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FBI Releases More Carnivore Information

Posted by michael on from the following-up dept.

tregoweth writes "CNet has a report about the FBI's release of new information concerning Carnivore, the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Contradicting what the FBI has previously said, Carnivore can capture and archive 'unfiltered' Internet traffic."

5 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Password-stealing capabilities? by jms · · Score: 5

    RADIUS captures occurred as expected

    This is alarming because it has nothing to do with capturing email.

    RADIUS stands for "Remote Access DIal Up Service", and is a login password authentication protocol. If Carnivore is designed to capture RADIUS packets, then it is a password-stealing program, not an email collection program.

    I had never heard that Carnivore was designed to steal passwords. I heard that it was designed to collect email. Apparently the censors didn't realize that they left in evidence of a completely different purpose for Carnivore than was represented to the public, or was I misinformed?

  2. Beating it to death... by John_Prophet · · Score: 5

    There's very little new info in this current article. Mostly it says that according to new info, Carnivore is capable of capturing all unfiltered traffic that flows through it and archiving it for later investigation. That's a bad thing.... but then, we've all known that Carnivore was a bad thing the first time we heard about it. This is further confirmation, but hardly surprising.

    Did anybody really expect a secret surveillance project by a secretive government organization to be anything BUT invasive?

    What remains to be seen is whether or not all the public outcry will have any effect whatsoever on the implementation of this software. (My bet is "No, it will not.")


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)

    --
    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
    =(.\')=
  3. This isn't so scary anymore... by spankenstein · · Score: 5

    Ok... Carnivore is Windows NT, which isn't the most stable OS (i say this as an occasional user) and the filters are written in Visual Basic

    Hilarious.

  4. Time to beat the traffic-analysis drum again... by isaac · · Score: 4
    Yes, Carnivore (or whatever it's called this week) does more than just sniff email. This is no surprise.

    I don't see enough people recognizing the importance of routing information, email headers, connection logs, etc - all information which the FBI steadfastly maintains it does not need a warrant to collect.

    This is probably the most important purpose of Carnivore - to build an interconnected dataset of who's talking to whom, who's visiting what sites when, etc. The message body isn't nearly as important or useful (from the law-enforcement perspective) as this information. You may be encrypting all your mail with 4096-bit PGPG but who it came from and where it's going is all right there at the top. Same with your browsing habits, telnet/ssh , voice-over-IP connections, etc. etc.

    Build a nice database of who's talking to whom and when, and it's much easier to find people to lean on. ("I see you emailed Bob on April 43, while he was chatting on IRC with known subversives planning protests at the Government, Inc. convention in Topeka - explain yourself citizen!")

    To me, the collection of header information is the scariest part about Carnivore, especially considering the FBI's self-styled and sordid role in "ensuring domestic tranquility" by secretly attempting to undermine dissident groups and leaders (The muckraking and attempts at blackmailinng MLK Jr. being merely the most famous of many examples).

    It's bad enough that they conduct illegal wiretaps - this information is considered today to be perfectly legal to snoop and store without a warrant or even probable cause. Dirty business.

    -Isaac

    --
    I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
  5. Skript Kiddies working at the FBI by nyet · · Score: 5

    Is it just me or does the FBI sound like a bunch of *wannabe* leet hax0rs/warez pups. I laughed out loud when I read this "sekret document" with the word "Dell" repeatedly blacked out (because its leet to black out stuff.. like 1-800-ITS-PRIVATE!).

    "WE POWN joo we have l33t warez - we call it (yes is has a leet name) C4RN1V0R (part of our DR4GUNW4R3Z Suite!!) ph33r!!! Me and KnightDeathRider wrote it with alot of help from DragonMaster! Shout outs and props to my peeps DeathBringer and NightStalker!"

    "We are l33t visual BASIC haxors!! THE LEETEST LANGUAGE EVER!!"

    "IT IS so leet it runs on NT. Plus we call our patches "SERVICE PACKS" thats how leet we are! phr33r!"

    "It has very long term reliability - it stays up for up to 48 hours!!!! thats like two days!! leet!!!"

    I mean, please. These guys are total no talent lamers. What decent coder in the RIGHT mind would join the FBI for 1/4 the pay doing shit they HATED.