FBI Seeks Net Wiretapping Rights

[Evil Baby]

This is from my pc magazine:

The FBI, backed by the Department of justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration submitted an 85-page proposal to the FCC in March that would require broadband service providers to introduce architecture in their networks for enabling law enforcement to eavesdrop. Experts say the proposal, if approved, could dramatically hinder emerging and existing technologies.

...

1994's Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act(CALEA) established the current rules on wiretapping for telecommunications providers. The FBI proposal seeks to extend these rules to broadband providers. And though, in many cases CALEA requires police to seek court approval prior to wiretapping, the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act circumvents many of those restrictions.


The article was written by Sebastian Rupley


Also on a side note, bit of a Conspiracy Theory.


Do you think this has anything to do with Bush's new proposal to make broadband internet cheaper? Cut out all taxes allocated towards it so more people could afford it. This would make the FBI more accessible to every American and make it much easier for the FBI to spy on people


Personally I like Bush's new plan to make high speed cheaper and is one thing I would back him on. I also don't think my Conspiracy is a proper claim but food for thought.

[The Dunedan]

[Please see the Volconvo rules as summarized in the etiquette.]

[Evil Baby]

[Please see the Volconvo rules as summarized in the etiquette.]

[VXerick]

I don't know why people think the FBI will be spying on them because of the Patriot Act. The FBI has been in the business of spying for a long time, laws or no laws. In my opinion, people will be better protected by the Patriot Act because it spells out all the things that will be done and can be done. That gives us a lot more to go on, than how it was before 9/11, when the right hand never knew what the left hand was doing.

[Osborn F Enready]

VXerick, I realize you are a new poster, but this has been addressed many, MANY times.

The patriot act is a crime against all CITIZENS, perpetrated by BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES.

[Zeebadee]

Federal agencies are already monitoring internet traffic without any oversight, though they deny this. Just Google Carnivore or Echelon. And these are just two systems that we know of.

[Evil Baby]

as far as I know both of those sytems just track signals through the air. I belive the FBI wants to install a backdoor on every machine in North America so anything sent over the net encrypted they would be able to decipher from simple key strokes taken from their back door programs.

[Mia]

One, even if they have done whatever they wanted to already in secret, the "in secret" part hampered them and now they have carte blanche.

Two, it opens way too many doors to have it actually allowed.

Three, yes I do think that's why Bush wants to make broadband cheaper. Why else would he pick something like that? We need cheaper gas and milk more than broadband.

Internet access is almost a necessity right now, but not high-speed. I don't have it and don't see the point of paying it. It also leaves your computer more vunerable to hackers since it's constantly connected.

[Zeebadee]

Originally posted by Evil Baby, as far as I know both of those sytems just track signals through the air. I belive the FBI wants to install a backdoor on every machine in North America so anything sent over the net encrypted they would be able to decipher from simple key strokes taken from their back door programs.

"* Above all it should be realized that the Internet is not, in fact, an infinite network, however much it may seem like one. All of the traffic in the United States passes through fewer than one hundred nodes or choke points. Traffic entering and leaving the United States must pass through far fewer points. An effort to monitor all traffic through such nodes is well within current technological capabilities, given adquate investment and a permissive legal framework. " (http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCV1.../JAHCEDIT.HTML)

[Osborn F Enready]

And they are already doing it....

[VXerick]

I guess this is a gigantic conspiracy to rob people of their rights, right?

Your tinfoil hats must be squeezing your brains too tight.

There is no conspiracy to take your rights away. Not the way you envision it. You are losing your rights everyday in the justice system run by judges who interpret the Constitution, instead of ruling on the constitutionality of the laws in question.

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Evil Baby, as far as I know both of those sytems just track signals through the air. I belive the FBI wants to install a backdoor on every machine in North America so anything sent over the net encrypted they would be able to decipher from simple key strokes taken from their back door programs.

I remember reading someone about the Windows 98 and on source code having some kind of backdoor for just that reason. Not sure if I believed it, but all the techno mombo-jumbo must have been right.

