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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."
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!
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
Just replace the "www" in the link with "archive".
For this link, it is
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/technolog
It
a) Saves all the "No reg link" posts, and
b) Saves all the "Anonymous login" posts, and
c) just makes the world a better place in general.
Thanks!
. . .
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.
Was there a keylogger to begin with?
Perhaps they just handed over the encrypted data to the NSA who promptly cracked it. Now, how do you use this in court without revealing that it was NSAs monster cracker that did all the work.
You invent a keylogger!
The standard the court promulgated is as follows: Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a "search" and is presump-tively unreasonable without a warrant.
The slip opinion (99-8508) is available in pdf format
Although the government did have a warrent to search thus supects home in this case, they did not have permission to wiretap. Since the bug could concievably be used to wiretap, the government has the responsibility to provide evidence that the device did not go beyond the scope of the existing warrant.
Kyllo suggests that, since the device's capabilities are secret, such a device is presumptively not in public use, and requires the most expansive of warrents for legal use. Since the feds did not have a wiretap warrent, and such a device could be used for such activity, the placement of the device is illegal. (IANAL)
You're assuming that what the Constitution says has any relevance toward what the government does, which has not been the case for many decades. The Constitution clearly requires that an accused person be able to confront his accusers, which means that no secret evidence is permitted. It also prevents abridging freedom of speech or punishing people who have not been charged or convicted of a crime, but that didn't stop them from passing the CDA, DMCA, and asset forfeiture. The government no longer recognizes any limit on its power, and the voters have let them get away with it.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake