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The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool? 293

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the corporations-striving-to-be-big-brother dept.
Wired News is reporting that the equipment found in the "secret" NSA room at AT&T wasn't some elaborate device designed by Big Brother. Rather, it is a commercially available network-analysis product that any company could acquire. From the article: "'Anything that comes through (an IP network), we can record,' says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. 'We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their VOIP calls.'"
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The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool? More

The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool?

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  • Error Page (Score:3, Funny)

    by MyNymWasTaken ( 879908 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:25PM (#15352719)
    The error page of "Nothing to see here. Move Along." that showed up when first clicking on the comments link was hilarious.

  • Oh well, (Score:4, Funny)

    by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:25PM (#15352722) Homepage
    At least it's running under Linux.

  • oh, in that case... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:27PM (#15352733)
    Oh. Well, since the NSA bought the software that it's using, then that makes everything okey with me... :-/

    • What makes it okay is that:

      THE INTERNET IS NOT SECURE

      You have been told this from the moment you first entered the Internet.

      Anyone and everyone can see and record every byte you emit from your computer.

      The only detail is that the NSA, being a government entity, can not use the information as evidence in a court action against you, nor can they use any information that they gather only because they had this information.

      So I don't understand why people are outraged about the privacy issue. It's the issue of

  • Encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cwalk ( 899502 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:28PM (#15352751)
    I somehow doubt that they are just using a "commercially available network-analysis product". I mean what "commercially available network-analysis product" breaks encryption?

    • Re:Encryption? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:34PM (#15352804)

      I somehow doubt that they are just using a "commercially available network-analysis product". I mean what "commercially available network-analysis product" breaks encryption?

      Is this really news to anyone? I thought the original report showed they were using a Narus box. If I recall correctly it does not break encryption, but it will automatically make copies of matching encrypted flows for later analysis and cracking. My guess would be they just make copies of encrypted traffic they are interested in then move on to the big guns if it is really, really important (which they may or may not have ever actually done).

      • I thought the same thing. The fact that a Narus box was being used was definitely mentioned in the original coverage of this issue.
      • I am suspecting that the ISPs who INSISTS the newbie/uninformed windoze users and Mac users install that ISPs crackware CD masquerading as an 'experience enhancing/improving' software tool is really just a Trojan to facilitate later offline decryption.

        Just call them up. Make up your own scenarios. But, if LINUX users DON'T need the damned CD, why do windoze and Mac users need it. If you posit that you rebuild your machine every 6 weeks and you always lose your ISPs disk, or broke it by mistake, do you still
        • Was so heavy into my rant that I forgot to include my other two suspicions:

          -- the ISPs are getting marketing dollars by deploying the disks, and when each one is installed, it calls back to mshaft to verify that the ISP is entitled to marketing dollars, which then enables mshaft to bolster their OS useage counts (which can be negated or deflated when users successfully log in without the disk ever being installed, which means an employee NOT pushing the disk installation might lose commissions or deprive th

        • I am suspecting that the ISPs who INSISTS the newbie/uninformed windoze users and Mac users install that ISPs crackware CD masquerading as an 'experience enhancing/improving' software tool is really just a Trojan to facilitate later offline decryption.

          I seriously doubt this, but it is easy enough to find out. Make a vm of windows and save it. Install the software save it. Take a look at the bits and figure out what has changed. Has it touched any of the encryption libraries or programs? Just copy them of

          • Re:Encryption? Why decrypt later? (Score:5, Funny)

            by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary&yahoo,com> on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @05:54PM (#15354404) Journal
            No, you are both wrong, you have no idea how far down the rabbit hole we already are. These disks contain tiny nanomachines that embed themselves in your skin and change your DNA so that you will only bear Republican children. Of course, the Republicans aren't the Final Masters here, they are nothing more than patsies of the Rand Corporation, who are of course controlled by the Boy Scouts of America, who are under the dominion of the Reverse Vampires. We're through the looking glass, people.
    • Alright, Strathmore, we've heard enough from you.

