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BBC: AOL, Earthlink Are 'Cooperating' With FBI
braddock writes: "The BBC is now reporting that 'The FBI is scouring e-mail accounts for clues as to who might have been behind the terror attacks' and that AOL and Earthlink have confirmed that they are cooperating with investigators. Earthlink maintains 'We're co-operating, but we're not installing any surveillance equipment on our networks.' AOL and Earthlink together have approximatey 36 million accounts. Scary how fast privacy can be compromised when the bulk of a country's e-mail services are centralized." I wonder which ISPs really are installing Carnivore, if not the two largest in the country. Maybe this means it's already in place?
Honestly, I can't imagine that AOL and Earthlink won't install any special surveillance equipment in their network. Searching for keywords in >>100 millions of emails takes a little more than a workstation with grep...
If we all used GPG for our email transmissions, this wouldn't be a problem, would it? That is until a few months goes by and a new amendment to the constitution prohibits encryption tools of any kind... Think I'm crazy? We'll see.
It's all about sacrifice. Over 5,000 people have lost their lives because the majority of people in the U.S. have been unwilling to make sacrifices. I am ready to start making sacrifices to ensure that you and I do not meet the same fate.
What are some of those sacrifices:
1) Long waits at the airport.
2) Higher ticket prices to support better security personnel and sky marshalls
3) Less privacy to ensure law enforcement can do what they need to do
4) My life. I am willing to die for my country, my way of life and to protect civilization
At times of uncertainty and possibly war, everyone will have to make sacrifices. What are you willing to sacrifice?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
This has been happening to telephone conversations all over the world. E-mail is only the next logical step.
Exactly how much freedom is going to be given away so that the world feels safe?
And one final thought: Is the compromise of personal freedom easier to swallow when it's done in secret, or is it easier to accept if it is right out in the open? Most people get upset if you tape their telephone conversations on them, or read their e-mail addresses. What makes this any different? Just because it's the government?
Angry White Guy
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
It sounds like the FBI is presenting ISPs with subpeonas, and the ISPs are not fighting them in court but are cooperating. Is this wrong in some way? If it were a case where someone had evidence that this was countervaling established precident or I'd be concerned. Buth there seems to be little evidence that there is any abuse at present.
Much more of a concern would be the call by Att. Gen. Ashcroft to rewrite wiretap laws.
We will soon be outlaws I guess ! "15years old script kiddie gets 8 months of detention for using PGP, a dangerous tool, which always leads to destruction."
It is easy to throw away the 4th Amend. in a state of fear and/or rage. It remains my hope that rational minds will prevail...sadly, while the individual may be rational, the mob tends to act with passion.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Overall, it is worth keeping in mind that it was hate and revenge that created this tragedy and that to give way to hate and revenge is to let this tragedy demean and lessen us. Understanding something this massive and monstrous will take a long time, and the dialogue we will engage in about this will, eventually, be healthy and worthwhile. The trick is to not fall into the trap of knee-jerk "reactive" action.
/rr
i wonder how many people would trade in some of their privacy to help the law enforcement agencies in preventing similar tragedies from happening in the future.
i know i would.
Maybe I am a bit too cynic here, but really... all those softwares are most probably installed a long time ago, and if they aren't in some places, what would you expect?
No authority of those kinds will ever care about the average Joe if they want to do something, whether for good reasons or not. They will just do as they please, and if they overstep, they apologize and throw us a scapegoat. Meanwhile, it is business as usual...
Personally, I wouldent mind my email being scoured if it were simply for the task of finding the terrorists. I'm not a terrorist, so I have nothing to worry about.
I would be angry if they were to assault me for other activities while scouring my email account though. But I seriously doubt they would/could do that.
Due to the abuse of freedom on tuesday, I expect to see some freedoms removed temporarily. Made more secure, and then returned to the people. I completely support this.
I'd rather be alive.
Obviously they can't check through all the mail, so anyone know what kind of keywords they're searching on? There are a lot of people exchanging e-mails about the recent terrorism, so I'd imagine they'd get a lot of hits.
Or maybe they're just searching for messages in Arabic? Or singling out encrypted ones?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
In wartime, and particularly in this kind of war with an invisible enemy, civil liberties will be restricted. And I fully support that, if it helps them get the people and organizations that planned and carried out this tragedy.
The question I have is: after the war is over, can we regain those liberties which we voluntarily (at least for me) have given up? I'm not sure...and I'm not sure where the line is between short-term support of this surveillance to aid the current search for terrorists, and long-term support that will see us living in a police state.
with scouring phone and cell phone call records. It's been common law for decades that when a crime is committed that law enforcement personel have an ability to collect evidence. And [rivate citizens and business entities have an obligation to provide any such evidence.
Living in a civilized society requires that each of us surrender some personal liberty for the common safety and security of society. Of course on can find an uninhabitted area, move there and live in total freedom.
Guys...we are at war. The normal rules do not count in war. In times of war the needs of the many outweigh privacy arguments.
If you feel it necessary to communicate privately use regular mail or meet them in the park and simply talk.
Electronic surveillance has done much to already get them on the right path in many cases, and I think we owe it to the country not to whine so much about privacy stuff when the only thing the feds are after are the guys who killed 5000+ of our citizens.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Keep in mind that all the ISP's ALREADY log all the connections through their network. They ALREADY have a lot of the emails, etc. on their system in the form of access logs and backups of undelivered messages.
Carnivore can only be installed to monitor traffic to/from a specific person (as per the warrant). It can also only monitor real-time data (nothing from the past). Therefore, what is the point of installing Carnivore now? They just want to install it so that it will be easier for them to deploy it in the future to catch all the non-violent pot smokers who are "ruining the country"
Travis
I can just imagine the FBI's sophisticated search techniques:
/bin/Laden
/usa
"Search for Arabic names or the word Allah and turn it over to us"
Oh well.
rm -rf
fsck -a
They have authority, although the authority seems a bit broad. I mean come on, how ofen is the FBI going though the phone company logs of a suspect? You don't hear slashdot complaining when at&t and version are cooperating with a legal sopena?
But it doen underscore the need for encryption and the fact that even you ISP cannot be trusted. We need commercial security aware companies to provide SSL'ed smtp servers because even GPG/PGP does not prevent DCS1000 from figuring out who you are communicating with.
I would love to have ALL logs an ISP keeps be encrypted with my public key, that way the govenment cannot make use of the data without my authority.
As it is, Viet Nam and Korea (and assorted lesser bloody conflicts) have been uncomfortable to label here in Merka, because Congress hasn't officially declared war since WWII.
Of course, right now, it's kinda difficult to declare war when the extent of the enemy isn't clear... and never will be.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Privacy is a funny thing. Everyone has secrets about himself that he would rather keep private: sometimes because having his secret revealed would be embarrassing, or would have legal ramifications, or numerous other reasons. Sometimes it's just assuring to know that there are some things you can keep private. Everyone deserves this freedom, right?
And yet, wouldn't it also be reassuring to know that people who are plotting your death wouldn't be able to keep that a secret? Don't you wish you could make the killers, the thiefs, and the serious do-badders give up their privacy without compromising your own?
