to Internet services. 'A backdoor doesn't just make it accessible to the FBI — it makes it vulnerable to others,' Rumold says."
Backdoor for others (Score:5, Funny)
'A backdoor doesn't just make it accessible to the FBI â" it makes it vulnerable to others.
Speaking of backdoors I've got these cool new Sony disks for your computer......
Piss off, FBI (Score:3)
No. No goddamn panopticons.
Too late (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALEA [wikipedia.org]
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Just because the FBI's strawman argument worked to extend them powers they didn't really need doesn't mean your one will be as successful
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You don't seem to know what "strawman argument" means--using a given topic to point out a double-standard isn't a strawman. If Slashdot is truly taking a stand against unnecessary surveillance and violations of privacy, then it must take that stand equally, even against companies to which they may be emotionally attached because of their association with Linux.
Re:Piss off, FBI (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't see them as inherently different, but more of a continuum depending on how easy it is to exclude myself. The U.S. government is among the hardest to exclude myself from, so I agree on that. But when we get to lower levels of government, many of them are considerably easier to avoid than many large corporations are. For example, it is quite easy to avoid the Pittsburgh city government; just don't move to or work in Pittsburgh.
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Actually it's easier to escape from your country than to escape Google's tracking. You might stop using all Google services and still being tracked. Compared to Google the government is easy to escape. Just drive down to Mexico, I'll recommend it, it's not the hellhole you see in Fox News. I live here and I have broadband and A/C and what not.
The problem with this attitude is that corporations and government work together, how naive must you be to think otherwise. Google will give the FBI everything they a
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Can you recommend a good destination in .mx for IT work?
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The capital, Mexico City, is by far the most secure and well equipped city and I'll assure you won't get bored, there. Only problem are smog and the occasional earthquake. Guadalajara is a cleaner alternative with fresh air and more relaxed but still has got everything you'd want. Leon is good but can't really say much about it. Housing in the beach cities is going to cost an arm and a leg and they aren't quite IT oriented, but there's plenty of americans there if you miss your people, they are quite secure
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Corporations not governments? Haven't been paying attention much, have we?
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A corporation is not a government.
You have, quite clearly, not been paying attention to current events. While we may split hairs over semantics - whether or not corporations are the government, the fact that they exert an extraordinary level of control over our government (U.S.) is well established. And that most certainly includes matters of life and death. Sticking one's head in the non-digital sand and insisting that all is well is simply absurd. Google acting as the government's rat, or the government acting as RIAA's muscle; two sides
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Google does not wield the power of life and death over its users.
There are worse fates than death. Private companies control or influence your employment status, your credit availability, your insurance details, your medical information, your educational background, your driving privileges, in some instances your criminal record. Never mind separation of church and state; I want to see separation of business and state. Unfortunately more and more government services are being privatised, and those private companies are operating without any judicial oversight, sometimes
Re:Piss off, FBI (Score:4, Funny)
If Slashdot is truly taking a stand
Slashdot does not speak for me. I certainly do not want to be "represented" by a collection of nerds and trolls in any point of view - I am perfectly capable of taking my own stand where I choose.
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"+4, Funny"
Well played, mods. Well played.
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That would be right next to Pastor Niemoller? (spelling ? ... checks .... correct to within an umlaut [wikipedia.org], which Slashdot would barf over anyway.)
Re:Piss off, FBI (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot on government surveillance: "Piss off, government! Respect my right to privacy!"
Slashdot on Google surveillance: "So what if they archived people's emails and passwords for two years, and their CEO said only criminals have something to hide? They're just a poor, innocent company! Give them more of my personal data, I say."
Yeah, it's funny how geeks on Slashdot can actually differentiate between a private company recording snippets of non-encrypted data broadcast over radio waves by the public, and a concerted effort by the government to create backdoors (and a massive new security vulnerability) to let them do intentional surveillance of citizens. It's almost as if they are two completely separate issues.
(and instead of the public complaining to the Wifi industry for letting AP's default to non-encrypted communications and complaining to web service providers for allowing passwords and other sensitive data to be sent over non SSL connections, they blame Google for capturing the data. If you're sending passwords and other sensitive data in plain text over Wifi, Google is the least of your worries, they're not going to use your captured password to hack into your online bank account).
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That's completely different. They're the Job Creators so that means they get to fuck you seven ways from sunday and you've got smile and say thank you.
Say, you're not a liberal, are you?
