Keyloggers Now Classified Technology

general_re writes: "The New York Times (free reg required blah blah blah) is reporting that the Department of Justice is still refusing to turn over details of how the keystroke loggers used against Nicky Scarfo worked, claiming that revealing how it works "would render it useless in future investigations" as well as claiming that it is classified information. Nevermind that this also prevents his lawyers from evaluating or attacking the credibility or accuracy of the evidence arrayed against him. One interesting question raised is whether it's always been classified, or if they're retroactively classifying it in order to avoid revealing how they work."

Comments

welcome

[coloneyb]

Comrades, welcome to the CCCUSA.
Big Brother is watching.
We must continue to stand up for ourselves or the government is really gonna run us over with all this BS

Abuse of power

[sourcehunter]

I'm sorry, I don't care WHAT kind of technology you use against a criminal to gather evidence, it should be open to scrutiny.

I believe the same to be true of the Carnivore system, even though I readily defend its use as legitimate.

What if they classified the tape and tape recorder they used to tape a conversation - no one would be able to check the tape to see if it was or could have been altered!

Re:Abuse of power

[JCCyC]

Bingo. If this sticks, nobody is safe. Imagine: they can type any kind of fake e-mail, and then say it was keylogged thru their "classified technology".

"Who'll be today's suckers, Mr. Director?"
"Let's make Ralph Nader a pedophile, Noam Chomsky a crack dealer and David Touretzky... lessee... a terrorist from Hamas. No, better, Tim McVeigh's secret accomplice!"

So make what is known public

[YouAreFatMan]

"The technology behind the key logger, which was developed by the F.B.I. but is similar to readily available commercial products..."

It sounds like the FBI has built upon existing key logging technology. I imagine those are patented, right? So distribute that information. If it's similar enough, then the same methods to defeat it would work against the FBI's stuff. This what the FBI is claminig they are trying to avoid by releasing details.

Of course, this information should only be used to prevent unscrupulous business competitors from using key logging against you ;-). Don't use it to cover up a crime, like reading and encrypted e-book.

Double Secret Prosecution

[YIAAL]

In Animal House it was a joke. For the feds it's becoming a habit. This is an outrage -- but I don't think it will hold up in court. When you present evidence like this, you have to establish its reliability. And "Trust US' isn't good enough.

Evidence would not be admissable in UK courts

[new500]

. . .

Must make this short (as there's a god long debate behind what follows) but this would make inadmissable any collected evidence in a UK court.

This would be because there is then no person or other body of evidence available to question regards veracity.

Evidence rules here very tough, and the case would be almost immediately thrown out.

This is tantamount to claiming the Ivisible Man as witness and the prosecutor or plaintiff claiming they cannot bring him for cross examination because they cannot find him.

The anaology is the same, if something cannot be shown to court, it may not bear witness.

This is the first basic rule of civilisation and law over hearsay, rumour and superstition.

Read the whole article, damnit

[rgmoore]

One interesting question raised is whether it's always been classified, or if they're retroactively classifying it in order to avoid revealing how they work.

At least according to the article, the technology must be classified before the filing in order for them to invoke the act. To wit:

He [Mark Rasch, a former DoJ lawyer] also said the government's action raised more questions than it answered. Under the law, for example, the government is required to show that it classified the technology in question properly, and did so before it was used in the investigation. "Simply saying `it's classified' is not enough," he said. The government has not yet publicly offered the proof that Mr. Rasch described.

Presumably, at least, the "classified the technology in question properly" is to ensure that there's actually something that deserves real protection, not just a lame attempt to keep it unaccountable and unquestionable under the mantle of National Security. It also appears to be pretty clear that the classification has to predate the claims against it. If they're trying to classify it retroactively to avoid accountability, their attempt is likely to blow up in their face.

Re:Whats wrong with that?

[camusflage]

If refusing is helping catching bad guys, I'm all for it.

"Those who would trade their essential Liberty for a perceived temporary Security deserve neither Liberty nor Security" --Ben Franklin

If refusing is lopping the legs off the constitution, I'm against it. Right now, without answering questions, we can only assume that they're hiding something. If they thought it would stand on its own merit, they should've applied for the wiretap order. Of course, the judge would ask if they'd see him register for access to NY Times articles, or a Slashdot registration, or even a flame email that was typed but subsequently cancelled and thus never sent. My guess is that since the answer would be "Yes" to all those questions, they knew a wiretap order wouldn't be signed, as the information gathered would be beyond the boundaries of the order.

What they SHOULD have done was take the PGP source, write in a routine to either store or forward the passphrase, compile it, and tote that to the federal judge, and apply for the wiretap with THAT rather than something they bought from a spam mail about tracking your kid online. I would expect that they could get a judge to buy in on that since it would (and could) only intercept the information they were seeking.

Also, you're presupposing that all people they "catch" are "bad guys". Sadly, such is not the case, but we won't even begin to get into that.

Constitutionally...

[blkros]

speaking, if they didn't get a warrant to use this keylogger, it is just as illegal as a wiretap without a warrant. It is a case of illegal search and seizure which the US Constitution prohibits in the fourth amendment, which reads:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This is just FBI legal maneuvering, and we all know it, because keylogger tech is quite common. I know of at least 10 different keyloggers that you can download off the web.

As a side comment--this is another case of new technology that the average person doesn't understand well(or at all), being used to degrade our rights.

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Recent Supreme Court Decision?

[Glowing Fish]

Recently, the supreme court decided that infared surveyance, and other "high technology" surveyance of someones's house was unconstitutional, since they involve an unreasonable invasion of privacy without a warrant. In other words, that to look in someone's house, you need a warrant, even if you aren't physically entering.

So how does this apply to a keystroke monitor? Isn't that an unresonable invading of privacy, using a technology to circumvent "searches of persons and papers"?

Does the FBI need a warrant to install one of these? Or if the computer is used for "business" (even illegal business) does the constituional prohibition against unreasonable search not apply.

And more important, if we don't know how this works on a technical level, how will we ever find out whether or not it is constitutional?

We have Secret Evidence

[Alien54]

Talkl about Soviet Russia!

"We have this secret evidence against, and you must trust us to tell you that you are guilty of crimes that violate these secret laws. If you knew what these laws were, we would have to shoot you.

[snort]

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." -FDR

Sounds like we made it.

We won the war against fascism, and communism, (WWII, Cold War, etc) only to be left with a communistic fascism called a corporate democracy. It is a communism of fascistic corporate interests.

Time to blow the planet while there is still a chance.

- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Classified raises reasonable doubt to admissible

[yerricde]

Now, why would the Feds not want to disclose the mechanism of their keylogger? Either it's typical spook selfishness OR they think that doing so would strengthen the defense's argument. I havn't looked at the actual details of the argument the defense is making, so it's hard to tell if this is part of the motivation for the "it's classified" song and dance.

Defense: "Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you got a warrant to gather this information or that the keylogging was otherwise not an unreasonable search and seizure."

Feds: "Umm..... uh...."

Defense: "Motion to reject this evidence."

Perhaps they learned their lesson from the Sklyarov debacle and are trying to get a judge to rule the "wiretapped" evidence inadmissible.