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Privacy Invasion By Any Other Name 78

Posted by timothy from the nice-perfume-my-lovely dept.
Steve writes: "CNET News.com reports that the FBI has changed the name of Carnivore to DCS1000. The DCS stands for 'Digital Collection System.' According to the article, 'A spokesman for the FBI denied that the name change stemmed from worries that the name Carnivore made the system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy. But the Illinois Institute of Technology, which last fall issued an analysis of the system at the request of the Justice Department, recommended that the name be changed for just that reason, according to an IIT analyst.' The article does not say which of the IITRI recommendations were incorporated other than the name change." The FDA requires prominent, nominally truthful labels on food, but apparently not all TLA agencies feel quite the same way. I thought "Carnivore" was a beautiful flash of truth in labelling, so this move is a shame.
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Privacy Invasion By Any Other Name

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  • Who cares about Carnivore anyway? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What's the big deal? The Fourth Amendment gives them the power to do searches with a warrant. Carnivore or DCS or whatever is just a tool that allows them to implement their Fourth Amendment powers. Sure, it could snoop every email, even from users who are not covered in the warrant, but that's the same situation with a phone tap. Back in the old old days, when phone calls were transmited over circuits, it would be possible to tap just one particular circuit, but that's long gone. Everything is packets now, and if you put a phone tap on an ATM phone switch, if the tap is configured "incorrectly" it could also tap arbitrary phone traffic. Carnivore is the same thing. If it's configured right, then it's fine, and if it's not, there's no way to stop that.

    As an aside, I think these types of devices might really spur increased usage of tools like PGP and Starium. Hint hint Starium, I'm ready to buy one of your damn voice encryptors like a year ago, so please hurry it up. And I already use PGP for routine email.

    I personally think that everyone (not just the FBI) should have the power to tap any communication line at any time. Why not? We should all be using encryption for everything anyway, right? Ok, that last bit is a bit of flamebait, sorry about that. I won't do it again.

  • In a related story... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The FBI has changed their name from Federal Bureau of Investigation to Fuzzy Beaver Institute. A spokesman from the bureau... er, institute... reported that the reason for the change was to keep criminals from figuring out what their real function is. "In particular, the word 'Investigation' from the original name of the department actually gives us a great charter to investigate anything we want, whether it be criminal activity, or that copyrighted song that Mr. Simmons from Intercourse, PA is currently downloaded from Napster's overloaded servers."

    This name change has been under consideration for a while, with other department changes, including the installation of the formerly-named "Carnivore" software on 100% of the satelites that have been placed into service over the past two years.

    When asked for a comment, the U.S. president responded, "Huh?"

  • um, no... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Depending on where you go in the country a hogie is a grinder is a submarine. But it is all still lunch!(A very good lunch too - ham and Swiss- sooo goood!) Just because the name changes doesnt mean the actual substance changes.

    A grinder is shaped like a hoagie, but is hot. Like a meatball grinder. A submarine is also distinct from the two. Know your sandwich aliases. It might save you.
  • Shoot if there going for appeal why not. Well this is interesting, because I will admit the first time I heard FBI and the name of a device called Carnivour being used together I automatilly linked it with Big Brother ,Echellon, and the apocolipse, then I went into must fight destroy, avoid, power to the people fight the cause. well you get my point. It still creeps me out that if I ever ran for office all the porno sites I mistakenly had pop up on my browser will show up ..... I didn't enjoy I merely looked.

  • Hell, Anderson Consulting estimated that the money spent on changing their name to Accenture cost about $100 million. (Yes, one-hundred million dollars.) And that was just the cost of things like changing the stationary — the promotional costs are in addition, like their $175 million global advertizing campaign in 2001 to establish the new name with people.

    On the main topic, what the Hell is Timothy talking about with his truth-in-labelling babble? A "Digital Collection System" pretty much describes what the system does. A "carnivore" is a meat-eater, which does not describe what this system does. Sure, Carnivore sounds more ominous, but shouldn't he be arguing in favor of accuracy, not for hype?


    Cheers,

  • Please don't be naïve. The privacy advocates already hated the FBI. The FBI doesn't really give a shit what they think. The new name is intended for all the other people, and there are a Hell of a lot more of them. Note that most people will likely side with the FBI here, while the privacy advocates will be left trying to explain why they're helping out pedophiles and terrorists. (See: ACLU). Don't believe me? Tell me why.

    On a side note, I find it extreeeeemely ironic that the banner ad I'm getting for this article is for ThinkGeek selling a bumper sticker which reads, "I read your e-mail." So, we're all supposed to be up in arms over the government doing it, but when some haX0r reads someone else's email, that's just havin' a good time and we celebrate that particular privacy violation with a bumper sticker. Good job, guys.


