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IIT To Review Carnivore

Posted by Hemos on from the better-do-a-good-job dept.

sconeu writes: "Fox News is reporting that the Illinois Institute of Technology will review Carnivore. Fox further reports that 'The Justice Department said in a written statement that it received 11 proposals from various organizations, including the University of California--Davis, and the National Software Testing Laboratory.'" Representatives from a law school ( Chicago-Kent College of Law, not Kent State as previously stated; thanks to corprew for the correction -- tl) will be looking at it as well, and it's slated to start in December.

3 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Why This Should Scare You by pridkett · · Score: 4

    First of all, I attend IIT, so I can clear some stuff up about what is going on.

    IITRI is affiliated and also owned by the school. Anyone who has ever been to Comiskey Park in Chicago has seen a big tall ominous building at 35th and state. That's the main IITRI thing. Last year when the government was testing the foam for bioweapons at airports, they tested it on live anthrax there. It should be noted that with 8 blocks to a mile in Chicago, that puts IIT around 4 miles from downtown chicago. One of IITRI's biggest clients is the US government. There are dozens of IITRI labs around the country.

    I've had extensive dealings with the Chicago-Kent College of Law. Some of their faculty are very good about legal issues. Other assume because they wrote a paper about cyberspace a couple of years ago they know everthing about it. Then again, it might just be a personal issue with me and the dean.

    This is unusal for our institution. The most prominent IIT research that I know of relating to computers is Garbage Collection and is being done by Morris Chang. There is also some AI research being done. But not a whole lot else.

    The law school (chicago-kent) is pretty distant from the main campus, and they don't do much with actual computer stuff there. So it's going to be a legalistic investigation, which is probably what this means.

    To be honest, I'm kinda excited about this, but I wouldn't trust my own school to do it.

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  2. Nice reading skills by Eric+Seppanen · · Score: 4
    OK, let's see:

    1. It's not IIT that's reviewing it, it's the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IITRI). What? It's "affiliated" with IIT? OK, that's all right then.

    2. It's not Kent State (which is in Ohio), but Chicago-Kent College of Law, which is part of IIT in Chicago.
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  3. No review at all.... by -ryan · · Score: 4
    From the article:
    "Jeffrey Schiller, a security expert and network manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the fine print in the DOJ's request for review would place numerous unacceptable restraints on the process, including giving the department the right to read, edit and even junk the report before the public saw it.

    In other words, any negative feedback from scientists could be cut out -- while the DOJ would still be able to claim that those scientists, and the universities associated with them, reviewed the software."

    So this isn't going to be any kind of review at all. With the knowledge of the DOJ's control over the "review" I don't see how any intelligent soul could believe the final report. If that aint sad enough the university has to pay to review it!

    Anyone got a mole inside IIT? I'd love to see the source leaked!