    • Re:Encryption? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Noryungi ( 70322 )
      I mean what "commercially available network-analysis product" breaks encryption?

      Except, of course, that breaking encryption is the Holy Grail of Signal Intelligence. Sometimes, Traffic Analysis -- which is exactly what the NSA is doing here acording to the Wired article -- is just as interesting, and a lot easier to do.

      Knowing that person A is talking to person B, and that the number of messages between the two is increasing, and where and when each message has been sent (not to mention what type of traffic
      • If you are really concerned. When you are using encryption, if possible use ciphers that were NOT developed by NSA/CIA like Blowfish AND use as big a key as possible (within acceptable performance).

        Of course if the NSA has a supersecret way of breaking all encryption (like the movie sneakers) then of course we are all screwed.

  • Functional Spec and Deliverables (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:29PM (#15352756)
    From TFfunctional specification:
    The Semantic Traffic Analyzer received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

    Orwell, G. Functional Specification, Narus STA 6400 (rev. 1984)

    From TFA, the deliverable:

    We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their VOIP calls.

    AT&T. Your world, delivered.

    • Yeah, this is like Sovjet times withthe government spying mainly on its own inhabitants all over again, but this time its the "good" site doing it. And with technological possibilities that the Sovjet leaders couldnt even dream of, as they are beyond the imagination of what was possible in the 50s-80s. I wonder if theres a way out if this anymore. You could maybe move to the "rogue" states as the US doesnt seem to have a clue whats happening out there.

      Actually I recently saw a documentary on East Germany

      • for those who may not scroll all the way down the customer profiles:

        Saudi Telecom, the preeminent telecommunications provider in the region, is employing the NarusInsight Discover Suite's VoIP detection application module to recover revenue that would otherwise be lost through unregulated VoIP traffic. Deployed by Narus Partner Giza Systems, NarusInsight captures and analyzes all VoIP traffic in the Saudi Telecom network. The VoIP detection module provides the real time information necessary for Saudi Telec

  • Hm. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DoctorDyna ( 828525 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:30PM (#15352771)
    Does it make anybody else nervous that there is a market for these products? "off the shelf" products that can scale to this degree?

    If enough large companies are purchasing these to the degree that a company manufactures this equipment...exclusively.. doesn't that strike an interesting chord?

    • Re:Hm. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 )

      Does it make anybody else nervous that there is a market for these products? "off the shelf" products that can scale to this degree? If enough large companies are purchasing these to the degree that a company manufactures this equipment...exclusively.. doesn't that strike an interesting chord?

      Supply and demand is somewhat elastic. Where I work right now we build fairly specialized traffic monitoring servers for the core and edge routers of ISPs. While we don't manufacture our own hardware, we do make use

    • AT&T isn't the only telecom left. Large retailers, banks, credit card companies also have a need to store trillions of records.

      • AT&T isn't the only telecom left. Large retailers, banks, credit card companies also have a need to store trillions of records.

        Actually, the constraint here is throughput, not storage. How many Gigabytes per second can you match against a regular expression while still not introducing significant latency in the packets you forward? Copying the matching flows into a huge database for examination is the easy part.

  • Time enough (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cerberusss ( 660701 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:31PM (#15352777) Journal
    'Anything that comes through (an IP network), we can record'

    Great! So, do you get the Amazing PauseTheUniverseTechnology free with this nifty gadget? Because it'll take some time to review "anything that comes through".

    • Re:Time enough (Score:5, Funny)

      by LilWolf ( 847434 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:46PM (#15352905)
      'Anything that comes through (an IP network), we can record'

      Not to worry. The RIAA will soon sue them for being able to record illegally downloaded songs. Problem solved.

      • Re:Time enough (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:13PM (#15353138) Journal
        Actually, this is an interesting point. If I send an email containing a copyright document (e.g. a draft of an article I have written, sent to my editor), and it passes over their connection, then they will copy it. This copying involves making an unauthorised copy of a copyrighted work. Since I live in the UK, my email is copyrighted in the UK, and the copyright works in the USA via the Berne convention. If a private company is violating this copyright then they owe me significant damages (thanks to certain paid-for legislation). If it is the US government, then they are in violation of the Berne convention. If the USA is violating the Berne convention, then we can regard all works originally copyrighted in the USA as being in the public domain in the rest of the world. Either way, it sounds like I win...
    • They don't need to listen to everything, just what interests them. For example, if they track down one person linked to Al-Qaeda, they can then listen to all of that person's calls, and decide who is interesting among those, and then listen to all of their calls, and so on.

