FBI Planning New Net-Tapping Push

Section_Ei8ht writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the FBI is pushing for legislation to allow law enforcement officials free access to networking gear via built in backdoors for eavesdropping. From the article: "Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute and member of a Homeland Security advisory board, said the proposal would 'have a negative impact on Internet users' privacy. People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards,' Harper said. 'Right now the Department of Justice is pushing the wrong way on all this.'"

Re:Let me defend the law

Isn't this the same thing that was said when the government wanted phone taps and access to your bank accounts ? Not to mention any national database.. no chance there of someone abusing it ?

Re:Let me defend the law

And the phone taps were abused then too. Look at how wiretaps were used against Martin Luther King Jr. Simple because the FBI wanted to prevent communists from getting in the civil rights movement, they were able to take a man for years and later use the recordings as little more than blackmail. Insert terrorist instead of communist and what do you get: 21st century America.

Re:Let me defend the law

"Do you have something against the regular police wiretaps done with warrants?"

Those are fine, assuming the warrants are based on probable cause and issued by an independent court. But those aren't the issue at all here.

Is it now illegal to make your front door out of steel, because it would make it too difficult for police with a warrant to break it down? That's what we're talking about.

We're talking about mandating bad security, so that it will be easier for police with a warrant to break it. If you understand anything about security, you'll see that it also makes it easier for anyone, including criminals inside and outside the police force, to break it.

In other words: this increases the risk of crime in order to make a wiretapper's job more convenient.

Re:Let me attack the law

Do you have something against the regular police wiretaps done with warrants?

No. I have something against irregular wiretaps done without warrents. Possibly even without the involvement of the police.

If you think that nobody outside of the police forces is going to have the codes to break into your network a week after the date is available, you've got your head in the sand.

Back in the '80s when it was common for the games companies to copy-protect their games (before they finally figured out that this just upset their legitimate customers), a friend of mine came in with a cracked copy of the latest game -- weeks before the game was available to legitimate purchasers. Network backdoor codes are going to be like that. The 2% of crooked cops will ensure that no spammer is going to lack for that information.

It's about the details

There are many ways to implement court-ordered wiretapping. The CALEA debate is not about whether IP networks should be wiretappable but about how it should be done and who should pay for it. Before CALEA, the FBI had to install Carnivore sniffing equipment at ISPs. I guess they think that's too much work, so they want every router at every ISP to be upgraded to have built-in wiretapping, so they don't have to lug any equipment around. And they want the ISPs to pay for these upgrades. And according to the article, now they want the ISPs to also filter the traffic for them, so they get only the traffic they want.

IMO this is an expensive, complex, failure-prone solution to the problem.

Also more prone to abuse

With the way warrants work now, abuse is fairly hard, at least at the individual level. Some pissed off or nosy cop or FBI agent can't simply search your house or tap your net connection and so on. If the cop shows up at an ISP with the tap equipment, and so warrant, it's not likely he'll get it in there and it's pretty likely he'll get caught. Same idea as if you come home, and there's a cop rifling through your shit. You ask for a warrant and one isn't forthcomming, he's in a lot of trouble.

Well the problem here is that this can all be activated remotely, silently. A similar idea would be for the government to put cameras in your home. I have a feeling nearly everyone would object to this, regardless of the justification. The problem is that with something like this, an individual can spy on you at random, with almost no accountability. They just turn tapping on and go. There's no oversight.

Between the cost and the abuse potential, I can't possibly see this as a good thing. All power you give the government has potential for abuse, and you need to weigh that against what it gets you. This gets them nothing but convenience, they already have the legal authority to tap connections and such, and opens up huge potential for abuse. Thus it should not be allowed. The cost argument just makes it that much more compelling. It is not the burden of private businesses/citizens to bear this cost.

I also find all this extremely uncompelling because our existing crime fighting tools appear to be working. Violent crime in the US keeps going down. I don't think we'll ever eliminate it, but it looks like we are moving in the right direction, it looks like we ARE able to fight it. Thus I'm not seeing the need for this vastly expanded government power.

Fascism starts ...

Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.

You're absolutely correct about this law enabling individuals to bypass the protections we've built up since our country was founded.

And that's not the worst of it. Individuals can harass other individuals.

But the same tactics can apply to groups within the law enforcement agencies. And that makes it too easy to implement a police state without ever passing another law. They can monitor anyone / anywhere / anytime without any oversight or paperwork.

Goodbye Democracy.

Fascism has nothing to do with Jews.

Has the memory of 9/11 faded that much?

No. And I find it very telling that it is brought up so often by people who want to take away our Rights.

Facism was born of Germany's humiliation in WWI, weak democractic institutions, and a widespread, simmering hatred of Jews, not of government "inefficiency".

Fascism has nothing to do with Jews.

Fascism depends upon identifying an "enemy of the state". This "enemy" has to be so terrible that the Rights of the rest of the citizens must be "temporarily" restricted to prevent the atrocities that these enemies will surely bring.

The Nazi party identified Jews, Communists and Blacks as "enemies of the State". Pay attention to history.

And I never said that it was "inefficiency" that lead to Fascism. What I said was:
"Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people."

Prior to 9/11 the cockroaches to plotted to attack the US did so in the kind of open environment you seem to want to restore.

Freedom is not safe nor is it free.

Our Forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that their signatures would be used to condemn them to death if the British won the war.

They believed in Freedom enough to PUBLICLY identify themselves and their beliefs.

They fought and died for provide those Freedoms to you. And now you want to sell those Freedoms because there is a slight chance that you will be injured or killed.

The chance of a "terrorist" killing you is LESS than the chance of someone in your own family killing you.

It is LESS likely than you being killed on the highways.

Yeah, these people were all wrong about Freedom when they signed their death warrants back then:
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/ [ushistory.org]

It's so good of people like you who are willing to sell our Freedoms and Rights for a false sense of "security".

They are the same.

Nice analogy. However if someone in your family murders you, frankly no one else gives a damn.

Look up "Phil Hartman". You can find other examples on your own.

As oppossed to, say, a few thousand people getting killed at the same time and witnessed by people around the globe.

It was only "witnessed by people around the globe" because it was repeatedly broadcast.

If they repeatedly broadcast car wrecks around the globe, then the same could be said of them.

People who then wonder, can I even count on being safe going to work in the morning.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Again, there is more of a threat to those people from other cars on the highway than from terrorists.

Financial markets that then wonder, exactly how resilient is this supposed super power.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. The country was in no more danger that day than a year prior.

Industry leaders who then wonder, maybe I should scale back hiring and investment because who knows what's going to happen next.

"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Their businesses were in no more danger that day than than a year prior.

So all things considered, the two are not the same and the consequences of one are much greater and reach much further than the other.

No, they are the same in that in each scenario, people die.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm [drugwarfacts.org]

The only differences are:
a. You are far more likely to die from aspirin than from terrorism.

b. People who do not understand statistics succumb to the "terror" in "terrorism".

Thankfully, outside of Slashdot, the nation is not populated by chicken littles and people are willing to take a slight reduction in privacy/anonymity in return for an increased liklihood that the government will be able to prevent more attacks.

And, over time, those "slight reductions" result in ... a police state.

Now, to demonstrate your understanding of statistics, why don't you name 5 countries which have fewer Rights than the US and fewer terrorist attacks.

If you cannot, then your point is invalid.

People also have enough common sense to realize that this is not a dictatorship, GW and friends will be out of power in a few more years, and our system of government will - as it always has - correct what some see as the excesses of current policy.

What "excesses of current policy"?

Either the reduction of Rights is necessary, or it is not. You cannot have it both ways.

By the way, facism starts when the populace has its involvement in political life curtailed.

Really? Perhaps you can provide an example of such? All of the Fascist states that I'm familiar with (Italy, German, etc) did not prevent the citizens from participating in politics. In fact, the citizens were encouraged to support the Fascists by identifying the "threats" in their communities.

The first shadow of the future police states was cast by the policies of Czarist Russia. It was not the czars overreaction to domestic terrorism that spawned it, it was the systematic denial of political involvement to the Russian citizenry for centuries.

"first shadow" and "centuries" don't match. Something cannot be the "first shadow" that happens over "centuries".

You may also want to read about various monarchs throughout the ages.

There have and always will be enemies of the state, and it is foolish to think that they are falsehoods perpetuated by those in power.

Look up "McCarthy witch hunt".

The key to preventing facism is an engaged citizenry with the political ability to curtail the overreaction of the g

So your point is that you don't have a point?

I said 'what some view' as excesses. I did not say all people view current policy as excessive, nor intimate that people blindly accept or reject the entirety of the Bush administration's policy. A lesson for yourself perhaps in cognitive thinking.

So, some people (but not all people) may (or may not) view some (or none, or all) of the actions of Bush and Co as "excessive" (or maybe not).

I believe that it is you that needs to work on your "cognitive thinking".

If you disagree that czarist Russia spawned the future facist states, take it up with Richard Pipes or any number of other historians.

Well, unless your name is "Richard Pipes" I don't believe that he posted here.

Are you his secretary? Are you scheduling his appointments?

If not, then learn to support the statements that YOU make. Don't try to dump your claims off on someone who is not here and has not posted.

Your rant about Phil Hartman and car accidents does not address the very simple point I made - terrorist attacks have far greater and far reaching consequences than the mundane tragedies of life that you bring up. Even if, oh my gosh, a celebrity is murdered.

Actually, I did address them.

The "consequences" you speak of are nothing more than emotional reactions by people who do not understand statistics. And those "consequences" are what the "terrorists" are attempting to achieve.

So, if you are afraid because a terrorist killed someone, then the terrorist has "won" that round.

The fact that Joe McCarthy was a nut does not mean the United States has no enemies.

Nice attempt at a strawman. I did not say that the United States has no enemies. North Korea and Iran and two obvious examples.

But you won't stop North Korea or Iran by spying upon what US citizens say in chatrooms.

Just as McCarthy's witch hunts to find "Communists" in "Hollywood" did not in any way, shape or form hinder Soviet Russia's activities.

Did you understand it that time?

Wipe froth from mouth, take a deep breath, let your mind approach the problem from all angles. As your right to spew babble has clearly not been trampled on, post again when you have a coherent argument.

It was you who brought up "cognitive thinking".

It was you who tried to deflect arguments to "Richard Pipes".

It was you who could not understand that McCarthy did nothing to hinder Soviet Russia.

It is you who is resorting to personal attacks. That would seem to indicate that you're cache of "logic" has been expended.

Statistically, you are more likely to die from suicide than from a terrorist attack.

The only reason that terrorism still exists is because people do not understand statistics and allow their emotions to be manipulated. You've chose the emotional side of this issue and I have chosen the rational, statistical side.

Re:Terrorism starts...

So what you're saying is, we've got to destroy the freedom in order to save it?

Makes sense to me. Totally.

Re:Terrorism starts...

Fascism did not start in Germany. Fascism started in Hungary and Italy. It didn't really care much about Jews until Hitler came into power. Furthermore, terrorism has only killed maybe ten thousand people. Fascist and authoritarian governments have killed over ten million.

Re:Terrorism starts...

Has the memory of 9/11 faded that much?

Okay, new rule: The First Person To Bring Up 9/11 Loses The Argument. Call it a corollary to Godwin's Law.

Prior to 9/11 the cockroaches to plotted to attack the US did so in the kind of open environment you seem to want to restore.

You've been listening to way too much Republican propaganda.

The fact is various different intelligence and investigative agencies already had all of the pieces of the plot in different datasets necessary to detect and stop the 9/11 attacks. However, the various agencies did not communicate with each other for various different reasons--some legal, some turf. In theory, this is why the Department of Homeland Security was created--to facilitate the kind of sharing needed for these cases. Whether it will be effective is a debate for another day.

But let's repeat the important part again, so that it has a better chance of being recorded in your brain: The various different intelligence and investigative agencies already had all of the pieces of the plot in different datasets necessary to detect and stop the 9/11 attacks. In other words, the "openness and freedom" that existed before the 9/11 attacks still managed to tell us everything we needed to know about the attacks.

It was the government that "let us down" by not connecting the dots. Of course, they don't want to say it that way because it makes them look bad, so suddenly we need all sorts of new surveillance laws to collect data that we don't need.

Re:Prevention is all that matters

Oh, that is a real consolation! Liberals are amusing. Your point is irrelevent. Prevention is all that matters. What good is the ability to reconstruct the plot after 3000 people are disintegrated?

I'm trying to figure out if you're being serious.

I'm going to repeat it again--much like the Republicans, maybe if I repeat it enough it will get through to you: We had all the information necessary to stop the 9/11 Attacks.

Unfortunately, some of the information was at the CIA. Some of the information was at the FBI. Some of the information was at the NSA. None of the groups shared their information. In some cases, they couldn't because it was illegal--the CIA is forbidden from "domestic spying", while the FBI is forbidden from "foreign spying." Some of it is turf--why give the FBI information so they can make the arrest and get all the credit? So while the CIA thought these guys were bad news, they didn't tell the FBI. The FBI thought these guys were bad news but they didn't have enough evidence to convince the higher-ups to devote the resources to watching them. The NSA had the evidence that these guys were bad news, but telling the FBI or CIA would have meant divulging national security capabilities.

But I will repeat this again, so it will hopefully get through: We had all the information necessary to stop the 9/11 Attacks.

That's why I get incensed when people bring up 9/11 in this context. 9/11 was not an issue where we didn't have enough information. 9/11 was an organizational problem. There was no reasonable way to make sure that information about dangerous people would get to the appropriate people where they could be watched and/or arrested. So the argument that we need "more information" to "prevent another 9/11" is wrong. What we need to do is do a better job of managing the information we have.

You see, this is why we had an investigation into 9/11--much to the President's chagrin--so we could find out what went wrong and try to fix the problem so it wouldn't happen again.

Re:Also more prone to abuse

The irony of the camera thing is that cameras in your house would probably reveal a lot less sensitive information than wiretaps on your phone or on your network. What exactly could a dirty cop see if they had a camera in someone's house? They might see someone naked in the shower or having sex? How about eating, sleeping, watching TV? Big deal. Most regular people don't do anything interesting enough at home to be particularly exploitable if captured on camera. Meanwhile, if they had a phone-tap, or a network-tap, they could get all sorts of financial or business details.

Re:Also more prone to abuse

Good point. Ever since those old Bugs Bunny cartoons, all terrorists and criminal masterminds head off through the woods to a special location with a sign proclaiming "Gangster Hideout" to conduct their affairs.

Re:Let me defend the law

...it's the equivalent of giving the local police a copy of your house keys. It could and would be abused by some dirty coppers, their partners in crime or anyone who can get access to them. Would you trust the police to keep your house safe? Do you trust the FBI to keep your network safe?

Let me get this straight. . .

The FBI can't even keep ITSELF from being hacked [washtimes.com], and they want us to trust them with backdoors in everyone ELSES gear ?

I don't think so. . .

Good call, and that's only the beginning

Put "lawful intercept" back doors everywhere, and how long do you think it will take the next Kevin Mitnick to figure out how to exploit them? Remember that the FBI wanted remote access, so physical security won't help, and that 38,000 FBI passwords were so lame that a cracking program could guess them.

Nor is this theoretical. The Greek prime minister and many government officials found themselves eavesdropped on through the "lawful intercept" features on a celllco switch. To belabor the point, whoever was doing it was not the Greek police.

Re:Let me defend the law

The problem with this kind of idea is that it is very difficult to implement without also giving hordes of unauthorized people access. Also, to address your argument, while with a warrant the police can get access to your house, there isn't a law mandating every lock to be pickable or easily opened by them, and I don't see why that should be different for network equipment.

Re:Let me defend the law

If they get a warrant, then they can have a judge legally compel me to give them access. This is just like granting them access to certain buildings.

I know you will hate me for this, but the objection to the proposed system isn't confined to the stated means and justifications of the proposal. The system as it stands has a very high level of accountability and control. If you create facilities that bypass the courts, then the controls and accountability for how these facilities are (mis)used disappears.

Businessmen and officials and regular people commit crimes all of the time because (and this is usually a whiner DA/cop reason) under legal presumption of innocence, if the process of producing a prima facie case in court is significanlty less than the effort it takes to investigate then the law will have no deterrent effect against criminals. Therefore, even though this seems to improve investigation, prosecution, and therefore deterrence, it actually makes it easier for many more shady people to victimize many more regular people without a trail of evidence or fear of legal retribution.

Re:Let me defend the law

Good metaphor, but I think this would be more like them demanding the key to every door in America be placed in an unlocked box right beside the door, with a label saying "please don't open this box if you're not a cop."