Sadly, it's not so easy.
There are certainly times where privacy is invaded for petty reasons; for example, take the various spy services the web offers. Any Joe Schmuck with a few bucks can find out close personal details about anyone. That seems wrong to me.
However, I have no problem with the FBI scouring communications to detect potential suspects in major cases. I trust the FBI to be mature, not using Carnivore or related technologies for petty purposes. I will certainly stand and hand in the freedom to commit an anonymous crime for the peace of mind that everyone else has done the same.
I'm glad that people are worried about their privacy at a time where it's likely to get trampled in the name of national security. I just think some people are overreacting to it. It's not like the NSA is going through all your private email and publishing it on web pages for all the world to see. The guys that are running through the world's email are probably scanning millions of emails a day using sophisticated filters and probably skimming hundreds of those with their own eyes. Do they care about your weekend plans or how much you love your dog? NO! They are looking for threats to national security. As long as you're not doing anything that would make the Federal government curious, you probably have nothing to worry about. Go back to your hole. If you are, then let them read your email and try to crack your PGP keys.
Didn't we just hear about Bin Laden's obsession with encryption? And isn't Carnivore or (DCS1000 or whatever) only supposed to examine email headers? If I'm not mistaken, they are only supposed to be allowed to view the message bodies to/from certain usernames/IPs and by court order on a case by case basis. I don't mean to be naive, but don't be naive enough to believe that Bin Laden and pals wouldn't use encryption or that they would be that foolish. My guess is that they will not find anything significant that they aren't already aware of. Remember, "if we outlaw encryption, only the outlaws will have encryption" - source? i forget, i think it was someone from the EFF. take care.
1) We insisted on a Court Order/Search Warrant
2) We do value our customers privacy. This is not a change in policy. In the real world companies and individuals do need to comply with court orders.
3) We will not install Carnivore, period. It has caused problems on our network before, and we will not install it. We have alternate means (grep is part of it I believe) of complying with LEGAL and LEGITIMATE requests by the FBI. This is not a change in any policies.
4) We have given cash to help with the current tragedy, and will be giving more
5) When the Red Cross called for Computer equipment, the equipment from our New York office went to them. Not just some, but a LOT of equipment.
6) We are actually quite busy between Covad pulling out of most MSA's for a couple of Day, Verizon closing access to CO's, and SBC doing the same. Currently only a few CO's are still closed but a A LOT of customers have PVC's for DSL that run through lower Manhattan.
Which brings me to the next point, I am getting frustrated with customers in Manhattan calling in and cussing us out to get their DSL back up. In most cases it is either a PVC that runs through the basement of the Verizon building you see in the pictures from some angles of the tragedy. Or they go through one of several Manhatten CO's that are CLOSED to all access, or if in Upper Manhattan are available for access the CLEC or LEC will not dispatch to for a variety of reasons ranging from workload to safety.
However, the closer to ground zero, the more understanding people seem to be, but for a lot of the rest of New York, it is the SAME OLD ATTITUDE.
"OK, we will kill thousands by hijacking planes on Sept. 11 2001"
"Signed: Osama Bin Laden"
"PS - just to prove it's me I will send this in paper by FedEx as well....hahahha, those Americans will never be able to catch me"
And it's hardly as if he will have an email address like osama@afghanistan.com or something.
I don't mind them installing software or whatever, but surely there is something better to try. Like the endless talk of face recognition systems or something. I couldn't believe that in the first 24 hours they had not one mention of going through the surveillance cameras in the airports, or anything.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
That said, work on the assumption that you are being observed. If you want to encrypt data, do so - you may have reason to. If you want to use gpg for email, you probably have good reason to do that as well.
Its going to be at least a year until society really and actually starts thinking about civil liberties again - right now you can forget about it.
All these people whining about their precious privacy. What have they got to hide? What are they so worried about? If they're innocent then they have nothing to fear.
It's not like the individuals who work for the government agencies that have been charged with enforcing the law don't know what's best for America. I know what's best for America. Hell, I know what's best for the world!
I'll be reading your email now, but don't worry. Only the guilty will be affected.
This is why I have moved my IPsec tunnel endpoint to a location outside of the US. Now, all my personal traffic is encrypted until it reaches another country(In this case, Sweden). Perhaps things like this will become more commonplace as our civil liberties decline in the face of these attacks. The strange thing about liberties is that once their gone, even if it is only "temporary", they never come back.
Has anyone considered the effects of the new government policy in conjunction with the DCMA? Once the witch hunt is over, we could be in serious trouble.
The full article is at= /news/2001/09/16/wbin116.xml
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml
Extract:
Did anyone stop to think that if our privacy were so absolutely compromised by the government, as many here like to imagine (evil carnivore, etc.), then these terrorist attacks would have been thwarted?
Notice, I'm not saying government surveillance is a good thing. I'm pointing out that people pretend the government to be much more powerful and nefarious than it actually is...
It amuses me how people on Slashdot think that the FBI gives a rats ass about their email when their looking for terrorists. 5000+ people are missing due to a terrorist act, I very much doubt that the FBI will look through 10000s of emails with no value what so ever to anyone. I wonder if anyone in the WTC was killed who had posted on Slashdot about the need for privacy, and if they would have given up willingly that need if it meant the FBI intercepting an email regarding the attacks before it happend thus letting them live.
If you lost a loved one in one of those towers, would you not want to turn back the clock and have the FBI do all that it could to stop them?
If you are not sending out email about bombing someone, you have nothing to worry about, simple geek emails arguing over Linux vs TheWorld is not going to make an FBI agent sit down and read it, and forget about the "principle of the thing", let me repeat, 5000+ people are missing, no one cares about your email bar you.
Although we do have a right to free speech (1st Amend.) and a right against search and seizure (4th Amend.), we also have a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Our rights are complex legal ideals, and embodying them in practice may be difficult and even contradictory. Media pundits have been talking about the danger to our civil rights if the government's reaction is too strong, but it's clear the right to safe flights is a right we should have. (Interestingly, it's been the conservatives that are bemoaning the possible loss of our rights, even though the administration is very conservative.)
the fbi is going after specific account information associated with specific individuals, not the general public. they are going to ISPs WITH search warrants, not just barging in and asking for arbtrary information.
In essence, they are only moving forward with normal police work and nothing else. They are legal in their use of search warrants, and they are going after specific information.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Because, if you have nothing to hide, you won't be targeted. I'd hardly take the commentary of a paid analyst who most likely has less knowledgable input on this subject than you or I over the perceptions and views of the encryption community as a whole.
Will it not affect us because we will not be monitored, or will it not affect us because it will be seamless implementation that we won't notice? That commentary makes me more worried then the actual topic. I like to know what's going on, and I don't want to be part of a government mushroom treatment of the sheeple.
Angry White Guy
--These comments should be treated as truth until I change my mind
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
I don't know what is more scary. That we could be at the beggining of World War III where the terrorists want us to be. Or that terrorists will launch more attacks what they certainly want to do. Or that a lot of politicians now will want to implement stricter laws what the terrorists will see as a sign of victory. Our clever politicians make a big show but change nothing.