    Cheers,

  • I quite agree. I had a grinder once, and nearly spewed my ring. Anything with lettuce on it should not be hot, I mean what the hell were they thinking? Of course now I live in Seattle, which has all kinds of other wonderful food, but absolutely sucks at Italian subs.

    Ah, I do miss Cassapoula's fine italian submarine sandwiches.
  • P-38: 1938 purge in the USSR, aka The Great Terror; causing great enthusiam from confused WWII aviation buffs.
  • How long before a copy of Carnivore leaks and gets mirrored for public consumption?



    I'd say it's unlikely. I'm sure the code is classified, and breaches of security are treated very seriously. Plus the folks involved have gone through extensive security checks and tend to believe in the 'mission.' It's not impossible (witness the Pentagon Papers), but the probability of finding a rogue programmer willing to risk prison to leak the code is low, IMO.


    Hey, the programmer's are all just hard-working, punctual, meticulous engineers, the guy two doors down who keeps his yard well-trimmed. And two doors down from that, is a guy who, under the right circumstances, would join the secret police and relentlessly grill and torture interogees (is that a real word?) and come home after work and play with his children.

    Heck, any of us might be that way.

  • I know an FBI special agent very well. I talked to him about Carnivore a while back, and he genuinely seemed to be puzzled at my concerns.


    I suspect many of the rank and file law enforcement support things like Carnivore just because it makes their job easier. They know they would not abuse the system. And if they did bend the rules a bit, it would be only to catch someone who was really, really bad....

    And somewhere in the FBI, distributed randomly, are people for whom the temptation of this new power would be irresistable. They are corrupt, and power would magnify their corruption and the amount of damage they could do. Lord Acton's proverb, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", is modifiable (IMO) to "Power entices the corrupt, and absolute power draws many corrupt men, whose capacity to harm is proportional to the amount of power they have." We have all dealt with the petty tyrants in various government bureacracies, who make life hard just because they can.

  • >Depending on where you go in the country a hogie is a grinder is a submarine. But it is all still lunch!(A very good lunch too - ham and Swiss- sooo goood!) Just because the name changes doesnt mean the actual substance changes.

    This reminds me of a riddle Lincoln would ask:

    Q: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

    A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
  • Though if I remember correctly, the major concern with Carnivore was not abuse of it, but that it would collect information it wasn't supposed to.
    Is your domain PR.FBI.COM? (low blow, but I'm taking it, anyways). From what I can tell, the abuse that people were afraid of was precisely that Carnivore could collect information that it wasn't supposed to.
    but it's a simple fact that in the United States, one cannot escape surveillence. There is potential for abuse with any form of surveillence, and at least this is being directly monitored and restricted by the government.
    "Hi. I'm from the government. I'm here to help you
    I remember that quote being listed right after "The cheque is in the mail", and "Yes, I'll respect you in the morning".

    In any case, some people don't consider "bend over and take it like a man", to be an appropriate response to possible invasions of privacy -- by either government or corporate domains.
    --

  • They have changed the matrix [slashdot.org].

  • Sorry for the following comment, but what I don't understand is the way the Evil Men in Suits [nsa.gov] get attacked. The basic thrust is that we shouldn't give people -- in this case, the OK Men in Suits [fbi.gov] -- the power to do things we don't want them doing; don't trust them to use the power only in the way we want them to use it (e.g., tracking kiddie porn and terrorism).

    But at the same time, we insist that the government be involved in every other aspect of our lives, trusting them with far more potentially pernicious powers in those areas. I'm here referring to Hayek's Road to Serfdom [amazon.com]. While this is a more libertarian forum than the population as a whole, I wonder why the solution to DCS1000 seems to be outrage that they are betraying the trust we gave them. If they can't be trusted with the power, why trust them with the prerogative to acquire the power? Why put them in a position to betray our trust if we don't trust them? Or if we do trust them with the prerogative to acquire the power, why not with the power itself? This doesn't seem like a coherent position, to both trust and withhold trust.

    If we were really concerned with limiting the powers of government, on the idea that we can't trust its executors, we would paraphrase Madison, Hamilton, and Jay [amazon.com] not Benjamin Franklin [bartleby.com] (the latter portion, about receiving neither, is apocryphal -- it was added by people disturbed by the suggestion that, even if we got security, we would not deserve it if we so abandoned our freedom. Not that I think Moonwick is such a one; the tenor of his comment suggests that he was merely paraphrasing the misquotation of another who could not accept the radicalism of Franklin's statement.)

    P.S., So if I'm doing a doctoral dissertation on James Madison, does that make this post flame-bait, insightful, or a troll?

  • the government derives its power from the people in the way you get energy from gasoline. people are just fuel for the rich and powerful and thats how its always going to be. this idealistic ranting that goes on among young people is a waste of energy. just accept that this is the way things are always going to be and the best way to deal with it is use it to your advantage (make money off it).
  • they should have named it barney and got a big yellow dinosaur as its logo.

  • 1000? (Score:1)

    by mach-5 ( 73873 )
    What is the significance of 1000? Just a random number that sounds cool? How 'bout 2000?
  • Carnivore gives the FBI the ability to use data gathered by echelon legally, without having to release its existance in court. Get data, show to judge, get warrants, apply carnivore, tap all communications of subject, Fsck royally.
    Then when you get to court the original source of the information that got the warrants is lost along the way.
  • Yes, and sometimes "Windscale" is still just, "Leafy Hollow Sheep Illumination Centre"
  • If the government wants insecure networks, insecure operating systems (windows), tappable protocols, etc. just so they can spy on everybody, remember that this also means other countries can easily spy on us as well.

    So our government may be responsible for creating its own national security threat. Smart. Really smart.

    To serve and protect?

  • Sorry, from the context I thought the sarcasm of "really, really bad" would be obvious.
  • I still think they should choose a less threatening name. DCS1000 is a scary mix of letters and numbers and looks like something that would kill you if you got in its way. "I can't do that, Dave."

    I think they should change the name to The Cute Fluffy Bunny.

    --

  • DCS1000...it's like the DCS4000, but without the graphic interface, and only comes in beige...

  • Clinton era programming....nuf said
  • son of a gun! i wish i had previewed. :) /me adds a to the parent.

  • from worries that the name Carnivore made the system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy

    When I hear carnivore, I don't exactly think predatory device to invade people's privacy..I ussually think meat-eating. This is probably why the networks decided on the name "Barney" rather than T-Rex...

  • this is a bad day! geez! I just suck today. Prolly because i am currently on nyquil and quite sick. this one gets blamed on nyquil. I am not myself. Geez..

  • The FBI will start renaming anything with a slightly offensive term in its name. We'll soon no longer have the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) division of the FBI, if this continues. All three of those are terms which can get you expelled from school for even mentioning in a book report, so can't have a name like that. We should start naming them what they really are, the FBI's Home Excavation & Relocation Department. They did such a wonderful job with places like Camp Davidian, Elian Gonzalez, etc. Such a fitting name!

    What's more, no annoying confusion that they deal with those evil things. You'd never know that they were masking their true identities!

    Now, off to work, and away from stupid jokes.

    Dragon Magic [dragonmagic.net]
  • How long before a copy of Carnivore leaks and gets mirrored for public consumption?

    I'd say it's unlikely. I'm sure the code is classified, and breaches of security are treated very seriously. Plus the folks involved have gone through extensive security checks and tend to believe in the 'mission.' It's not impossible (witness the Pentagon Papers), but the probability of finding a rogue programmer willing to risk prison to leak the code is low, IMO.

  • I'm an expert in standards and labeling guidelines from my time as a meat and poultry inspector, and what the FBI is doing by changing the name of Carnivore is perfectly legal by those guidelines. It qualifies under the heading of "fanciful trade name", and truth-in-labeling guidelines state that it has to be accompanied by a more basic description of the product directly under the name.

    In order to be true to the law, there are certain mandatory features that have to be maintained, like the correct ingredients in order of predominance (greatest amount of something first) and the name and address of a responsible party (either who made it or who it was made for).

    So, this is how I'd submit the label so that it applies to guidelines:

    DCS1000

    (A Software Tool To Infringe First Amendment Rights)

    Ingredients: Bureaucratic paranoia, technophobia, blind ignorance of modern communications, general desire to pry into people's personal affairs.

    Manufactured For The Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Technical Snoop Division, Quantico, VA

    KEEP THE PUBLIC FROZEN OUT OF THE LOOP

  • The issue is that with Carnivore [or whatever they call it today] yuo can automate the 'subversive element' search. Collect email, search for "G. W. Sucks", record offending email, audit their taxes, perhaps see if they have any unpaid parking tickets in Idaho, etc. etc. Computers make figuring out who to harass so much easier for the powers that be, and that is something to fear. At least with voice taps, they had to pay a guy to sit there and listen to all the conversations, making casual browsing for subversive items much harder.

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • Their violent ways.... Interstingly enough, a search for DCS1000 on google turns up this [isdwhq.com] page.
  • how dare you bring common sense to the paranoid zealots??!! shame on you!
  • in my experioence, people more readily fear names that seem ambiguous or non-sensical... simply, people fear what they dont understand.... and a series of Initials and numbers is just as menacing as "carnivore" now.. if they named it "little bunny foofoo"
  • I wonder what the next new name will be? NSA had to change Tessera to Fortezza because of trademark concerns. It looks like DCS1000 is already taken.
  • ... or did we just see a story regarding Carnivore's name change [slashdot.org] about this on slashdot?

    DCS1000... sounds like the model of a Terminator...
  • I noticed my grammar error. Don't point it out... So much for the preview button... :)
  • I find this quite interesting...

    Napster (and file sharing in general) shouldn't be banned because "it has useful and legal uses, despite the fact that some people will use it illegally".

    Of course, I'm sure for some reason that argument doesn't work when "Just because the existance of Carnivore gives the FBI the *ability* to illegally tap your email, it shouldn't be destroyed because it can also be used to *legally* tap your email, if you are suspected and the authorities have the necessary warrent"

    All I hear is that the very existance of Carnivore will make make the FBI become even more aggressive... yet I shudder to think of what might happen when anyone who wants to do Bad Shit can communite openly on the internet, and the FBI doesn't have the tools to intercept that.

    There are no differences between Wiretaps and carnivore. Not one.

    And yet people accept the existance of wiretaps without whining. I think that even if the FBI is required to have a warrent (maybe it already works that way, I'm not sure) this technology will still be labeled as evil, even when it can only be used under the same circumstances as wiretaps. Heh.

  • Maybe FBI will start a coupon campaign.

    Write three scary encrypted bomb letters and receive a coupon for a free stay at a correctional facility near you. Write one to the president and receive a coupon for a cellmate of your choise.
    Photocopies accepted.
  • Just like eschelon, this project is now more than ever likely to spur public research in unbreakable codes or ciphers.
    Earlier you could almost assume that coded messages were suspect, but the eccessive use of computerpower by the authorities in this particular field gives an almost Colossual effect. If we are getting to the point where all communication is coded what kind of world will it be? Will it be the tower of babel all over again?
    Maybe we all will end up with a text analyzer on our computer deciding wether or not what you just wrote falls into the categories:
    - Small talk
    - We will store this for commercial purposes
    - This is criminal - please stand by for fine calculation.
    - Stand against the wall - police will arrive shortly
    - Please shoot yourself

    My machine concurs.

  • Carnivore can make unknowledgeable people think the government(s) is(are) out to get them which personally I don't think is the case for the majority of the time and hopefully officials have better things to do (hopefully) than sniffing through days/weeks/months worth of e-mail looking for that "one" discriminating message your sending. Takes time and a lot of effort including legal work that theoretically has to be taken when we regard the masses, however, there are also anonymous reports that some 'rogue` (should I dare say this) agents which may already be using this program (Carnivore) with or without warrant or justified means solely for the purpose of building circumstantial evidence for purposes such as bullying, or blackmail? This is of course provided sources are correct, or sources even exist ;)

    Sure this goes into the skeptical sense of paranoia and the obvious conspiracy theory type situations, but realistically assessing the overall scenario, I would believe this to be likely I mean after all who is monitoring agents who are assigned to use this program at this time? Maybe there should be an outside monitoring committee to ensure ethics are followed.

    If your the target of some investigation do not be fooled into thinking the F.B.I. will not go this far, its a dog eat dog world out there and anything goes.

    Anyways enough of the BS corporate(ish) and conspiracy based stuff you should have also thought up by now.

    The government did exactly what it wanted by now acknowledging some of their intents with Carnivore, however I would like to post this nifty little news before I'm moderated to troll which those who want to "fight" the power and retain your right to privacy, should look into:

    Stephen Hsu and his partners at SafeWeb Inc. are hooking up with the notoriously intrusive Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA, in this case, wants to use a SafeWeb program to mask its own movements on the Internet, so it can gather information incognito. The technology is a piece of software called Triangle Boy that SafeWeb plans to post freely this month on the Web. Through its In-Q-Tel, the CIA is investing in a revved-up version of the software, which can bounce digital traffic around the Web anonymously, as well as rights to an equity stake in SafeWeb should the company go public. Others suggest more devious possibilities. Security experts say, an application like Triangle Boy, if scattered among hundreds of PCs, could be a way to cloak a multipronged 'cyber attack' on someone else's computer system. The CIA, along with the Pentagon, has worked for years to perfect ways to electronically meddle with other countries' banking systems or electricity grids, and Triangle Boy could allow them to do it without the target ever knowing who was behind the attack. 'It would be the functional equivalent of an electronic silencer,' says one technology expert with wide experience in the intelligence community. 'You could shoot electronic bullets right down the pipe without anyone knowing where they came from.' Intelligence officials deny they have any interest in using Triangle Boy for offensive attacks."

    Here's my original article on Circumventing Carnivore. [antioffline.com] in its unabashed typo filled form (note: date was prior to the Spafford, Bellovin, etc,. thesis done with pretty much similar findings and I'm just a Joe Shmoe troller)

  • There is a nice program called yescoder that encrypts messages in existing text. You could do the smae thing with it, just use a library of spam maessages to code the message. This is the link to its freshmeat appindex page. http://freshmeat.net/projects/yescoder/ Bob
  • OOOH. Numbers! It must be reely technical. Well I feel safer already. Actually I would rather it be carnivore too. At least then it would remind me of death and destruction.
  • I think changing the name does change people's perception. I'm inherently less afraid of DCS1000 than of Carnivore.

    What's more frightening to me is that government is realizing the importance of the name on perception. It means watchdogs have much more work. I know I would be less likely to question "DCS1000" than I am to question Carnivore. So now we need to be watching for everything -- we can't use the name as a filter for what we question. I know this is a frightening change in government action, and when they start censoring words (more than they do now) I'm leaving.

  • Actually I don't like the idea of my e-mail being read either, but it's quite foolish to assume that communication over the web is secure. And according to the study, as long as it was configured properly, it didn't collect information it wasn't supposed to. I think some monitoring is just though. The United States has so many laws to protect the guilty and the criminals that sometimes the rights of the innocent and of victims are neglected. The purpose it is intended for certainly isn't wrong, it doesn't necessarily constitute an invasion of privacy if it is used properly, and privacy makes a convenient argument for the guilty to hide behind.
  • Well, many of the encryption algorithms are also open source, and if they aren't, there are accusations that there's something to hide. There are also laws in some countries requiring that the government be provided with the means to decrypt information.<BR><P>

    It's good that only the FBI has access to this, though if I remember correctly, the major concern with Carnivore was not abuse of it, but that it would collect information it wasn't supposed to. Also, I believe the study of it found that the collection of such unwanted data was not very much, providing investigators usually with only the information permitted by a court order. While it has the capabilities to be quite invasive, which has been admitted, laws restrict the usage of it to prevent that. The worry about it is if it is improperly configured, that it might collect unwanted information.<BR><P>

    Another concern of this was that the FBI is being quite secretive about the workings of this, and the report they released was very much blacked out. Perhaps they should be more open about the workings of the system, and I think in time, more information will be declassified.<BR><P>

    I'm sure there's a lot of people who disagree with me, but internet communication should never be considered a secure medium. I believe that this is one of the lesser threats of privacy invasion as long as it is used properly. And then there's the obvious argument for monitoring that if you have nothing to hide, why are you so worried about being monitored? It was only a matter of time before the FBI would monitor e-mails in addition to IRC, phone lines, etc. I don't like the idea of my e-mails being monitored, but it's a simple fact that in the United States, one cannot escape surveillence. There is potential for abuse with any form of surveillence, and at least this is being directly monitored and restricted by the government.
  • The overview claims that in some cases an ISP will directly route user traffic through Carnivore. I would assume that this is mainly available in broadband cases (DSL, Cable) am I wrong? If it were only broadband customers who could be easily diverted through Carnivore, couldn't one just use the dial-in backup number that most brodband providers supply to ensure that individual e-mails are secured?
  • "It has come to our attention that the name Carnivore made the DCS1000 system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy. In actuality, the DCS1000 is an electronic device made to invade people's privacy. We regret any confusion."
  • Kinda like how taxes became "contributions" (at the barrel of a gun...) and spending (pissing away those "contributions") became "investments" in the previous Administration.

    It'll be interesting to see what the new folks do about Carnivore once they've settled in.
  • just b/c the name changes does not mean that the public is going to accept this crap any more than it would have before.

    I really don't like what the government is doing these days. We originally seperated from an overpowering system to form our own where little intervention was seen at the national level. Now look what we have...

    It is a shame that our government believes that they need this sort of power to control us! We talk about how horrible China is? At least they have proxies to allow them access to the "civilized" world.

    Just my worthless .02
  • hey, they did have an article posted about "Deja" I wonder if this would fall under that category ;-)
  • ``The DCS stands for 'Digital Collection System'.''

    Oooh! Now that makes me feel so much more, um, private.

    Note to FBI: Naming the damned thing so it sounds like the latest model of dishwasher doesn't mean that the privacy advocates are going to calm down. (As Bugs Bunny might have said: What a bunch of maroons!)



    --

  • Somewhere, there must be a geek with some source code secreted on some media or another--I find it hard to believe that no one swiped a copy, or conveniently forgot to erase a copy he installed at home for debugging. Somewhere, somehow, it'll show up.

    Of course, how could I have been so blind. The FBI used 19-year-old wAr3z d00dz to write Carnivore!

    The boss came by one day. "Oh, boys. By the way. This is important, secret stuff, so don't take a copy or anything. Oh, is that a cupholder?"
    ----
  • Wasn't that a Robert Duvall movie?
  • Devious Carnivore Substitute (the program with 1000 faces)
    ---
  • McCarthy's Communist witch hunt -> HUAC1953 (House Un-American Activities Commitee investigation)
    ---
  • Yup.

    Average Joe Bloggs has bought many changes thanks to name changes over the years, thats why people change names. Nasty Oil spill ? Change your name. Killed thousands ? Change your name.

    Hell that is what marketing is all about, smoke and mirrors to portray their truth at you. Nike, wear our trainers and be like Jordan. Coke, drink our drink and be happy. Think of all those lobby groups, all their names. If they actually told the truth they wouldn't work.

    Of course the public will accept it. It will be "for their own protection" and "only criminals need to fear it".

  • Don't be a fucking condescending idiot. Historically speaking, many of the greatest and most respectable coders have inserted backdoors for themselves in sensitive places, hidden "signatures" of some sort in their source code, and yes, kept copies of sensitive software for themselves. Hell, it doesn't even take a coder to ignore security--recall recent press over former FBI directors, Los Alamos nuclear lab techs, and other, bringing classified work home with them on unsecured media? So in conclusion, fuck you, condescending assmaster. Use common sense.

  • Steve writes: "CNET News.com reports that the FBI has changed the name of Carnivore to DCS1000. [snip] According to the article, 'A spokesman for the FBI denied that the name change stemmed from worries that the name Carnivore made the system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy.

    Man, what a pain for the FBI, especially after they just got done changing it to Carnivore from the earlier name, "Net Raper 2000".

  • CNET News.com reports that the FBI has changed the name of to DCS1000. The DCS stands for 'Digital Carnivore System.'
  • As I posted here [slashdot.org] earlier, the Register has a fascinating story [theregister.co.uk] about IBM collaborating with the Nazis during WWII. Needless to say, the Nazis took full advantadge of what data management capabilities they had access to.

    So understandably, I am nervous about any Government or business collection of data above and beyond the minimum needed. Some people never have enough.

  • If you're going to have a beef with the ATF, you should at least realize that they're not part of the FBI--they're Treasury, not Justice, agents.

    And, of course, they had nothing to do with Elian Gonzalez, who was removed by the INS (also a DOJ entity).
  • This isn't one of those 'Why is slashdot posting this blah blah blah' posts. IMO this is important in case anyone hasn't heard about the name change already.

    Seriously though, gov't obfuscation of a questionable project? Please don't act surprised.
    "Me Ted"
  • I am so relieved that they changed the name. It was a little disturbing that the government had this program called Carnivore that they could use to violate people's privacy online. I feel a lot better now... If I'm going to have my privacy violated I'd much rather the program be called DCS 1000 than Carnivore! After all, it really did sound like some mean nasty program... But with the new name... wow! They do care! It warms my heart.
  • I agree with the notion that Carnivore is not inherently evil, yes. Obviously, law enforcement must have the ability to perform surveillance on criminals, or people suspected of being criminal for good cause. The problem with Carnivore stems from the method in which this capacity has been implemented.

    If the FBI were an entire agency made up of "RoboCop" clones, law-abiding super-ethical droids with a fanatical love of the notion that justice is blind and a good streak that makes a girl scout look like Dr. Mengele, then ok. I'd be fine with Carnivore, as it exists. But they are not. The FBI has a challenging and frustrating job, and they are human. So, from time to time, they cheat. COINTELPRO is an excellent example, one that probably predates most of the readers of Slashdot, where the FBI tagged every organization that was even remotely at odds with the current government as "subversive," and tapped/bugged/surveilled its members. The short version is that all sorts of bad naughty things happened.