Reading things like this

make me wonder why we just don't encrypt the entire network ? I understand there would be more over-head, but wouldn't that be the same as games pushing hardware?

Re:Reading things like this

People have been working on that for 10 years or so, but it's tricky to actually make it work. For example, opportunistic IPSec has gone through several revisions, all of which seem to have various flaws that make it unusable in practice. Or if you want to encrypt all traffic at the application level you end up having to modify every protocol and then every implementation, and then waiting for people to adopt it...

Hackers?

It seems like making these modifications would create security holes that could be exploited by those not associated with law enforcement.

I also don't agree with the provision that says that law enforcement officials would not have to publish a yearly "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions." Keeping this information private would not help their investigations. What difference does it make to a terrorist whether the FBI intercepted 12,000 or 120,000 communiques.

Re:Hackers?

It seems like making these modifications would create security holes that could be exploited by those not associated with law enforcement.

Exactly! And with the recent revelation that the FBI can't even manage their own security [slashdot.org], why should we be entrusting them with a backdoor to monitor all our communications?

Since this administration is so keen on the phrase, I'd go farther and say there is a national security risk with putting this system in place. If our government can access these wiretaps, there's good reason to believe that foreign intelligence agencies, organized crime, etc. would be able to as well. Once such groups have snapped up enough logins for online banking systems, they could create a flood of transactions that could bring our financial system to its knees, causing runs on banks, and all sorts of fun behavior that, with proper preperation, such criminals or spy-groups could use to their advantage.

So to prevent terrorism and crime we are going to surrender our privacy to terrorists and criminals? I call bullshit.

It's like you went to the criminals of the world and asked them: what's your wet dream? The answer would be this system.

I am a patriotic American.

I am perfectly content with the government and it's employees having access to records showing:

• Every conversation I have ever taken part in.
• Every place I have ever gone.
• Every purchase I have ever made.
• Every person I have ever talked to.
• Every book I have ever read.
• Every thought I have ever had.

It is required for the security of America and the World. The only people who resist the adoption of laws to allow the above are the people who have something to hide. Those who have something to hide are terrorists who wish to strip me of my "freedom".

Re:I am a patriotic American.

Ironically, though this was meant as sarcasm, I really don't mind if the government knows most of those things about me (OK, maybe not 'every thought I've ever had,' but most of the rest would be pretty much fine by me.)

However, I object in principle for two reasons:

• Because someday the government may become actually oppressive (as in "take arms" oppressive), and it is at that point that the infrastructure which our rights to privacy currently prevent would be a serious liability to all interested in life, liberty, et al.
• Because while I don't have anything I would object horribly to the government knowing about me, I am not willing to cast my vote to allow them to, because to do so would be taking on the authority to decide that neither would anyone else.

So no, I have nothing to hide, and don't really object to some at least mostly impartial body knowing my 'secrets' as a matter of pragmatism, but in principle and because I can't speak for those around me, I object.

Re:I am a patriotic American.

Every purchase I have ever made.

You know, this could actually come in handy, if you ever wanted to return something to the store, but misplaced the receipt.

Come to think of it, all of that information would be nice to have in one centralized place as I grow older and my memory starts to go south.

Me: Now, where was it that I went on vacation that year?

[scratches head]

Me: Oh, well, I'll just submit a FOIA request to the government and have them tell me.

It may take months, it may take years...

...but this legislation or something very similar to it will pass. The fbi/U.S. government has discovered just how easy and effective it is to monitor citizens over the internet. Since so much of our daily life now occurs over the "tubes" of the internet (banking, purchasing, social-networking, entertainment, phone-calls, etc.), it makes it all too simple for the government to assemble detailed files on citizens just by eavesdropping on their net connection.

Sure, at first the feds/police will need to get warrants, but eventually that requirement too will fade away. The eye of Big Brother in every room will be present in the form of our internet connections. It is so pathetically easy for the government to get monitoring power over our online lives; all they have to do is repeat three words over and over again. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn. That's it. If they keep repeating those three words, any legislation they want will glide right through Congress.

Simple Solution

Always go under the impression you are being watched 24/7 and anything you say or do *will* be seen/read/heard and used against you at some point.

