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Privacy Invasion By Any Other Name
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.
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.
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?"
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,
P-38: 1938 purge in the USSR, aka The Great Terror; causing great enthusiam from confused WWII aviation buffs.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
>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.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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. 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 not Benjamin Franklin (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?
~~~~~~
under-paid karma whore
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.
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.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Yes, and sometimes "Windscale" is still just, "Leafy Hollow Sheep Illumination Centre"
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.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
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.
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DCS1000...it's like the DCS4000, but without the graphic interface, and only comes in beige...
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
That's all.
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
Clinton era programming....nuf said
Got Code?
Copyright Violation....
Got Code?
son of a gun! i wish i had previewed. :) /me adds a to the parent.
The anti-salmon
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...
The anti-salmon
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
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
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.
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
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Their violent ways.... Interstingly enough, a search for DCS1000 on google turns up this page.
There is no spork.
how dare you bring common sense to the paranoid zealots??!! shame on you!
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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"
Hash Bang Slash Bin Slash Bash
... or did we just see a story regarding Carnivore's name change about this on slashdot?
DCS1000... sounds like the model of a Terminator...
Do you like German cars?
I noticed my grammar error. Don't point it out... So much for the preview button... :)
Do you like German cars?
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. 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)
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
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.
Someday, even a C student could rule _your_ nation.
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.
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.
.02
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
hey, they did have an article posted about "Deja" I wonder if this would fall under that category ;-)
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!)
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
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?"
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Wasn't that a Robert Duvall movie?
Devious Carnivore Substitute (the program with 1000 faces)
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McCarthy's Communist witch hunt -> HUAC1953 (House Un-American Activities Commitee investigation)
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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.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
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.'
So understandably, I am nervous about any Government or business collection of data above and beyond the minimum needed. Some people never have enough.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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"
BOSTON SUCKS!
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.
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.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
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.
/. 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.
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
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
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!
-Life is a Journey, --Not a Guided Tour! ---Trust me, I've already looked for the guide book.
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.
you were scooped by yourself :)2 7&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/09/22432
Someone should have had this idea before:
and of course...
Je t'aime Stéphanie
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....
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
FBI Agent Dave: tweaking in the back of DCS1000 with a soldering iron
DCS1000: Daisy, daisy, give me your email, do . . .
Here's a snippet from a recent chat on AOL's Br1ttn3y Sp34rz chat room.
This translates into:
You've got to love the FBI. I really wish them well.