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No, the difference is that if I choose not to use Google and block them from tracking me, they aren't allowed to throw me in jail or break into my home at night and shoot me "because I thought he had a weapon"
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It's interesting that you bring that up because that is exactly what Google was helping the Chinese government do to dissidents.
The line is blurring, friend. More quickly than anyone thought possible.
Re:Piss off, FBI (Score:5, Insightful)
The other is a law, that applies to everyone, whether you like it or not.
Slight difference.
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Last time I checked, using Google services was still a choice. I certainly don't remember being asked if I wanted to be tracked by my government, nor the existence of any competing products to choose from as alternatives.
Re:Piss off, FBI (Score:5, Insightful)
The FBI wants to invade your privacy to levy fines on you, or put you in jail or even to death. Add to that that the FBI has a well recorded history of being used and abused by elected officials and corporations to manipulate, defraud and terrorize people and you can see why some are concerned.
Do I like what Google is doing? No... but that's more of a "I wish they didn't do all that, it sucks" thing... What the FBI is doing scares the living shit out of me and makes me think we're one bad election away from the iron grip of some totalitarian nightmare.
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Deal with it when it happens.
Google didn't bring us J. Edgar Hoover, so they get a free pass this time around.
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But it's more than that. The FBI is making the argument that communication between citizens must be accessible to the government.
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Is it really willingly when they lack knowledge of what is being done to the data, or they lack the ability to cloak or obscure their data and when they need to make use of the services to search the internet.
In order for choice to really exist should a new search service be created government funded, that displays no adds and keep no private data and actually does give all citizens a true choice.
Often government regulation ensures the majority people have a choice. The majority might decide many servi
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Are you suggesting a POV on the part of Slashdot's editors? Or on the part of /. members/commenters? Because I see plenty of "Piss off, Google, respect my privacy" sentiment here.
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Except of course Slashdot is full of privacy advocates that dislike Google's tracking, starting with you.
So sad (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you watch the moderation for any given topic, it always skews a certain way and punishes anyone who speaks out against the conventional wisdom. Because a limited pool of users controls the filtering of opinions, there is in fact an overall viewpoint that is enforced rather than a diversity of ideas.
I can't help seeing the outrage to "unconstitutional spying" on the part of the government and then wondering why absolutely anybody who speaks out against Google's privacy violations on Slashdot earns themsel
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Re:So sad (Score:4, Interesting)
Because my fellow man (which is what government in the US is supposed to be, the whole 'we the people' thing) spying on me willy-nilly using Monopoly on Violence is not the same thing at ALL as the shopkeeper next door keeping records of what i buy to use in his marketing and optimization research.
Really? You need to take a broader view, then. Let's start with your shopkeeper's surveillance of your spending habits. He knows what you buy, when you buy it, and exactly how much you spend in his shop, along with all of your other neighbors. Some simple analysis allows him to predict quite accurately what you are going to buy and when you are going to buy it. So he jacks up those prices on D-1 and lowers them again on D+1. The Walmart grocery store in my neighborhood appears to be already doing this; the variance I get in the price of a Red Baron pizza correlates too strongly with payroll dates for the lower middle class neighborhood I live in for it to be a coincidence. But hey, according to you, it's *different* -- I guess you believe the monopoly on violence only includes armed force, and not the "Monopoly on the only grocery store within miles" kind of violence. FWIW, boutique retailers have been doing this for millenia -- each customer gets a unique price, determined by the shopkeeper's ability to assess the depth of the customer's pockets. Thanks to your benign "marketing and optimization research" the guy who sells you food is going to be able to do the same damn thing...
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Because my fellow man (which is what government in the US is supposed to be, the whole 'we the people' thing) spying on me willy-nilly using Monopoly on Violence is not the same thing at ALL as the shopkeeper next door keeping records of what i buy to use in his marketing and optimization research.
Really? You need to take a broader view, then. Let's start with your shopkeeper's surveillance of your spending habits. He knows what you buy, when you buy it, and exactly how much you spend in his shop, along with all of your other neighbors. Some simple analysis allows him to predict quite accurately what you are going to buy and when you are going to buy it. So he jacks up those prices on D-1 and lowers them again on D+1. The Walmart grocery store in my neighborhood appears to be already doing this; the variance I get in the price of a Red Baron pizza correlates too strongly with payroll dates for the lower middle class neighborhood I live in for it to be a coincidence. But hey, according to you, it's *different* -- I guess you believe the monopoly on violence only includes armed force, and not the "Monopoly on the only grocery store within miles" kind of violence. FWIW, boutique retailers have been doing this for millenia -- each customer gets a unique price, determined by the shopkeeper's ability to assess the depth of the customer's pockets. Thanks to your benign "marketing and optimization research" the guy who sells you food is going to be able to do the same damn thing...