      Or, if you are a corrupt homeland security agent, you can browse through random calls (well, profiled random calls ... calls with elevated stress levels in the voice, or at odd times of night, etc) looking for someone to blackmail.
    • Because it'll take some time to review "anything that comes through".

      True, and for that reason, this won't help much to prevent any short-term activity.

      After-the-fact, however, it would tend to allow a near 100% detection rate - Assuming the subject used any form of electronic communication (which, interestingly enough, tends to make this all the less useful for detecting terrorists, who strongly favor ultra-low-tech methods). Case in point, the recent Slashdot article on using phone records to track

  • The evidence (Score:5, Informative)

    by op12 ( 830015 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:35PM (#15352806) Homepage
    Wired News has posted the AT&T whistleblower's evidence, which AT&T is trying to get returned to them and out of court documents: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70908-0.htm l?tw=wn_index_3 [wired.com]
  • ...is that we hear about stuff like this as fact before the rest of the world even hears it as rumor. I believe it's been a while that companies have been using this to keep track of what their employees are doing on work time (where I work, we had to sign a document stating that we knew that any and all communications at work, from VOIP to e-mail to webpages, regardless of encryption, could be recorded with no further notice) and to follow court-ordered tracking. The internet is not a secure place to be

  • Well, I feel better now! Not. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:35PM (#15352812) Homepage
    I'm so happy to know that the product the NSA - with the help of AT&T - used to analyze phone number patterns and the like can be purchased by any citizen.

    But - that's not the problem as I see it. The problem, to borrow and massacre a line from "Jurrasic Park", is that they were so eager to see if they could they didn't consider if they should.

    Take the domestic to international wiretap thing. Under US law, listening in on foreign conversations is A-OK (whether that's legal in other countries I'm not even going to worry about). But the law is clear: the second there's a domestic person on that call, the NSA has to get permission from the courts. And not only that, it can be a secret court. And not only a secret court, but they can do it up to 3 days after they start - so there's no issue of "Dang, we'd listen to this call from an Al Queda agent, but we can't because Michael Moore's on the phone, and the warrant will take too long!" No - they can start now, get the warrant later.

    Then there's the domestic phone call tracking. Even if this is not strictly illegal, it still smacks of wrong. (Yes, I think there are things not illegal that are still wrong. Like Mint Oreos. Very wrong, just not illegal.) Why? Because there's no independant, "checks and balances" oversight. And yes, I have things to hide, before you ask, so I don't want the government picking that out. Like people in politics I call because I disagree with their politicies, or calls to an abortion clinic for a friend of mine who's husband is abusive and says he'll kill her if she calls the clinic, or to a reporter because my place of work is doing illegal things (note for the clueless: the former might or might not be true, but they are examples of why people might not want the government tracking calls) - the list goes on. So I don't want the government snooping in on, especially when there's no guaruntee that Joe Politician can't look in and try and use that data against me or my family or the very government system itself.

    So, great to know that there are over the shelf components to track log files. I'm more interested in making sure that another branch of the government is at least watching out to make sure that this data is not being abused. No, I don't need all of the details - that's why we have elected leaders whom I (hopefully) trust enough to look out for my interests - I just want to make sure those interests are protected by the process.

    Which said process, so far, seems to be either willingly ignored, or outright violated.

    Of course, this is all just my opinion, and I could be wrong. And to the NSA folks tracking this post - Hi!
    • Even if this is not strictly illegal, it still smacks of wrong. (Yes, I think there are things not illegal that are still wrong.

      Good grief, I hope that pretty much everyone is in agreement that illegal and immoral are intersecting sets for which the intersection is a proper subset of both sets.