[Cadre]

Originally posted by VXerick, I guess this is a gigantic conspiracy to rob people of their rights, right? Your tinfoil hats must be squeezing your brains too tight. There is no conspiracy to take your rights away. Not the way you envision it. You are losing your rights everyday in the justice system run by judges who interpret the Constitution, instead of ruling on the constitutionality of the laws in question.

No conspiracy?

Perhaps you have too much faith in your government, pry open that third eye of yours!

You assumedly live in a safe western civilization, or democratic state, not governed by warlords, dictators or facists. Simply because a country lacks the history of conspiration, and acting negatively towards the civil liberties and rights of it's populous does not mean that it will never happen. You cannot predict the actions or personal agendas.

It's a timid line to walk, you must be aware of these conspiracy theories, to know what is overboard, and what is feasable.

You think the Rawandan's (pre 1985, before declared a country) could have known that the Hutu's were about to commit acts of genocidal ethnical cleansing on the Tutsis. The current government allowed it to happen, because they were greedy, corrupt strawmen lacking absolute morals who saw benefit in the terror.

And you know what? Not even the U.N intervened.

My point, just to at least be aware of perhaps accept these conspiracy theories at some level.

As I said before, the arguments are feasable and viable, it's very easy to draw correlations between the patriot act and theses presupposed invasions of civil liberties through new hardware and software introduced into our broadband providers applications en-masse.

[Mia]

Other countries already do this - why is it so hard to believe this one would? Our government has better, more honorable people who are more concerned with us than themselves?

[Evil Baby]

I don't know of any other country that actually wants a backdoor into everybodies computer. Can you please name some for me.

And I'd rather not have an open back door for the F.B.I. to just waltz in and capture all of my key strokes. However I'm in Canada, so for the time I'm all good.

[Zeebadee]

LOL, yeah, you're secure up there in Canada!! Nothing to worry about! LOL, Lol.....

[Jet]

Originally posted by Osborn F Enready, The patriot act is a crime against all CITIZENS, perpetrated by BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES.

Please explain.


If you're wondering, there are some ways to foil such eavesdropping attempts on your computer:
- An anonymous proxy, preferably elite (these delete logs the moment you close your browser), preferably with an anonymizer e.g. idmask.com that prevents even your own webmaster from knowing where you went.
- A good firewall, preferably on an OS that has fewer holes than a cubic meter of swiss cheese (i.e. not Windows).
- It's usually possible to discover when there's a password sniffer on your computer; in that case, you will want to access its logs and falsify certain areas, such as your email passwords.
- Encryption goes a long way to protect your emails and logs; PGP is okay, and GPG is even better because it's open source, but RSA is the best if your computer is fast enough for it (it takes months on a plethora of computers to crack 576 bits, so just think how long it'll take the FBI to crack 1024).

And I'd rather not have an open back door for the F.B.I. to just waltz in and capture all of my key strokes. However I'm in Canada, so for the time I'm all good.

The FBI, I'm sorry to tell you, is spying on everyone, regardless of country. The Patriot Act simply legalized doing this to Americans, but Echelon dates to years before the PA.

[Mia]

Originally posted by Mia, Other countries already do this - why is it so hard to believe this one would? Our government has better, more honorable people who are more concerned with us than themselves?

Syria, for one. Za3boot, correct me where I am wrong. My understanding is that Syria is like Patriot Act IV - they sacrifice some of the freedoms we have in exchange for security.

[Jet]

Oh, a lot of countries do that, not just Syria. Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand cooperate with the USA on Echelon; Russia still arrests political dissidents; China is far from a model country privacy-wise; and so on.

[Evil Baby]

Originally posted by Zeebadee, LOL, yeah, you're secure up there in Canada!! Nothing to worry about! LOL, Lol.....

woo hoo, ok I can take off my tin foil hat now.

I just rest assure that we do not go to the extremes the U.S. does and Canadians have not baught into all of this extra protection by losing some rights to conteract terrorism..... yet.