Even if you are doing nothing wrong, still assume the above.

Because it works so well in Greece...

Back in 2004 some of the highest-ranking politicians and other most influential people in Greece had their cell phone conversations surreptitiously recorded by an unknown organization for a period of months. [schneier.com]

The job could not have been pulled off without the presence of automated wire-tapping functionality built into the Ericsson switches in Greece. What makes the "greek experience" relevant here is that Greece didn't even purchase the wire-tapping "option" to their switches, it would have cost millions more and they decided to save the money and thought that by not purchasing the extra software and hardware they didn't even have to worry about the issue. They were very wrong.

If ever there was proof that wire-tapping features built into systems for law-enforcement use can and will be exploited by unauthorized users, this is it. It really does not get more clean-cut than this - except for the speculation as to who exactly these unauthorized wire-tappers were - the leading candidate is the CIA. Which would lead even just a mildly paranoid person to wonder if perhaps the FBI is jealous of the CIA's latitude in foreign operations and they just want the same, easily-abused by themselves, features within their own jurisdiction.

the Secure Hardware Environment (SHE)

You guys know exactly where we're headed, right?

I hope you've been reading your Vinge. [wikipedia.org] This is equivalent to homework, if you're a technologist (programmers, that means you.)

Our destination is the Secure Hardware Environment (SHE). [sdsu.edu]

That is, every computing device will have to have a section for the government built in, and the government will require access to just a small part of network traffic.

Further: All manufacturing will be observed. (see: Don't Try This at Home, [wired.com] and Remote Biology Labs [austinche.name] -- how could it be allowed to work out any other way?) The US government (not sure which parts) is already rejecting chips for computers where the manufacturing process is unknown or unwatched (link lost; sorry.)

This will be done for your safety.

See also: Big Brother Takes a Controlling Interest in Chips. [guardian.co.uk] Rainbows End. [communitywiki.org]

We have been here before - read the history

This [bbc.co.uk] is an interesting read, a historical perspective of a police state during the reign of Elisabeth I (in 16th century). It is often only with many years of hindsight that you can really understand what was going on. This has happened before, let history be your guide.

My statement of cooperation

People, we live in the post-9/11 world. The world has changed. Now I realize that we all have our moral limits, and our views on this, but the reality is that we have to all do our part for the war on terrorism.

The terrorists fight dirty. The only way to fight them is to adopt some of their own tactics. This means that we may have to cooperate with some "unsavory characters." People you don't like, people you don't respect, people you don't want around, people you don't want your kids to interact with, people you wouldn't even allow inside your own home.

So tonight I'm announcing my intention to cooperate with the United States Government.

The TRULY disturbing thing ...

... is how this increase in surveillance is coupled to a decrease in transparency:

[The proposed legislation will:]

Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice Department must publish a public "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions" every year. That notice currently also must disclose the "maximum capacity" required to accommodate all of the legally authorized taps that government agencies will "conduct and use simultaneously."

Now, if they have nothing to hide, why are they so worried that we know how often this tool is used?

If privacy is dead, then transparency is our only hope. But the current mood in our government is to trust no one -- not a single citizen. Yet somehow, anyone in law enforcement or homeland security is deemed automatically trustworthy.

Sales of US-manufactured networking equipment?

Who is going to want to buy this stuff?

Not anyone outside the US... and not anyone *inside* - at least until they are required by law to "patriotically" only buy US-made networking gear.

It would have been nice if they had learned *something* from the years of the crypto export restrictions - stuff without the restrictions / backdoors / etc will be made somewhere, and will be purchased and used...

All this crap does is kill the viability in the global marketplace of products from US networking gear manufacturers. Sigh.

ACTUALLY, Cisco helped create the GFOC.

Great Firewall Of China was created with THIS EXACT HARDWARE by such freedom loving companies as CISCO, IBM and MICROSOFT, if memory serves. Yeah, This is how China polices their internet so fast. How soon do you think our "employment issue" will be solved by creating the Great Firewall of America??

goto www.spp.gov and do some thought.

Re:Sales of US-manufactured networking equipment?

How true.

Coincidentally, I was having a conversation about the US approach to (or, rather, retreat from) issues of freedom with a group of Europeans last week, and this was just one of the issues that came up. It was unanimously agreed that the powers of the US secret (and not so secret) police were beginning to become alarming. Their possible future effects on the rest of the world are even more alarming.