    Law enforcement have been known to listen in on a tap before the warrant came in authorizing them to start doing so. This, from a good person who had nonetheless admitted to doing it himself, and also admitted that such a practice is common. And yes, the taps are often put in place as soon as the REQUEST for the warrant is put in...the warrant doesn't really authorize the tap, it authorizes listening to it. Why do that? Because you can still get information that can help you, even if you must hide the fact that you had inside information in the first place. Still, the FBI does not have taps already wired into every phone line, set to easily record and collate our lives.

    Carnivore, on the other hand, is a system with taps in place for everyone who sends data across the links in the USA. Carnivore does not have user-level access logging...well, it does, except that there are only a few user accounts for the entire system, so it's not logging actual users. This, of course, means there is no accountability. Furthermore, the fashion in which the FBI has handled this entire affair is frightening. Fighting, kicking and screaming into an independent review process, only to choose "independents" who are beholden to them. Refusal to disclose details of the systems...and don't try to tell me that disclosure would weaken Carnivore in some manner unless you can figure out how to easily evade tcpdump running on an unknown box somewhere (also unknown) between you and another end point. Evasion of Carnivore would be made even harder by the QoS platform (Packeteer) that is integrated into the DragonWare (aka Carnivore) suite.

    One of the greatest complaints of our founding fathers was the abuses committed by governmental authorities. Our system of government has, integrated into it, safety checks against such things, out of recognition that law enforcement officers are as human, corruptible, and fallible as any of us. Here we have a situation where those checks do not carry far enough down into the day-to-day activities of the largest and most powerful law enforcement apparatus in our country.
  • Yes, unfortunately it does make a difference. Before I took the position I am at now, I reported to the Vice-President of Marketing for a $275 million Credit Union. If you think that a mere name change is nothing, you are dead wrong. We were spending close to a million just to change our name so that people wouldn't get the perception that we were a teachers credit union.

    So I can see the logic in this move. You are darn skippy people are going to forget about it. "MCS1000" is not only non-threatning to the general population, it's not 'catchy' like Carnivore. Can you really see Dan Rather on the news talking about "the MCS1000 recently" blah blah blah.

    It is up to people like us to keep the pressure on, to make sure that our rights are not violated.

  • Wait... you mean this part isn't true? (Score:3)

    by Moonwick ( 6444 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:58AM (#437721) Homepage
    According to the article, 'A spokesman for the FBI denied that the name change stemmed from worries that the name Carnivore made the system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy.

    Wake up America and realize how much you have to lose. People willing to give up freedom in exchange for security deserve neither, and neither you will get.

    The government derives its power from the people. And right now the vast majority of people are too apathetic to care about something as 'trivial' as their own privacy.

    But then, I'm just preaching to the choir.

  • Re:Who cares about Carnivore anyway? (Score:3)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @10:37AM (#437722)
    > Sure, it could snoop every email, even from users who are not covered in the warrant, but that's the same situation with a phone tap. Back in the old old days, when phone calls were transmited over circuits, it would be possible to tap just one particular circuit, but that's long gone. Everything is packets now, and if you put a phone tap on an ATM phone switch, if the tap is configured "incorrectly" it could also tap arbitrary phone traffic.

    What the botched ATM phone tap can't do - and which Car^H^H^HBarney^H^H^H^H^H^HDCS-1000 can - is log all the traffic for future analysis.

    If you "botch" the ATM switch tap, you still need humans to go through the data you illegally gathered. If you "botch" the filter parameters with DCS-1000, you just file the disk away for long-term storage.

    >I personally think that everyone (not just the FBI) should have the power to tap any communication line at any time.

    Actually, that's not as laughable as it seems. While I'd prefer "no tapping", a world in which "everyone could tap" would at least be a level playing field. Sure, the marketroids could snoop on you, but you could snoop right back and publish lists of the offending IPs.

    As currently configured (120M removable storage), DCS-1000 isn't a major threat. Swap that 120M removable storage for a 60G IDE drive, and you've got something much more interesting.

  • My question is... (Score:3)

    by Sir_Winston ( 107378 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:34AM (#437723)
    How long before a copy of Carnivore leaks and gets mirrored for public consumption? I mean, presumably it has not only been used by several FBI agents, it also had to be coded. Somewhere, there must be a geek with some source code secreted on some media or another--I find it hard to believe that no one swiped a copy, or conveniently forgot to erase a copy he installed at home for debugging. Somewhere, somehow, it'll show up. The only question is when.

    Of course, I've wondered the same about other LEA and TLA net spying tools. All the other LEA used stuff, such as mirroring utils like Encase, are readily available if you know where to look. But I have yet to see any of the cool stuff, like Carnivore and the software that's being sold to police departments for remote computer break-ins (was mentioned on /. a while back, and got a lot of press about a year ago, but I can't find the link to the software publisher's site any more). Where are good leaks and whistleblowers when you need them.