And mostly everybody seems to refuse to REALLY THINK about what the hell made all this happen. It's surely not just a big bank account and some mislead religious fanatism. That's just the surface. There is MUCH MUCH more to it.
Blast it, why must this issue be about individual liberties vs. public safety? Can't we use technology to make us safer without becoming a police state? There are several options to make planes un-hijackable (cockpit sealing, panic buttons w/auto-pilot, etc.) and many other practical options available to us.
Trying to prevent people from talking about terrorism isn't going to get us anywhere. We should make it illegal to think about terrorism for all the good it will do. I say let them talk - if hijacking a plane is impossible, they might as well be talking about the weather.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I don't think this is wrong at all. Many people in America - especially high profile companies - are willing to assist with the investigation wherever possible. What kind of public image would result from a statement like "The FBI reports that AOL and Earthlink refuse to cooperate with the authorities?"
The terrorists had to communicate, and there were lots of people involved, so e-mail would be a plausible solution.
For me, checking every possible lead for these attacks is far more important than privacy concerns.
3) Less privacy to ensure law enforcement can do what they need to do
4) My life. I am willing to die for my country, my way of life and to protect civilization
I'm willing to die for my way of life too. My way of life includes the 4th and thr right to privacy. You apparently are willing to sacrifice other peoples rights. I am not.
There is no right to life. If you don't believe that, swim out to sea as far as you can before you pass out. Nature guarantees only your death, not your life.
I'm getting real sick of Slashdot twisting facts to support the anti-corp, anti-gov paranoia around here.
Fact: The FBI had subpoenas.
Fact: The ISPs are refusing to install Carnivore.
And yet somehow this has turned into a story about the FBI invading our privacy.
Slashdot has turned into a new service I can't trust anymore.
For the humor impaired, that was intended to be funny.
Swindon: What will History say?
Burgoyne: History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.
I have heard it mentioned that the the terrorists may have attacked on the day they did in order to take advantage of the code 911. 911 is used in many contexts, and regularly, thus if the communicating terrorists were under electronic surveilance their code may have gone misunderstood.
________________
All my sig are fjdklafjkldafjkldafdaklf
Gun control: Do criminals have guns today? YES
Do ordinary, law abiding citizens have easy _legal_ access? NO
Do terrorists have easy access to encryption tomorrow? YES
Will ordinary, law abiding citizens have easy access to secure encryption? ASK AGAIN LATER
None of the precautions being taken today would have had any effect on there terrorists. They will have an enormous effect on law abiding people like Dmitiri Skylarov, dissidents, unpopular Americans.
Dozens of innocent AMERICAN Arabs are being detained by the FBI now, along with those possibly guilty. They've had no trial, no lawyer, and no rights.
If you don't stand up for their rights, who will stand up for yours?
I don't know what is more scary. That we could be at the beggining of World War III where the terrorists want us to be. Or that terrorists will launch more attacks what they certainly want to do. Or that a lot of politicians now want to implement stricter laws what the terrorists will see as a sign of victory. Our clever politicians make a big show but change nothing.
And mostly everybody seems to refuse to REALLY THINK about what the hell made all this happen. It's surely not just a big bank account and some mislead religious fanatism. That's just the surface. There is MUCH MUCH more to it.
What are you doing that's so secret, anyway?
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Yet, despite my paranoia, I was somehow relieved and comforted when the press announced that the NSA was reviewing tapes of cell phone calls to try to gather more clues in the WTC disaster. Sure, the government admitted to listening to your phone calls. But it's clearly for a good reason. I'm not proposing 24/7 wiretaps on your phonelines, packet sniffers on your LAN, or hidden video cameras in your house; nor am I advocating invasion of privacy. But somehow, for some unknown reason, I'm beginning to think that maybe a little bit of snooping here and there is a good thing. Kinda scary that I'm starting to appreciate some privacy invasions...
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Paraphrased, but essentially the viewpoint is that encryption crackdowns won't affect the average citizen. So there you have it.
So long as the "average citizen" is not an employee or customer of the businesses this kind of thing will hurt. The number of terrorists it will catch is likely to be zero. Indeed by concentrating on high tech things it may well be harder to catch terrorists in future.
I can't believe that checking millions of mails will help. Terrorists who were able to plan and execute such a terrible strike and execute it in such a precision are most likely able to take precautions against mail-sniffing. After all even a fool can use encryption tools like PGP/GPG.
..I don't think Osama used America Online...
The statement says they're cooperating with investigators. That statement is a lot broader than "complying with the subpeona". Given the fact that national and even international security is at stake, maybe we they're justified in cooperating and we're overreacting. If an invasion of privacy becomes par for the course, on the other hand, then we've lost too many freedoms.
It's totally changed the deal with hijackers; now they don't have demands, or want money or their cause spoken for on TV. Right now not one person has said why they did it. Bin Laden is just speculation.
So if they hijack the plane, the cockpit seals off and they say that they will blow a bomb on board if they do not get control.
I have no idea how to make a plane hijack-proof. The one thing maybe is that if hijackers ever take a plane again from now on, no passengers are going to believe a damn thing they say about threatening to blow a bomb unless they get 1 million dollars or something. They'll prob all freak out and beat the shit out of them.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
The system guys behind these large ISP's are *gasp* slashdotters too.
No one wants carnivore on their system. From the information I know (loosely collected from over the internet and slashdot posts), the concerns are that it could too easily gain information from other users. To me carnivore sounds like an overglorified packet sniifer. (Of course we will really never know until the code is released to those who can make an honest assessment)
Earthlink cooperates with the FBI all of the time on warrants. Earthlink has its own software that will serve the needs of the FBI. Thus there is no need for carnivore. So in the end, the FBI's information is gleaned and those communications of customers not cited in the warrant are kept private.
No one is saying, come in, sniff the network for those Arab bastards. Alot of people share the same values as yourselfs.
This is not the end of civil liberties.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
At this point I don't care what the FBI does. They can read all my e-mail, they could steal my trash, they can even tap my phone. If it means catching the Godless men who did this, it will be well worth it.
/bin/laden
chmod a+x
Most Terms of Service agreements say, in essence, "we promise to protect your privacy unless it becomes inconvenient e.g. if the cops ask for your personal info, we'll give it to them".
Read the fine print guys. You (probably) agreed to this when you signed up for service.
Have you ever seen "Pump Up the Volume"? At one point, all these reporters are at the post office and they want to know who the "Happy Harry Hardon" post office box is registered to. The clerk says, "I'm sorry, policy says I can't give you that information." Then the cops show up, and one of them says, "But you will give it to me." To which the clerk responds, "I certainly will." [He does].
This is normal guys. If you don't like it, write your representatives. However, given the current political climate, I doubt you'll get far.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
And personally, I can't imagine anyone who was in those buildings, even privacy advocates, arguing against limited monitoring for the foreseeable future. If terrorist militant plans to kill 5,000 people could be averted by a simple keyword search, I'd gladly "trade-in" some of my freedom.
jeez I am so fed up with all this slashdot crap about privacy coming under threat and oh no, they're going to ban encryption.
What's the big fuggin deal? why are you all so jump-on-the-bandwagon big-brother-out-to-get-us ? Have you done something wrong, something illegal? no? then shut the hell up because there are people out there that have bad intentions and if a loss of some internet privacy is at stake then so be it. Stop getting so jumpity about it all when there is just no reason to be. Like the feds would be interested in this bunch of open source whiny shits anyway.
Of course law enforcement agencies want to search for clues in e-mail and I would be very angry, as an American, if AOL, Earthlink, or other ISPs were anything less than cooperative with reasonable requests.
Choose your battles wisely. An investigation into the worst act of terrorism in our nation's history is not the same thing as Carnivore systematically, but without specific purpose, examining every e-mail that goes through an ISP.
If you are transmitting data of a sensitive nature, encrypt it. If you have sent unencrypted e-mail indicating your involvement in criminal activity, then you should be arrested -- for stupidity!
EVERY THOUGHT ABOUT THIS?
They could just download and store those emails, for later, detailed, completely-unrelated-to-terrorism analysis. Not saying they will, but how could you as a citizen detect or even prevent that, huh?
The US is far too individual-centric, and we need to realize that each one of us has a responsibility to the larger community, and that that includes making sacrifices like this.
Like hell it does. The social conscience and community standards enforced by government is what countries like Afghanistan are like. If you don't like how life is in the US, and the US Bill of RIGHTS, then leave.
I'm sure Afghanistan would love a coward like you to come over and defame the US.
Perhaps you don't understand we are not worried about terrorists having their rights violated. We ARE worried about all the non-terrorists whose rights will be violated. The 1950's MacArthism rose because of such cowardsly knee jerk responses from people like you.
America is about dissent. Sadly, people like me who understand it, and support your right to voice that dissent do not enjoy the same consideration from short sighted people such as yourself.
Unpopular speech is the only speech that needs protection.
I'm all for it, unless they are reading each email one by one.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Run your own fiber lines and buy yaour own hardware. All of your communication runs on equipment owned by others. And they have an interest in protecting it.
If you want privacy in your travels, walk from NYC to LA all you want. But if the airplanes are owned by others they may want to take steps to protect their property and the livews of other passengers.
If you want privacy in email run fiber or copper lines to anyone you email. As long as your communications travel on hardware owned by private companies they will take an interest in protecting their property. A lot of data and phone lines were damaged in the attack.
It is very important to realize that one may have reasons for encrypting data that are not related to anything remoteley criminal. Keeping secrets is not a crime.
What would it be like to send a letter (snail mail) to a loved one about intensely personal issues, such as the revelation that you have AIDS, knowing that a government agent will read it first? That would scare the shit out of me.
Freedom can not be saved by its destruction.
Run PGP and get your own mail server running.
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
There are broader issues at risk here too...a writer friend of mine, Harvey Ardman, just sent the following and I thought it was worth sharing:
Who are the combatants in this war?
On the one side, you have the secular, multi-ethnic Western nations, dedicated to progress, as they define it, embracing technology and change, extolling prosperity and materialism, tolerating differences, promoting freedom of speech and freedom of choice, and bent on imposing their forms of commerce, government, philosophy and even religion on the rest of the world--all in a spirit of good will, of course.
On the other, you have fundamentalist religion, most particularly Islam fundamentalism but not limited to it. These people despise what the Western nations stand for and fear that their beliefs and their world cannot survive the secular tsunami. Let me say this again: they believe their spiritual survival is at stake.
When Osama Ben Laden saw American troops operating in Saudi Arabia, his homeland, during the Gulf War, he was not only furious, he was afraid--afraid for his culture, his religion, his social beliefs. He saw this degraded culture, this wave of infidels, from his point of view, threatening everything that he loved and believed in.
This, by the way, is why the Arabs continue to attack Israel, and to speak of it with loathing. It is a secular state in a fundamentalist world. It is a western bastion, even a Trojan horse. This is why the Arabs have NEVER attacked any Israeli religious targets. It is not the religion that bothers them. It is the lack of religion. It is the secular Israel that offends, not the Jewish one.
There is a key difference between the combatants. The secular westerners believe, in a vague and comfortable way, that their way of life is desirable and superior to the lives and values of the fundamentalists. They are intellectually and philosophically committed to their beliefs. The fundamentalists, on the other hand, believe in their cause with every molecule of their bodies. Ours is a reasoned, reasonable belief. Theirs is fanatic.
How can we prevail over this level of belief, especially since we cannot match it. How can we outlast such passion? Well, I don't believe that we can win the battle militarily, although we might be able to strip the terrorists of most of their power, at least for awhile.
What's needed here, I believe, is both a military and a social war. The military war must be fought against identifiable terrorists. The social war must be fought against poverty, inequality and famine--for these are the seeds of fundamentalism, this is the food of fanaticism.
It is not much of a sacrifice for us to fight that military war. We're good at that. We secretly enjoy it. To fight the social war, however, we must find new reserves within us. We must make genuine sacrifices, sacrifices to which we are unaccustomed. We must give not as we gave during World War II, but as we gave afterward. I'm talking about the Marshall Plan, which resurrected Europe from the ashes of war.
On the surface, the Marshall plan--billions in relief for Europe--was a generous act. But of course self interest was involved, in at least three ways. First, we were desperate to keep Western Europe out of Soviet control. Second, we had pressing economic reasons to make sure Europe became strong and prosperous again. The people of Europe were our best customers. Finally, the values of Western Europe were the same as ours. Supporting them strengthened us.
We have a self-interest in undertaking similar programs for the 3rd world. It is the only way we can keep these people from fanatic fundamentalism. It is the only way we can hope to once and for all defeat terrorism. We must reduce the difference between the haves and the have-nots. We must end abject poverty at the very least.
Here's what makes the socialwar so difficult: We will be sorely tempted--because we strongly believe in our values---to attempt to impose them on those we aid. We will demand they embrace democracy?. We will demand they allow freedom of speech and yes, religion? Will we insist that they become as secular as we are? And if we do, will we just be creating more Osama Ben Ladens?
I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know that the social war is much more complicated than the military one. And it is also more important, because no military victory is forever, in the long run of history. No conversion at the point of a gun is a genuine one. Vengeance always leads to revenge.
We need to change minds more than we need to kill terrorists. It will not be easy. I hope we have the stomach for it.
/rr
All of it.
Like being pregnant, you can't be a "little free."
A friend of mine lived in Bosnia. He said life there was great in most ways. You couldn't talk about politics or religion, but asde from that, anyone who wanted a job was given one, they had food to eat and a place to live.
Personally, I think a hamster has the same thing in his wheel, woodchips and corn seed.
I want more than what would make a hamster happy.
I want to be able to fire a shotgun in my backyard if I want. Ok, I'm in NYC and don't have a gun or a yard, so I can't. But I choose to live in NYC, where others are directly impacted by my use of a shotgun since they could hear the blast and I'd damage the apt. walls if I used one for recreation.
If I move to Texas and get a big place, I CAN do that though. That's freedom.
The right to bear arms, if allowed on those flights, would have prevented the WTC hits, 100%.
