FBI Considers CALEA II: Mandatory Wiretapping On Every Device

Techmeology writes "In response to declining utility of CALEA mandated wiretapping backdoors due to more widespread use of cryptography, the FBI is considering a revamped version that would mandate wiretapping facilities in end users' computers and software. Critics have argued that this would be bad for security (PDF), as such systems must be more complex and thus harder to secure. CALEA has also enabled criminals to wiretap conversations by hacking the infrastructure used by the authorities. I wonder how this could ever be implemented in FOSS."

eat a bag of dicks

[decora]

dear FBI,

a certain portion of your managament are stupid douchebags.

while there are agents risking their lives to stop criminals, you are sitting around jerking off on a whiteboard about pie in the sky bullshit that nobody with two nickels worth of brains would find useful or even interesting

fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck everything you stand for.

Re:FOSS

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Thre is already a name for it - totalitarianism, the involvement of the state in all aspects of life.

Re:Sheesh

[heypete]

Good points, though I felt it necessary to comment on the wireless mouse issue: RF-related laws do differ from country to country and there can be serious consequences (not just legal consequences) to breaking them.

While there's wide international agreement on certain bands, like the 2.4GHz ISM band, not everything is so unified. I'm an American living in Switzerland. One of my fellow Americans here in Switzerland had brought a Skype-capable cordless phone from the US and had used it for a few weeks. Eventually, some Swiss government officials with direction-finding equipment showed up at his house and requested entrance to his home. He allowed them in and they homed in on the phone. It turns out the frequencies used in the US for certain types of cordless phones are used, in Switzerland, by the Swiss military and his phone was causing interference. They gave him a ticket saying that there was no penalty this time, but if he continued to use the phone he would be fined 10,000 Swiss francs (about $10,000 USD/8,000 Euro).

While the use of a wireless mouse isn't likely to cause enough interference to bother anyone, it's still a good thing to check first to ensure it is appropriate to use.