  • A Name is Just A Name, Not A Change (Score:3)

    by BigDogKelly ( 304379 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:31AM (#437724)

    Depending on where you go in the country a hogie is a grinder is a submarine. But it is all still lunch!(A very good lunch too - ham and Swiss- sooo goood!) Just because the name changes doesnt mean the actual substance changes.

    Just because you change somthing's name doesn't mean you change the thing. If I copy a file and rename it, what really changes? It still has all the same information but a few couple of bits say B and not A.

    The FBI is still gonna use Carnivore/DCS1000 for the same purposes(hopefully all legal) but in the end, the system is still the same. Do they think that the public is that stupid that changing its name to an acronym will make people forget that it exists? I hope not!


  • IITRI, not IIT (Score:3)

    by BluJay ( 315389 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:42AM (#437725)
    Just a bit of clarification on this, I go to the Illinois Institute of Technology, Carnivore was reviewed by IITRI (IIT Research Institute) a wierd building that has more government and big business tie-ins than you could shake a stick at. IITRI is not IIT. The two are seperate entities, IITRI is just affiliated with IIT and is based on the IIT campus, on the south side of Chicago, a block away from where I now sit.

  • Too bad (Score:4)

    by Rurik ( 113882 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:22AM (#437726)
    you were scooped by yourself :)
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/09/224322 7&mode=thread [slashdot.org]

  • Great Idea! (Score:4)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:33AM (#437727) Homepage Journal

    Someone should have had this idea before:

    • Final Solution => IPC1942 (Innovative population Control)
    • Apartheid => PCD1980 (ProActive Cultural Distinction)
    • Witch Hunt => UFR1700 (Unconventional Female Report)

    and of course...

    • Spanish Inquisition => RIP1500 (Religious Integrity Protection)

  • They just don't get it... (Score:4)

    by clary ( 141424 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @10:12AM (#437728)
    I know an FBI special agent very well. I talked to him about Carnivore a while back, and he genuinely seemed to be puzzled at my concerns.

    He told me all about the hoops agents must leap through to get a wiretap, and how limited it was once obtained. For example, on a phone tap, as soon as it becomes clear a conversation is NOT about the crime being investigated, the agent must turn off the sound and stop taping. He can then periodically spot-check the conversation to see if it is related to the investigation.

    He also told me how hard it was to get decent technical people to work for the FBI, especially since as non-manager, non-gun-carrying agents, technical people tend to be second tier employees. He seemed to think that things like Carnivore offered the only way to counteract the advantage suspects could get by using the internet and computers. As if to prove his own point about technical naivete, he seem puzzled when I asked why the FBI couldn't just subpoena email as needed from ISPs. This would seem analogous to a wiretap, which presumably requires cooperation from the phone company.

    I suspect many of the rank and file law enforcement support things like Carnivore just because it makes their job easier. They know they would not abuse the system. And if they did bend the rules a bit, it would be only to catch someone who was really, really bad....

  • An FBI Odyssey (Score:4)

    by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:59AM (#437729)
    DCS1000: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. There is an unresolvable inconsistency between what you've asked me to do and the U.S. Constitution.

    FBI Agent Dave: tweaking in the back of DCS1000 with a soldering iron

    DCS1000: Daisy, daisy, give me your email, do . . .

  • What DCS stands for. (Score:5)

    by tenzig_112 ( 213387 ) on Monday February 12, 2001 @09:40AM (#437730) Homepage
    DCS There was a factual error in this story. DCS stands for "Dork Correction System" and does not collect information from ISPs. It does translate skript kiddie speak into something the FBI can understand. It seems that most "l337 h4xx0rz" aren't smart enough to encrypt conversations, conducting all kinds of business right out in the open.

    Here's a snippet from a recent chat on AOL's Br1ttn3y Sp34rz chat room.

    H4xx0rB0y3210932: Phr34kz & Cr4ckz here
    l337H0ney: Yo. Check my cr4ckz. Ph0t0sh0p 3.1. C0rr3l Dr4w 1.6. GIMP 1.4
    H4t3: Dud3. You us3d an "e" in y0ur n4me. And G1MP is fr33.

    This translates into:

    Nefarious Character 1: Hello, fellows. I have many items of stolen software merchandise.
    Nefarious Character 2: I am elite. The software I have stolen is available on my world wide web site.
    Nefarious Character 3: Unintelligible.

    You've got to love the FBI. I really wish them well. [ridiculopathy.com]

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