Not only does the US have a big say in how the internet is run, they also produce or licence a significant proportion of computer kit today. OK, maybe the US supply to the world market will die the death and other countries will take up the slack; but that's not the issue, is it?

Other countries are trying to follow suit - look at the UK. They have a law called RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) act. This is a misnomer because it is really the HOMUP (Hand Over Massive and Unrestricted Powers) act. Sounds very much like the US Patriot act (BTW, that was a clever name - "If you don't support this act, you can't be a patriot".)

There was a time, not that long ago, when the US prided itself as being the leaders of the free world. Perhaps they should hand the baton over to someone else before they drop it.

Don't worry about the network -- it's already lost

The US government is probably the most powerful threat to peoples' security, but it is certainly not the only threat.

Whether or not the FBI manages to mandate that backdoors be installed in your ISPs equipment, you have to already assume that some backdoors exist. Maybe the government already did some of it while no one was looking, maybe some peeping tom at your ISP did it so he could read your love letters, maybe organized criminals are trying to build a database of names and social security numbers, whatever. You damn well know that not everyone is able to secure their system, or that they don't have your best interest as their top priority, and that includes the ISPs. Big Brother and all his Little Brothers are already a plausible threat, and this particular story doesn't change a thing.

It is your responsibility and my responsibility to make sure that we have protected our privacy. Encrypt your mail. Make sure your next stupid web server project can do everything on top of SSL. Meet with people and expand the PGP WoT. Assume the government and the identity thieves and the little green men from Alpha Centauri will completely subvert the network, and work on protecting the endpoint(s) instead. As it has always been, the Internet isn't trustworthy, so don't get your panties in a bunch just because someone wants to make it worse.

Re:Encryption?

No kidding...which proves the point a lot of us have been saying for a damn long time.
This isn't about terror, this isn't about child porn.
Hell, the NSA request to ATT came in February of 2001, before 9/11.
This is about setting up an authoritarian Judeo-Christian Police State. Finally, finally it's becoming apparent.
If information is meant to be hidden, it is all but impossible to stop it from remaining hidden in this day and age.
The solution is at our fingertips (but maybe only for a while) and that solution is firearms an ordnance.
Take back the country, by force if neccessary.

My fix - an open source router

Hmmm... The day they push this through is the day I go buy a router that *I* compile the firmware for.

If they make THAT illegal?... I am not sure... I might just become a criminal...

Federally mandated insecurity?

If there is a "secret backdoor" in routers and switches, it will be found by security experts both white and black hat. This will open up ENORMOUS security and privacy issues. Compromise a machine, get it to link to the routers and switches and just collect the info. Could it BE more obvious? And if you think a warrant will be used, you're imagining things. Accoding to Bush, he doesn't need a warrant for anything while we are "at war." The war is just an excuse to allow his group to snatch more power for themselves and take more away from the people. If he was REALLY interested in fighting terrorism and defending the homeland, the closing of borders would have been the FIRST thing he did, not the last and most reluctant thing...

Re:Next : Installing Camears in US citizens' Rectu

"With voicechat option of course ..."

Great. So now politicians will not only be able to talk out of their own asses, but mine as well?

That just don't seem right.

If you're doing nothing wrong...

...then why should you accept being treated as a criminal ? This planet will just become one day a Zoo with chipped, tattooed and rfid'd humans wandering around lining up happily for their free daily beating.

Some say it doesn't matter if someone else is always listening/watching. Well, do you speak and behave the same if someone is watching ? Can you pee with someone standing beside you watching ?

Hell, I'm not in the U.S., still I've come to a point where I don't even sign [before you start, I mean gpg] my e-mails going to the U.S., let alone use encryption.

I'd never use network equipment with backdoors known to have been built in (and I don't even have trade secrets to guard). Would you ? Would a company ? Would they prosecute you if you use certified hw with backdoors but keep everyone out with proxies and firewalls ? Or would they then make it also illegal to filter network traffic ?

Am I going too far ? Maybe. But sometimes you have to think further. Where can a road paved with ever more often restrictions lead ? If the police gets more freedoms while you loose your freedoms, what does that tell you about your future ?