Why is that bad? That seems rather smart.
Here's what I find unacceptable. When companies sell the information they gathered from their business relationship with me to others. As long as they keep it to themselves, what they do with the information they acquired from me should be used to increase their profits. That's certainly what I'd do.
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I heard a story about how a store called to reveal how some girl was pregnant just from her shopping patterns. They figured this out by data mining, and her father was pissed. These companies say they can figure out stuff like this. That means they can figure out that you have AIDS and you're gay, or that you have cancer or herpes or whatever. That information is sold around and then insurance companies and drug companies can exclude you from clinical trials that would save your life because they think you'
Re:So sad (Score:5, Insightful)
I heard a story about how a store called to reveal how some girl was pregnant just from her shopping patterns.
It was Target, and they didn't call. They sent coupons for pregnancy products to her by mail.
They figured this out by data mining, and her father was pissed. These companies say they can figure out stuff like this. That means they can figure out that you have AIDS and you're gay, or that you have cancer or herpes or whatever.
Yeah, I know. But first, this entirely new, it's case of old things becoming new again. Think about the situation of a small town where everybody knows everybody else. Now a young girl walks in to buy a pregnancy test. The drug-store owner knows her, and now he has information she might be pregnant.
Either way, Target figured out this type of direct targeted advertisement freaks people out, so they're kind of hiding they have the knowledge. For example, when they figure out somebody is pregnant, they'll send them coupons for pregnancy products along with coupons for something someone pregnant would not buy, such as wine. This makes it seem random. It also prevents the father from finding out from the store, instead of from his daughter (although that particular story was never confirmed by the journalists. Target can figure out somebody is pregnant by what they buy, but the whole 'father got upset' thing could be apocryphal).
That information is sold around and then insurance companies and drug companies can exclude you from clinical trials that would save your life because they think you'll mess up their numbers or cost them too much.
And that is a problem. I agree with you when a company sells that information to anyone else, that is highly unethical, and should be illegal. By purchasing things from a company, you chose to give them data about you. If you wanted to avoid that, you can always buy it with cash, and not use any discount cards. However, you didn't authorize them to give that data to anybody else, and I think there's a much greater privacy violation when companies can get a complete picture of everything you've purchased from different stores.
That's kind of tracking for profit is unethical.
No, I think the tracking is fine. The selling of information is unethical.
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Why is that bad? That seems rather smart.
Here's what I find unacceptable. When companies sell the information they gathered from their business relationship with me to others. As long as they keep it to themselves, what they do with the information they acquired from me should be used to increase their profits. That's certainly what I'd do.
Hmmm...so you are okay with a shopkeeper charging you $40 for a Red Baron pizza, because he predicted that is the optimal price point for you? Really? And pardon me if I think you are naive for believing that preventing retailers from selling your shopping habit data to other retailers is going to protect you. Every store that sells Red Baron pizzas is eventually going to be able to profile you if you continue to demand Red Baron pizzas. Eventually every store you have access to is going to be able to
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Coincidentally, I am actually producing an estimate for a potential Red Baron campaign right now, so let me help you understand the difference.
It is much easier to tell when to lower the price than when to raise the price, because of the existence of competitors. The raised price on Red Baron pizza you see at Walmart is actually the normal market price controlled by competition at the high end of the demand spectrum. When the lower middle class have spent most of their money, that is when the price lowers b
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Some simple analysis allows him to predict quite accurately what you are going to buy and when you are going to buy it. So he jacks up those prices on D-1 and lowers them again on D+1. The Walmart grocery store in my neighborhood appears to be already doing this; the variance I get in the price of a Red Baron pizza correlates too strongly with payroll dates for the lower middle class neighborhood I live in for it to be a coincidence.
Price fluctuates with demand you say? Egads, you should write a paper!
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Some simple analysis allows him to predict quite accurately what you are going to buy and when you are going to buy it. So he jacks up those prices on D-1 and lowers them again on D+1. The Walmart grocery store in my neighborhood appears to be already doing this; the variance I get in the price of a Red Baron pizza correlates too strongly with payroll dates for the lower middle class neighborhood I live in for it to be a coincidence.
Price fluctuates with demand you say? Egads, you should write a paper!
Well, yeah, it does indeed, but the problem with optimizing a price point is that variability. That pesky, fluctuating curve makes profit optimization damn near impossible. Entrepreneurs have attacked the variability problem from the supply side (monopolies, cartels, and consortia conspiring to artificially constrain supply and kill off competition) and from the demand side (marketing campaigns to artificially boost demand) but both those strategies are sub-optimal in that both still introduce enough unpr
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In other words you can say you are for or against this. You can tangentially bring up that you are for or against this with Google but when your post puts words in others mouth you are adding nothing to the conversat
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If you watch the moderation for any given topic, it always skews a certain way and punishes anyone who speaks out against the conventional wisdom. Because a limited pool of users controls the filtering of opinions, there is in fact an overall viewpoint that is enforced rather than a diversity of ideas.
Funny, elections work the same way.
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Really? Because I badmouth Google pretty often (not always, because unlike you probably think, it is not always warranted), and lo and behold, actually would be one of those "limited pool of users" getting mod points. Maybe you should stop being an asshole, and you'll st
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If you actually looked at how mod points are distributed on slashdot you would see that it's always a different random group of people with mod points. You can't cry "mod abuse" when the mods are anonymous and random
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml [slashdot.org]
look under the history part, it explains where mod points come from. If you get modded down, its because the mathematically "average" user disagrees with you and believes you should get modded down
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If you watch the moderation for any given topic, it always skews a certain way and punishes anyone who speaks out against the conventional wisdom. Because a limited pool of users controls the filtering of opinions, there is in fact an overall viewpoint that is enforced rather than a diversity of ideas.
That is why you should browse at -1 with no scores shown.
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Google is not your Friendly Bureaucratic Institution, it's just a company that you don't have to deal with and can voluntarily abstain from.
Constitution, by the way, doesn't apply to private entities, it's the law above the government, not above individuals and their businesses.
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Not so much.
Anyone sends you an email from a google account? You've been opted in. Visit most any web site? Google Analytics has you in its sights. Yes, you can turn off or block a lot of it. But I'd be very surprised if you can block *all*, without seriously compromising the whole web surfing experience.
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That statement of course also applies to Yahoo, Sympatico, and pretty much everyone else, including your ISP. It's damn near impossible to stay completely anonymous and still communicate with others.
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Google is not your Friendly Bureaucratic Institution, it's just a company that you don't have to deal with and can voluntarily abstain from.
In the myopic libertarian fantasy world that comes from being rich, yes. But many ppls' only access to telecom is their Android phones, as that is by far the most economical way to get phone + internet in one bill.
I suppose you'd be telling 19C midwestern farmers to just sell their crops by carrier pigeon because "the railroads are a private company".
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I use an old simple Nokia, so you don't get any sympathy.
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getting sidetracked much? Google is not a monopoly in search, that's first. Secondly, android is not a monopoly in phones. Thirdly you have no choice with the FBI, unlike with Google. The constitutional argument has nothing to do with Google, as Constitution applies to the government, it's the law above government, not above Google. Lastly: the Constitution does not allow the federal government to spy on people without a warrant through any means, including forcing private companies to give up this info
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All this in defense of Anonymous Coward's comment, but not to sidetrack further. Now back to our regularly scheduled neckbearding.
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myriad "private" forms of intrusion faced by poor folks
- people are using Google for free otherwise, and it is the payment they are making to the company, that their information is collected and used for advertising.
As long as this information doesn't make it into the hands of the government thugs there is no issue that you are making it out to be.
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Frankly, it doesn't mean that much any more, it seems. So no matter what he thought it meant, you're probably right.
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Cry me a river (Score:4, Interesting)
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too late. the big carrier grade comms companies (you know, the ones with the C and J as their first company letter) already have a rape-fest in providing back doors to 'law enforcement' (and I use that term VERY loosely given how irresponsible they are).
wire tapping, data collection, even hardware based pattern triggering and trapping. its all part of modern comms gear. little known secret: you can't SELL (in some sense, even develop) gear unless its wiretap friendly.
we have already lost this war. the v
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'Wiretap friendly'?
"Hey baby, wanna come over to my one time pad? I've gone some new insulated alligator clips that you ought to see."
Oh for the Cold War (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh for the Cold War (Score:5, Interesting)
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Back when it was easy to tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
Well, if you run out of one set of bad guys, you need to find or create a new set, right?
How's this for an idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
First, the FBI gets a warrant for a particular "wiretap". This should be absolutely mandatory for what I'm about to propose.
Then, off a specific warrant, they go to whichever company the warrant lists, and either:
a) Install a packet-sniffer in front of the web server, logging everything to disk, which is then physically taken by the FBI as evidence - just like a conventional phone wiretap. This avoids the whole "anyone could use the backdoor" - if "anyone" can install hardware on the network, the 'security' is already broken so badly I had to use scare quotes.
or
b) go to the company, literally add code on a case-by-case basis to log a particular set of user's actions. This could include real-time alerts, if necessary. Oh, and the FBI is either the one doing the coding, or they pay standard rates for the service's programmers to do the job. This, again, avoids the security issue implicit to a government-mandated backdoor, by moving the "backdoor" from the computer level to the organizational level. It also does privacy better than a), because by being in the application layer instead of the network layer, it can be smart enough to only log the suspected users, not everyone.
This seems totally reasonable. The FBI gets the data they need (face it, there are always going to be times when they're justified in listening in on "private" communications), the internet companies only have to do anything if there's actually enough of a case for a warrant, there's no backdoors for a hacker to exploit, and, if the judges do their job right, everyone's privacy is maintained unless there's enough evidence to justify violating it.
And thus, by being at least mostly reasonable, it is guaranteed to not happen this way.
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You can't expect people to agree to a reasonable compromise without completing the fighting and name-calling stages first.
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Where, exactly, did you get "private business bearing the burden of law enforcement" from what I wrote?
The FBI would either a) install a relatively simple network device themselves, requiring at most a few minutes downtime, b) write some basic logging code themselves, or c) compensate the private-enterprise-programmers for doing (b).
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Re:How's this for an idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, if it's a data stream, you can record it. I'm not saying everyone should have an API that the FBI can use. I'm not saying we need to record absolutely everything so the FBI can look at it.
What I'm saying is that if the FBI needs to record something and they have enough evidence to get a warrant, they can come in and write their own damn code to log it, we'll put it on the server for as long as the court order says, and then as soon as they're gone we revert the code back to the way it was. Or, the FBI can log every packet themselves, and *they* get the fun task of sifting through billions of TCP packets to find the ones used by Ahmed ibn Badguy.
And if the system *is* anonymous-by-design, well, "that's literally impossible" is generally considered a valid reason to refuse a warrant. I know if the FBI knocked on my door and handed me a warrant for "whatever is 40km beneath the property" and a shovel, I'd call up the judge and tell him that, unfortunately, the laws of science trump even the US Constitution.
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The suggestions in this thread sound like a pain in the ass. If the metaphor is a phone tap, wouldn't it be a shitton easier, if the warrant is granted, just to install surveillance software on the computer of the person of interest? Unless the suspect is using internet cafe's, another suggestion is to install hardware at the suspect's location, between the suspects router and the Internet, logging everything. I never remember hearing about where the detectives get their phone tap warrant, and then have to
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Well, there's a lot of reasons.
First, installing something on the suspect's computer *generally* can't be done stealthily. If the FBI knocked on my door, handed me a warrant, and installed spyware on my computer, I sure as hell won't be doing anything even slightly suspicious on my own computers - a quick hop to the library, or to a friend's house, and then use *theirs*.
They may also not know where the person is. Say they're trying to catch Steve McBadguy, who's "on the run". They know he tends to log in to
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the FBI can install spyware on a computer just as stealthily as they can bug a room.
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the FBI can install spyware on a computer just as stealthily as they can bug a room.
I agree completely. They've been in the domestic stealth business for a good long time now, and have quite a bit of stealth capital, over half a century's worth, way more than any gang, which has none, or some arrogant crew of thieves that think they're invisible. What's new here is the computer software and hardware technology, and its seems kind of obvious the individuals (if not the FBI itself) in charge fear computer technology like its black magic. If they'd just hire a damn competant consultant, hope
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They've already been doing this for a while now. They have their own trojans that are whitelisted by the AV companies. I read an article about one such suspect being caught by this tactic a few years back.