The lives of the people who died there were impacted by your choice to support gun control, censorship, and every other violation of the Bill of Rights.
Those on the planes were unable to fight back successfully, because people like you disarmed them and took away their rights.
If they all had guns, the planes _might_ still have crashed, but they would at least have had the freedom to choose to fight for their lives.
You, and your kind, took that from them.
Freedom is making your own choices, rightly or wrongly.
The terrorists had that freedom, but those killed by them did not.
The biggest threat we face right now is the civil rights of Americans of Arab descent in the United States.
One of the goals of the terrorist activities is to make the Western Democracies strike out against Arabs and make it a clear us vs. them scenario by which they can gain more support in the Middle East.
By using deep cover agents, they have made a real step towards that goal. Now every Arab in the United States can be considered a potential suspect. Anti-Arab sentiment and violence is already on a serious rise as it is.
And either through violence, or harassment, or over-scrutinization by the count-ordered emergency measures above, it is going to be a very hard time for this portion of the US population. The footage from Chicago, for example, was just chilling.
We all need to remember that we are Americans, and as Americans, we are all the targets of this terrorism. The suicide bombers did not check to see if there were any Muslims in the WTC before they attacked it. We are all in this together, and the worst--and most likel--thing we can do to help them win is turn on ourselves.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
if the terrorists really wanted to drive their point home they should have picked 2 more appropriate buildings symbolizing greed and democratic subversion: The RIAA and MPAA corporate headquarters.
Think about it: what other institutions in the USA have affected not only our laws, but others as well (Can. Brit. etc).
Illegal search and seizure (a la J. Johansen) Innocent until proven guilty and a fair trial (a la 2600's case, and the Judge who had ties to the MPAA).
If you think about it in a serious or even mildly sarcastic manner these corporations can not only affect us, but the world around us and have done just that!
I'm sure if corporate lear jets had been flown into the MPAA/RIAA's HQ's, most of us would have said "hey, you missed a spot!".
Laugh, you know you want to.
For those that are missing the point: yes this is a tradegy, yes "we" the people will respond to these attacks on our way of life, and yes this is rather dark humor on my part to deflect the pain and anger I feel. We are all finding a way to cope, this is mine.
I may be "conspiracy theorizing" here, but does anyone else find the timing of the dmca/sssca/wtc attacks a little too close together for comfort?
Those "unseen hands" seem to be "one hand clapping" in unison now, and our rights are what is being slapped in the face.
Oh, BTW, who needs carnivore on aol? They could just download AIMThief and achieve faster results.
As an aside, Sun Tzu was correct:
"When an enemy is outside your walls goading you to fight, they are in a position of weakness, but if they have even one man inside your walls, you are in a position of weakness".
Something, to that effect.
Moose.
any resembalance of the above statements to actual fact is purely coincidental.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
It doesn't even take carnivore to do this.
Any signature based IDS like Snort can be used for this. and while Snort may not scale up to this level, it can surely handle the lower volumes of traffic at smaller ISPs. And this is where it is most definitely used.
Your web hosting company, your dial-up provider, or shell provider all probably use some sort of IDS, and since signature based ones are becoming the norm, it would be nothing for an ISP to create new rules to look for certain "keywords". Not that this is a bad thing. I think that the ISP has a right to know what data traverses his network.
So when you hear "carnivore this" and "carnivore that", just remember that the infrastructure for eavesdropping is already there, weather or not it goes by the name "carnivore".
Karma...what's that? I just speak my mind.
...if the FBI and the American people will accept the possible outcome that these terrorists acted alone. IMO they were intelligent enough; the FAA doesn't just give any stupid shmoe a commerical pilot's license.
These terrorists are not stupid. There are a couple options available, codes, one-time pads, Beale cipher systems (I forget what they are called, everyone has the same book, "pg 32, word 49.") These methods have their own weaknesses but unconstitutional intrusion in only one area seems rather pointless. FedEx, postal mail, PDA infrared exchange, 802.11, (non-cellular) telephone, ...
Since no one has claimed responsibility, the point of the attacks must be to bring on this type of reaction. Some of the things going on are just silly such as prohibiting nail clippers on planes, a sharpened pencil is a much more effective improvised weapon than nail clippers!
at least not in a meaningful sense. This idea is the logic behind a police state, and if you are advocating that, fine, as it is logically consistant. Otherwise, the reality is that we no amount of "tech" intrusion is going to significantly improved "security." It simply becomes a route that those with a plan will *not* use.
What it *does* supply is the facade of security. It allows those with little vision to sleep better at night. Personally, I think that false sence of security is far more dangerous.
/rr
One day you are telling people to flood the NSA computers with e-mails that will crash them. The next you are crying about people getting killed. The day after you are complaining about the FBI looking at e-mails. Sadly, it seems that most of you are too stupid to realize that this is not a game. This is the real world and those were real people who died. Turn off the computer, walk outside into the sunlight and maybe then you will realize you don't live in the Matrix.
so the real problem to me seems that people who use good open source encryption are gonna seem suspicious to authorities -- and that the real blow could come from not monitoring of unencrypted emails but that they'll want to pass laws banning our current encryption schemes and the like...
In fact, this has probably increased society's paranoia about "hackers/crackers", the internet, and electronic commerce. It certainly hasn't. If it had, people would be against encryption restrictions, instead of suddenly supporting them. One of the most serious negative effects of encryption restrictions is that it harms computer security. Primarily by making secure authentication impossible.
Just up on Ananova:m enu=news.usterrorattacks
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_400036.html?
That you people screaming "oooohhhh my privacy is being violated!!!" are the same kinds of fools that allowed intelligence agencies to be cut back to the point of being next to useless. You are the same people that seem to think this world is a nice warm and fuzzy place to live and everyone loves each other, and you think its just because of US foreign policy that something like Tuesday's events happen. And you people are the same people that think we should sit around and not do anything and just wait for the next terrorist action to happen.
What I want to say is that you people that feel this way are hopeless and I think you need to sit down and look at the world, take everything into perspective, not from your paranoid "run and hide from the big brother's eye in the sky" perspective but from the perspective of "do you want this to happen again?".
Freedom isn't free, and I think you people need to realize that.
Although no news services are going into great detail about what communication was going on, it sounds like very little electronic communication was actually happening and instead the terrorists were actually meeting face to face and communicating privately that way. Perhaps we should ban meeting in the park instead...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And would you feel the same way if your parents/spouse/child were suddenly picked up by the FBI and sent to a detention camp? And if this were done based on an anonymous tip from a neighbor with a grudge? And if this were done under a sealed warrant and you had no right to hire an attorney to defend against this? This happened during WWII. It happened to my grandmother (a US citizen of German ancestry for 20 years at the time. The details including the neighbor with a grudge were revealed 40 years after the fact through a FOIA request.)