    • Then there's the domestic phone call tracking. Even if this is not strictly illegal, it still smacks of wrong. ... Why? Because there's no independant, "checks and balances" oversight ... I'm more interested in making sure that another branch of the government is at least watching out to make sure that this data is not being abused. No, I don't need all of the details - that's why we have elected leaders whom I (hopefully) trust enough to look out for my interests - I just want to make sure those interests
      • There is oversight. Congressional committees were informed years ago. However election season is upon us so there is a lot of fake outrage and posing for the cameras and microphones going on.

        When informed of Total Information Awareness, Congress loudly and firmly killed it, but the NSA did it anyway in secret. [csoonline.com]

        This is a scandal of first order. The goal is unconstitutional, the attitude is nuamerican and the means are illegal. This is the kind of shit we fought the Cold War to avoid. I'm furious and you

      • This "oversight" canard is such a joke. Yes, some select members of Congress were told (anywhere from 4-8 people). First off, this disclosure was in violation of the law. The full committees must be notified except for black ops (can't remember the TLA for this right now), which this does not qualify as. Second, these Congressmen are only told. The "oversight" has no approval or veto component. Furthermore, they are sworn to absolute secrecy and cannot under any circumstances divulge anything, at all, to an

  • Err... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:35PM (#15352816) Homepage
    the equipment found in the "secret" NSA room at AT&T wasn't some elaborate device designed by Big Brother. Rather, it is a commercially available network-analysis product that any company could acquire.

    Sure, anybody could acquire the hardware used. The trick is to get the equipment onto AT&T's network without ending up in jail.

    • Re:Err... (Score:3, Funny)

      by hacker ( 14635 )
      The trick is to get the equipment onto AT&T's network without ending up in jail.

      Hey, if the NSA can do it without warrants, why can't we?

  • Tor (Score:4, Informative)

    by wpegden ( 931091 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:35PM (#15352817)
    This is why we should all use Tor [eff.org]. The more people that use it (and setup their node as a server) the faster it gets.
    • This is why we should all use Tor. The more people that use it (and setup their node as a server) the faster it gets.

      Damn! Now the NSA knows that I've clicked on the link! Cat's out of the bag!

      • At least you can click on the link. From inside the firewall at the government installation where I work (not related to defense or spying), tor is blocked by filters.

    • Re:Tor (Score:4, Interesting)

      by republican gourd ( 879711 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:44PM (#15353404)
      Are there any estimate as to what percentage of the Tor (or Freenet, or etc etc) nodes are actually run by the Three-Letter-Agencies themselves? Considering that just about every nation has its own intelligence/security type agencies, thats easily a couple hundred nodes right there, probably on 'decent enough' links to get a decent share of traffic but not so fast as to attract suspicion.

      I remember reading about the Freenet Guy's planned changes (moving freenet to a friend-based system where you connect along lines of trust rather than completely anonymously, and immediately thought that the unstated goal was to cut *those* people out as much as possible rather (or in addition to) than the scalability reasons given.

      Hmm, better post this anonymously...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • These are the tools or databases (Score:5, Informative)

    by anandpur ( 303114 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:36PM (#15352820)
    From http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/faq.php#15 [eff.org]
    What is Daytona?
    Daytona is a database management technology originally developed and maintained by the AT&T Laboratories division of AT&T, and is used by AT&T to manage multiple databases. Daytona was designed to handle very large databases and is used to manage "Hawkeye," AT&T's call detail record (CDR) database. Daytona is also used to manage AT&T's huge network-security database, known as "Aurora." As of September 2005, all of the CDR data managed by Daytona, when uncompressed, totaled more than 312 terabytes.
    http://www.research.att.com/projects/daytona/ [att.com]

    What is Hawkeye?
    Hawkeye is AT&T's call detail record (CDR) database, which contains records of nearly every telephone communication carried over its domestic network since approximately 2001, records that include the originating and terminating phone numbers and the time and length for each call.

    What is Aurora?
    Aurora is a network-security database that had been used to store Internet traffic data since approximately 2003. The Aurora database contains huge amounts of data acquired by firewalls, routers, honeypots and other devices on AT&T's global IP (Internet Protocol) network and other networks connected to AT&T's network.

  • Yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BigMattyC ( 969603 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:36PM (#15352823)
    News: that the US Government is monitoring all the traffic flowing through the internet backbones provided by major US service providers. Not News(tm): that a company produces a device that can *GASP* *SHOCK* *HORROR* monitor network traffic. Get a grip.
  • 'Anything that comes through (an IP network), we can record'

    I'm sure they are just using it to get free porn.
  • To be honest, I am starting not to care about all of the this post-911/coup attempt to takeover the US government that failed. I will surf where I want, say what a want, and if the government is truly stupid and sends me one of those National Security Letters (NSLs), I will post it right here on slashdot.org as well as rense.com, infowars.com, and anyone else who will post it on their site because I just do not care. Those pentagon photos of "flight 77" was just more smoke and mirrors to keep people distr
  • I don't see any big deal with recording all data I/O at AT&T and handing it directly to the National Security Agency. After all, if they have to listen to all my conversations in order to prove I'm not a terrorist, I don't see what the---

    ***WOOP WOOP WOOP! Red flag word used! (Queue NSA goons smashing through my windows)***

  • Why is this news? (Score:2, Informative)

    by dannyelfman ( 717583 )
    Of course you can reconstruct any information that flows across a network thay you have access to. That is unless it's encrypted and you don't know the key.

  • And this is supposed to make me feel better? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i am kman ( 972584 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @02:44PM (#15352890)
    So, article starts with:

    The equipment that former AT&T technician Ed Klein learned was installed in the NSA "secret room" in AT&T's San Francisco switching office isn't some sinister Big Brother box designed solely to help governments eavesdrop on citizens' internet communications." ... - it's a commercial product!

    Oh great - I feel so much better about that. I was just worried that the government might have EXCLUSIVE rights to spy on me! But, as long as it's all shared and everyone can do it, then I guess it's ok.

    Thanks for the post - I'll sleep so much better now.



    Damn - where's the sarcastic emoticon when you need it.
  • Think of a Beowulf cluster of those!
  • The Big Brother 1000.
  • There used to be a saying "Cops always have the best drugs!" These days I think it has been replaced with "The NSA always has the best porn!"
  • So you mean that if you take a IP packet stream and analyze the headers you can reconstruct the communications??? When did this madness start? What kind of voodoo magic are they using up there?
  • I don't care if they were running tcpdump...it doesn't make it any less troublesome.

  • Bellyaching (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crossmr ( 957846 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:05PM (#15353078) Journal
    and all I hear is a bunch of bellyaching and "ooh they're evil!". As I stated a few weeks ago, Who is going to do anything about it? Evertyime we turn around the American government or corporations come up with a new way to spy on us, restrict our rights or do something else to make the world a little less pleasant.

    If they can't come up with anything specific that day, W. calls the RIAA and has them sue a dead woman. They want to make people so damn paranoid that one day they'll just turn around and say "Okay we're taking over your life, here is your itinerary for the day, don't alter this schedule. You have a bowel movement scheduled in 15 minutes". The vast majority will think its an awesome idea.

    These stories are great to remind us what a wasteland this place has become, but they serve no real purpose if no one actually does anything about it.
    • Okay we're taking over your life, here is your itinerary for the day, don't alter this schedule. You have a bowel movement scheduled in 15 minutes

      Oh my boss would love that. Imagine the increased productivity that would result!
      • There are places that try that, but then 90% of the workforce goes out and gets a doctor's note saying they're allowed to go whenever they want.
  • How much of the Internet traffic can be funneled through this -- or any such -- room? Is it a bottleneck, or something routed around? Just how much of the web's traffic can any single such room "see", and how many rooms like this would it take to see it all -- let alone figure out where to store it?

  • Anything that comes through , we can record (Score:4, Funny)

    by McGiraf ( 196030 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:12PM (#15353128)
    And the RIAA does not get a cent on royalties! shocking

    In other new, the RIAA sue the NSA!