But, as to the broader topic, it seems many here are confused as to what the FBI is complaining about. They already have taps at the ISP level -- every major ISP in the USA has FBI ready tapping equipment installed *right now*. CALEA made this mandatory. What they are mad about now is that, even with
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So what they are trying to do here is outlaw encryption
I guess you mean "re-outlaw" encryption. I thank you for the very nice, clear explanation, btw... But I still think a decent phishing attack can subvert encryption, and I'm mildly glad the FBI has heard of this, and is using it. Because once the client is compromized, the data can be had, encryption or not. Their legal-malware merely needs to hijack the outgoing data before encryption, and the incoming data after encryption. And I don't see how even if they did this, how the evidence gathered would be any b
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If I were running an online service I wouldn't want the FBI coming in and adding their own code to mine. If the FBI wants any of the data on my system then let them either get a subpoena that I can execute with a certain degree of deliberation (see here [sparkfun.com] for one example), or a search warrant that allows them access to all of the data named therein. No need for the FBI to install special code that is po
Perhaps, the question is .... (Score:2)
Let's not forget what this is really about (Score:5, Informative)
The FBI can get a warrant if they've got evidence, but they want to snoop without them.
Does Not Add Up (Score:1)
If they can already tap a broadband connection, they can see all the data anyway. Backdoors will only lead to people moving to TOR or something similar. Its only a quick download these days.
Information wants to be free (Score:2)
Transient vs Persistent Data (Score:3)
The purpose of wiretaps is to capture information that is transient in nature and therefore lost after transmission. Online services are a different beast altogether, the data being more permanent in nature and therefore better suited to the traditional subpoena / search warrant model. Building surveillance capabilities into online services is like building surveillance capabilities into people's homes: invasive and unnecessary.
IPDR (Score:2)
Anyone out there know anything about IPDR and how the communications companies use it today?
uh-oh (Score:2)
Everybody knows once you go dark, you never go back.
Okay Soulskill, we get it! (Score:2)
Dear FBI... (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck. I can, right now have a heavily encrypted communication with several people over the internet that you will not be able to decrypt when the information is the most valuable to you. This is your own fault. You did not pressure Congress to fund the Sciences heavily to make sure we had the best and brightest here in the USA working for you. Instead you let them go off on their hunt on the constitution. You let the Fear engine get away from you and let the CIA have the ball with their Terrorism Bogeyman.
Now it's too late. Even a 13 year old kid in a basement has the tools he needs to make a secure encrypted communication channel that would take you months or even years to crack. Long after it was valuable to do so.
Want to fix it? Go to congress and scare the bejesus out of them, Get them to dump 20 to 30% of the Defense budget into Science and research. If we start now you can get back on top in about 10 to 15 years. It is the only way. If you dont, the bad guys will win. Get off your asses and scare the shit out of congress to get the funding, because if you actually talk to them like they were educated men, you will be wasting your time.
The only plots they foiled were their own (Score:3)
All for nothing! (Score:3)
If you really want to keep your communications from the FBI, you can still always use a third-party local, secure ecryption system that the government can't easily crack. So they'll end up knowing anything they want to know about the people who don't think they have anything worth hiding from the government and NOTHING about whatever communications you choose to hide from their scrutiny. Well, they might know when it occured and maybe with whom, but they won't be able to crack the content. And if enough people object to their prying eyes, they'll find that they've driven most communications to use an ecryption method that neither they nor their proxies can crack in any reasonable time, so there will be a huge volume of "suspect" data: so much that they can't tell the difference between routine chats between business partners and chats between members of a terrorist cell discussing their evil schemes.
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At which point there will be a new push from the government to ban "unapproved" encryption
The internet is more than a phoneline (Score:1)
Allowing the FBI to wiretap the phone system was, at most, a minor inconvienience. Allowing tapping of the Internet is a much larger violation of privacy
Because phone taps had a physical location, you could control exactly who had access to it, just by securing the building.
Internet taps have no such limits, "secure" FBI accounts can be stolen and passwords can be hacked and nobody would even know until it was far too late
The only time a phone tap can "spy" on you is when you are on the phone, and we only r
It is *supposed* to be hard (Score:3)
Of course, if you work in law enforcement, this is your daily work. Everyone lives in their personal bubble, and wants their daily work to be easier. However, in the big picture, spying on individuals is *supposed* to be hard.
Another point that people often forget: The government (or the FBI) is not some single entity. It is composed of individual people: some good, some evil, most just schmucks trying to get along. You cannot trust the government, simply because it contains some individuals who are not trustworthy. This is another reason that things like wiretaps should be difficult.
Why protest? (Score:2)
I, for one, welcome the FBI surveillance efforts going dark.
...as usual (Score:2)
What will happen is:
a) The FBI comes up with an idea. ...and implemented 3 years later under a different name.
b) The people complain.
c) The idea is dropped...
d)
Welcome to the USA. Home of the free.
Re: (Score:2)
Care to tell me where exactly is the difference?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd rather guess they will look at the communist countries of the days of yore and ponder why exactly we first fought and then copied them.