You people who advocate suspending civil liberties are the most dangerous terrorists of them all. More people have been murdered by governments in the name of "national security" than have been killed in all terrorist acts put together.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
More than likely they are standing back watching the FBI DO WHATEVER IT WANTS. Whether that be randomly reading emails, or installing WHATEVER software/hardware they want. If you depend on AOL or Earthlink to protect your privacy you HAVE NONE. All I can say in encrypt Encrypt ENCRYPT.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Anyone with the slightest understanding of e-mail knows that an e-mail is in reality an e-postcard and anyone who comes in contact with one can view it if they so desire. But they don't... And why? Cause no one cares! Heaven forbid that someone intercepts that top secert "What's new" letter to your old college buddy or that picture of the president with a chubber you sent out to your "XXX" group... Give me a break. If you have anything confidential to transport use another method.
The Internet is a "PUBLIC" place and it's time people acted as such.
P.S. This was posted anonymously but I'm pretty sure if someone really wanted to know who posted it they could find out... And guess what... I DON'T CARE!
The willingness of the terrorists to die in the commission of their attacks isn't a strength, it's a weakness. The willingness to die restricts potential recruits to a relatively small segment of the population. As far as detection goes, the situation is far better than in the 70s when people who looked like Japanese tourists could suddenly pull automatic weapons out of their bags as happened at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport in May 1972 at the cost of 24 lives. Radical Marxism backed by covert support from Easter bloc intelligence agencies is no longer turning out as many terrorists with different nationalities as Germany did with Baader-Meinhof or Venezuela did with Carlos the Jackal. Furthermore in the 1970s members of attacking terrorist teams often were female such as Leila Khaled.
Trying to track the terrorists back to their native lands is the United States weakness and their strength. On the other hand, their operating on United States soil should be their weakness and our strength. The suspicious eyes and mouths willing to inform the authorities of any suspicious activity should accompany them wherever they go.
Suicide attackers have to be kept in a constant state of psychological preparedness. They have to travel together in at least pairs because they have to have reinforcement of the need for them to die. Often their support comes from the only people they can trust, relatives.
In short, suicide attackers who are foreign nationals from a distinct ethnic group are the perfect targets for proactive profiling. The question is whether the people, the intelligence agencies, the leadership, and the judicial system of the United States are going to be willing to make the necessary painful decisions. To easily separate suspects from nonsuspects, reducing the amount of work by two orders of magnitude, the people will have to accept a comprehensive national database with easy means of checking attributes such as fingerprints, voice, DNA, photographs. The United States does have a population of millions of loyal citizens of Middle Eastern descent. (No suspected hijackers or accomplices born in the United States have been identified so far.) Some means must be found to quickly distinguish them from foreign nationals so that they can efficiently exercise their rights as citizens.
Intelligence agencies must find the means to share information and break the bonds of bureaucratic inertia. Analyses such as Alexander B. Calahan's apply far beyond how to organize assassination teams, they apply equally to how to organize terrorism prevention teams. It is becoming clear that United States intelligence agencies had all the clues needed to prevent the attack. The WTC had been a previous target by the same groups, there had been an earlier plot to hijack a large number of airplanes, two hijackers were under watch by the FBI. What are needed are anti-terrorism units organized like special forces units who are allowed the initiative and the time to follow-up leads and build complete dossiers on suspects and the people they interact with.
Of course for this to happen the leadership and especially the courts have to get out of the way. The courts have to recognize that there has to be a distinction between the rights of citizens and the rights of foreign nationals, especially when there is a clearly demonstrated danger that a segment of foreign nationals is plotting to inflict massive terrorist attacks on the nation.
Carnivore, Echelon are simply manifestations of the truth that supply will increase to meet demand. We are no longer talking about hypotheticals. Foreign nationals are now plotting acts of mass terrorism on United States soil that have the potential to claim 50,000+ lives a strike. Something has to be done and something will be done.
I mean if you write an e-mail from one address acquired under a fake name and fake userID that you have at a provider which you only access from an account that you have with *another* provider, which you pay by credit card registered to your fake identity (you know like use "John Smith" instead "Osama bin Laden"). Then the e-mails consist of:
...."
... BUT the seeminly boring messages when accumulated over a period of 6 weeks reveal (in every 4th word if ROT13'ed and then utransliterated twice from English to Cyrillic/Russian and then again to Arabic) a series of numbers. The numbers of course contain all the "instructions". Add more layers as needed: communicate in hard to understand dialects, etc. Another cool thing to do is to create an entire fake network of "communicators" who may or may not be communicating in code. Plant lots of fake information, etc.
...
"Do you rmember the time me and your nieces went to the park - about 3 years ago. I think you have 4 nieces right? Well I remember I bought each one an ice cream
blah blah blah
How can any of this be stopped by snooping or banning cryptography? If one wants to prevent terrorism on aircraft it would be much more effective to ban air travel than to "crack down on the Internet". The country can probably function quite well without air travel (yes it can) - as long as the Internet is working well!
Carnivore and its ilk seems like yet another silly techno-fix to the lack of real intelligence information in the CIA, FBI and NSA. With no contacts on the ground and no reliable information these agencies instead decide to spy on the e-mail of their own citizens. And elected representatives seem to think it's OK since the Internet was how the terrorists communicated: in the eyes of legislators what evil will the Internet be responsible for next? I mean Charles Manson used the postal system for goodness sake
Please post your social security number here. I guarantee your complete safety: trust me.
Yeah, right.
According to La Repubblica, this "memo" dates from October 20, 2000. They don't say how they got it -- I couldn't find the complete text online, but another part is in "Jeff"'s guilty plea in "USA v. Ali Mohamed", dated the same day.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
The NSA failed the people in the WTC, yet they want more backdoors?
The whole "We need to know the identity of all humans and their communications, to secure" buildings, plains, and banks; is really old.
Instead of securing plains, (With a security guard), they want to know what all humans are saying, even though that already didn't work and thousands of innocent people are dead.
This will backfire. Take Napster: The courts stop Napster and then bear share pops up and now people are trading illegal porn.
Two armed guards, even with just a small weapon, would have been all that was needed to stop this from happening, and would be 100% effective against this, while eavesdropping on billions of conversations would not be 100% effective , and would stop law enforcement long enough for the data to become worthless after the damage is done, just like what happened with the WTC. They didn't even listen to the warnings that were sent by letter to a radio station.
Why should we do more when it didn't work at all? Why not actually use more physical security at air ports than cold war stuff against this primitive group.
Lets not forget what toppled the FBI and the CIA before. They got too parasitic against their citizens. Lets not rush to make laws that we will have to abolish again when we find corruption on the inside. Again!
but a government agent won't be reading it unless it was suspicious. there aren't enough people or enough hours in the day to read every single email sent.
exactly what I think, and I also think it's the best logic to follow.
wanting to die blindly for a country or ideology is a sign of fanatism. This only lead to escalating violence and problems... not good for anyone.
Security is not our problem. The airlines have decided it is OK to trust your security to $5.50 an hour security guards, and WE SHOULD MAKE THE SACRIFICE ? The airlines make 300% of each ticket, and they cannot be 'bother' to maintain a decent security system, or even hire decent employees to handle baggage. The number of rip-offs and scams that go down in an airport PROVE THAT. If the Fed would just HOLD the airlines to the existing standards and the FINE them enough MONEY to make it worth while instead of a handslap, things would be VERY different NOW. Bottom line if the airlines adhered to existing secuirity the terrorists would NOT HAVE GOTTEN KNIVES ON BOARD.