  • Not just easily available, but free! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:14PM (#15353142) Homepage

    Ethereal. Excellent tool, even for non black hats!

  • Field Proven! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by endernet ( 656588 )
    From the Key Benefits section of their web site... Field-proven ability to meet the most stringent requirements of the world's largest networks such as AT&T, KDDI, Vodafone and Korea Telecom.

  • Can reconstruct emails? Not this one. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:19PM (#15353191)
    "We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments"

    Dear Narus,

    -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
    Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

    jA0EAwMCiGG6wLlc/6tgyUeJGySx1Ccd8lGe3ugi35iwgMr2yi PxHsoCwtOeytve
    r8fdeb237gtWNHzaen4DpYF9ibJ4E6DCxm8+yGpYcoP7bgEnzJ H49A==
    =BJEi
    -----END PGP MESSAGE-----

    (created with "gpg -a -c"). Just a reminder that if you don't like people reading your email, you and your recipient can rather easily make sure nobody can practically do so.

    The NSA could probably break one PGP message's encryption in a matter of hours (or maybe even minutes), but they couldn't break one million. How about we all really press our friends to get PGP keys made+signed and the software installed...and ENCRYPT EVERY SINGLE PERSONAL EMAIL to them? Good luck to the NSA trying to sift through all that crap.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @03:48PM (#15353440)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • From http://www.narus.com/press/news/index.html [narus.com]

    Shanghai Telecom, which has 6.2 million landlines, plans to use Narus Inc.'s system to improve its ability to block "unauthorized" Internet calls that connect to its phone system, bypassing its toll structure.

    Great to know that the same Big Brother software is being used in USA and China. Invokes some warm fuzzy feeling of union...

  • Expectations (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ulpilot ( 973523 ) on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @04:06PM (#15353573)
    The law of the land (the USA anyway) says that if you have a conversation in a restaurant, there is no expectation of privacy. If you have a conversation at home, you do have an expectation of privacy, unless I consent to having my conversation recorded. As soon as you send/receive information in a public place there is no expectation of privacy, from a legal perspective.

    If you send/receive packets of data over a public connection, i.e. the internet, somehow you are expecting privacy? Hmmm. (notice the thoughtful pause) If you want or need privacy over a public medium, it seems simple to me. Use encryption.

    Don't get me wrong, I hate big government and big government's intrusion into my personal life. But, I also do not see my internet activity as a personal/private activity. There are just too many people involved. Webmasters see me visiting their site. My ISP knows where I go and what I do. So, I assume there will be others knowing that stuff too. There may be dozens of people 'knowing' what my internet activity looks like. No, I do not like big brother recording everything. It will, however take an amazing database to house all the data while waiting to be filtered and I am doubtful that the end result will accomplish what they are striving for.

  • Fear (Score:2, Informative)

    by vodkamattvt ( 819309 )
    I dont know what I fear more ... the increasingly easy way any (evil) corporation can compile all my communications or the idea that the government can. I think its pretty clear that as technology gets more advanced, so do privacy concerns.

    I think the most frightening part is that when I talk to my more conservative family members and most people who only casually know about these issues or politics, they see NOTHING wrong with everyone and their brother recording all the information they can on them and

  • "Four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo in this order!"

    At which point are you guys now? I'd say it's already past the third, no?

  • Bush Signed Executive Order Allowing Telcos To Lie (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lokni ( 531043 ) <reali100@nOspAM.chapman.edu> on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @05:10PM (#15354089)
    You guys might want to check this out: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/17/new-executive- order/ [thinkprogress.org] Bush has signed an executive order that allows the Telcos to lie on their financial statements. It would be almost impossible to prove these programs existed without access to classified information. Another way to prove them, however, would be to detail how much money the telcos receive from the federal government. They are required to report this information to the SEC beecause they are publically traded companies. Bush has signed an order that allows them to violate securities law. Worse off, he did this just a few days preceeding the USA Today article which implies that they had notice ahead of time that they were about to be exposed. We are in for a world of hurt people. Say bye bye to the United States of America as we know it. This is fascism by definition.

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