#1 long waits ??, beyond the screwing we get now as the airline oversells seats and tries to shuffle people around at the last minute, a HUGE security hole.
#2 Higher ticket proces ? beyond the 300% profit they make per person now, How about the airlines just live up to the agreements they have already made.
#3 Less Privacy, i already am required to provide valid ID prior to getting on a plane, and that ID must match the name/id of the person reserving the ticket.
#4 My Life. I TOO am willing to die to protect my Family, and MY FREEDOM, but I refuse to go to war for a corporations's profits. When the corp's begin to take some responsibilty for the messes they creat instead of expecting Uncle Sam to re-write the laws for them, or throw his weight around so they can manuever some 3rd world country into a recievership economy. In the meantime all I can offer is my deepest sympathy for those affected by the bombing, and the hope that we can find the responsible ones.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Simpson actually met bin Laden once - Osama recognised him, then said to his face he wanted to kill him. Luckily for John he had armed guards, and not everyone in the region does what Osama bin Laden wants. Keep an eye on Simpsons World on bbc news, its really good. While all the other news reports have experts from the west talking about what and why the attack happened, and what might happen next, Simpson actually goes and interviews people who know Osama and keep regular communications with him. Much more informative.
Yet again we will see the increasing aversion of the American gov't to any sort of RISK, substituting instead an obsession with frivolous bits of technology.
The intel agencies are nowadays obsessed with having the shinies satellites and the best stuff that they can all use to watch stuff from a nice safe office in Virginia. When we supported Afghanistan way back when, did we even have agents in the area who could speak Afghan? Hell no. We relied on whatever the "freedom fighters" told us when they rolled into base camps in Pakistan. Afghanistan is not a country with any infrastructure to speak of on the scale of even Iraq. There simply isn't that much to find out with spy satellites and taps. You need people on the ground, something the current intel agencies couldn't give a crap about. They'll find ways to use this so they can get more shiny toys that might vaguely be of some use much later in the process. Where we need intel is INSIDE the country on the ground, BEFORE things start getting e-mailed around as plans are already in motion.
WIll this happen? No, the sheeple will trot right along and say "we must sacrifice!" without paying attention to the fact that the Intel community has really got it's head in the wrong place.
I think the FBI is using this as an excuse to get full access in the name of "anti-terrorism" to stuff that would normally take months of warrent-obtaining. They're probably not even looking for messages from the terrorists (which don't exist or are encrypted) but instead stuff like "Bob, i still haven't payed my taxes, i think they're on to me..."
I hopfully the terrorists did use encryption. It would be somehow dumb to see them go down from such a stupid mistake, from what was otherwise the perfect crime.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Seems to me that AOL would be one of the first companies to install carnivore. It's just another way for them to screw over their customers. First with their bad software, next with overwhelming SPAM, and with high prices. It's just the next step in their evolution to deny privacy as well. AOL is just a test of how much customers will take, while they make tons of money off them.
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
By the way, I also didn't emerge from the mexican standoff with Russia just to be pushed around by some sandy little butthole who uses his country's civilians as a human shield.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The NSA & FBI have been doing this for years, the only difference this time is that they want to lock ppl up in a court of law - & that requires them to admit to it.
Aparently, one of the amendments on the US$40 billion emergency funding bill slipped in by Rep. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was to ease restrictions on installing and using Carnivore. Read about it in Federal Computer Week.
AOL and Earthlink: So easy to use and so far away, no number it's #1 for Afghan terrorists!
Seriously though, how does this help? Chances are, Bin Laden doesn't use e-mail, and if he does, the probability is that he doesn't use America Online or Earthlink. Maybe he uses some sort of Afghan ISP; oh wait, the Taliban banned the Internet! Oops.
It would sound like he uses a man on a camel with encrypted computer disks or paper messages. By my guesses, the FBI is pretty much wasting their time...
Do you like German cars?
I used to work in the Network Operations Center for Earthlink (formerly Mindspring), and they did actually install Carnivore out on their systems in California, however, it had this nasty habit of making their network unstable (Like the people out in CA actually HAD a network that was more than two tin cans with some string between it, but that's a different issue).
When I was last there, the policy from inside was that if the FBI would make the sytem compatable with their network, they'd happily install it, and comply with all FBI rulings, and all of that. So much for the 'Privacy Protection' they've been advertising. And don't even get me started about all of that privacy protection stuff they advertise.
____________________
Clouds in the Sky,
Water in a bottle
Those of you arguing that reduced civil liberties during a "time of declared war" may want to think about that. Does that argument justify the US Japanese internment during WWII?
Secondly, this "war" seems more in line with the "war on drugs"...political rhetoric which never really ends in a well defined way. Are you counting on some future politician to say "oh, well there's no one left who doesn't love American's now, so we can roll back the civil libery infringements"?
Thirdly, folks should read up on the Counter Terrorism Act which just flew unopposed through the Senate on Friday...it will make network monitoring and wiretapping without a warrent legal in the use of fighting terrorism or COMPUTER SECURITY. It was passed 97 to 0 in the Senate with no debate. I saw no "time of war only" clause in it.
--Braddock Gaskill
The federal government has search warrants for people that are connected to this attack and are executing them by searching e-mail. This is no
different than them searching cruise lines and hotels, but I doubt that the discussion boards where travel agents gather aren't filled with "Big
Brother is Watching" messages. I am completely against Carnivore and treating Internet communications as less privileged than phone or mail, but when there is a crime and when there is a valid warrant, search and seizure is not a violation of anyone's civil rights.
Lame typo.
s/"no number it's #1"/"no wonder it's #1"/g;
Now that I look at it, though, it makes a little sense...
Do you like German cars?
Notify the police on the radio, land safely at the nearest airport, and let the police deal with the terrorists. Note the lack of destroyed skyscapers in this scenario?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Why are politicians always so fast to "do something about it" by "making a number of laws"?
It is my opinion that hastily sloshing bills through congress to ban any type of encryption (or cripple it by installing a KNOWN backdoor) is a huge mistake that will ultimately only cost Americans (not to mention American businesses) the right to secure their own data.
Any knee-jerk law outlawing encryption would not have the intended effect of stopping terrorists from communicating, because chances are they already have high-encryption software that's been available for years, free of charge, on the net. Even if you could somehow magically take that software away, they would just switch to a nearly unbreakable "One-time-pad" system. You would be needlessly stifling innovation and almost guaranteeing the failure of most, if not all e-businesses.
A mandatory backdoor provision would compromise such vital business protocols/technologies as:
IPSec (Used for VPNs)
Kerberos v5
SSL
L2TP
Just imagine if a group of malicious black hat hackers decided to compromise the backdoor on SSL, and intercept traffic from, say, Amazon.com. Since they're the bad guys, they exploit it for profit.
Imagine the mental effect this would have on consumers? Who would buy online after that? Not me.
Or what if a foreign government broke into Lockheed Martin's "encrypted" business network and stole information about new technologies? What faith would any of us have in our nations infrastructure?
I urge you to write your congressman today and tell him or her how you feel about knee-jerk reaction laws.
If you don't know who your congressman is or where to write to them (many have email!) go to the left side of Project Vote Smart to find your elected officials based on your zip code. If you need to lookup your zip+4 there is a link available to do that, also.
Who did what now?
As a pilot I would radio to authorities, land the plane and have the police surround the plane. Maybe some of the passengers are dead, perhaps the passengers have revolted/fought back and have the terrorist under control.
So when the cockpit seals off, the terrorists can say they will shoot one person every minute until it's open.
If they were to open it, the terrorists would be sure to kill everyone by grounding the plane. so in either case the passengers die. Also shooting on an airplane is not a bright thing to do.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but one has to consider that this is a war that even the mighty U.S. empire can not win. Consider that even as large as the U.S. tax base is, it is not an endless pit of money. Already, the U.S. government has approved $40,000,000,000 in U.S. tax money to spent on the WTC relief. This number will grow significantly. What will it cost to repair the Pentagon? The U.S. is pledging $16,000,000,000 to the airlines to help them stay afloat. The airlines were already in trouble before any of this happened. For that matter the U.S. economy was heading for a recession or possibly even a depression before these attacks. This attack could not have been timed worse for the health of the U.S. economy.
Consider for a moment, that a few thousand people around the world with a few 100 million dollars, can cost the nation states 100s of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of their citizen's lives. Just the relief effort for the WTC could run in excess of a 100 billion dollars. Then there is the possibility of the collapse of the airlines, or any other number of businesses that were impacted. Then there is the shake-up of consumer confidence which was already in sad shape. Then there is the domino effect that these failing businesses and industries will have upon the global economy. If America takes a huge economic hit, so will the global markets. Just consider for a moment what the lack of air travel has done to business. Thankfully, my UPS driver delivered my run away dog to me the other day. It wasn't like he had a lot of parcels to deliver, and it was a gesture of goodwill that my family greatly appreciated.
People like my father, say this sort of thing could have been averted had only the CIA, FBI, NSA, and a slew of other government TLAs been given the authority and resources to spy on everyone. I am afraid that this is a naive view. This is akin to thinking that if we only had more police and private citizen's couldn't own weapons, that there would no longer be any crime. All of these new regulations in the airlines would have done nothing to stop this attack. What good does it do that I can no longer carry on luggage or do curb side check-in or that I can't meet my family at the gate? Already, the FBI is using this opportunity to install Carnivore, what will be next?
The sad truth that people don't want to admit to themselves is that there is very little that can be done. We can mobilize the U.S. military and spend billions more on killing millions more. What will that do? In the end it will only make things worse. Violence breeds violence. It is a vicious circle. We will bomb and kill, this will cause more people to attack the U.S., and in the end we can not win. We simply can not afford it. We will lose more and more of our civil liberties. We will find the government monitoring everything that everyone does, assuming they can deal with the bandwidth, and in the end all we will have lost is our privacy and our liberty. If we really want to end this, then we must strive to change people. The terrorists came to their beliefs through some perception of reality. The people that harbor the terrorists, do so for some reason that seems very valid to them. The only way to lasting peace will be change the way people perceive others. This an ever increasingly small world. We must all learn to live together in peace. If not we will all lose.
Slashdot is just a place for peoples Opinions. Its good to bring these things out into the open. Much better than mainstream media by far. So don't blame slashdot for peoples opinions. Not all slashdotters are anti-gov, anti-corp. I for one am an avid slashdot reader and served in the US military for 6 years. I am definitly not anti-governement but I am pro democracy and pro free speach.
...was from an FBI agent.
"We're looking at accounts that start with ALLAH and going from there."
Did I mention it was also the most chilling thing I've heard so far?
The witch hunt begins...
Who did what now?
I can't remember where, but you can read the keyword DB for Epsilon online. It is quite rediculous and will get most emails flagged multiple times...especially if you are talking about computers at all. I remember SSH was in there, as well as various other common technical acronyms.
I remember reading in worder because the system that runs this search must be masive to be able to handle the load that database would generate.
>Slashdot has turned into a new(s) service I can't trust anymore.
Heh. Fact is, I stopped reading slashdot over a year ago, until I grew curious today. These forums have become a huge soapbox for kids of all ages assuming that they somehow know more than the general populace or individuals involved in an event. Their naivate is amusing. I especially enjoyed the "debates" on Carnivore, full of paranoia and images of self-importance. I am sincerely happy that this isnt a reflection of the majority of individuals on this planet.
-- Anonymous (informed) guy from an undisclosed location in Virginia.
...the FBI served both of those companies a warrant based on other evidence the press has not been given yet. AOL and Earthlink promptly rolled over.
If the FBI is _only_ investigating two ISPs, that likely means that they have some sort of conclusive evidence pointing to accounts on those two ISPs.
The Bill of Rights assures Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, and Peaceful Assembly. At no point does it say that you have a right to privacy in any of those, only that there is protection against search and seizure when the courts are not involved.
I feel sorry for the pitiful isp's that are trying to take a stand against this.
When this is all over the fbi just needs to snoop traffic going in and out and bring numerous charges of software piracy, kiddie porn, music swapping etc against the isp's until they conform to what they want or get shut down for their inability to control their userbase...
Personally I couldn't really care if someone was spying on my eMails. If I wanted to say anything privately I would use encryption or use something other than eMail.
What I do disagree with is invasion of privacy. Fair enough the law forces can use a warrant where they have a reason to investigate a particular person but I don't agree with trawling through millions of mail accounts in the hope they may find something.
Seriously, if the terrorists are smart enough to commit this act with such coordination without the security agencies knowing about it then they must have used encryption or other methods of communication.
Often disguising a message is better than using encryption anyway. I could send a message saying "I can't wait for Doom 3" which could be a signal to do something else. This was used alot in WW2.
My guess would be that more than a few of these statements are out and out lies. If the FBI installed Carnivore they would not want it to be public information which ISP has Carnivore and which one allows you to communicate undetected.
This is exactly how I would instruct an ISP to act if I was an FBI g-man and had just installed Carnivore.
Who did what now?
I work for Earthlink and I can assure you its not gonna happen with them. They can't even deliver the email that DOES come in, let alone filter for it. They are currently buying up too many little ISPs and have lost sight of their own. Their databases are a big jumbled mess, currently they have at least 4 seperate databases of customers that aren't linked to one another. Most of the customers who are switching over from a bought-up ISP are lost in the shuffle.
.Earthlink is waay to disorganized to handle something like this.
Bottom line. .
Hi, this is Osama Bin Laden writing to you. :)
How's the World Trade Center bombing plan coming along? Don't forget to take out the whitehouse too, unless you can't, then just go for the pentagon.
i'll write back again as soon as i can get access to a computer in English with AOL over here.
ttyl
Osama bin Laden
osamabLaden3012@aol.com
Do we have any Admins from Earthlink or AOL who are /. users? Lets hear the story from the horses mouth.
.wav files.
/. users.
Currently at work, the FBI is scanning cell phones at an extended rate, we cant even take the machines down for maintenance.
Not to worry thou.
1. FBI still has to provide a search warrent and phone number to record in
2. They use only 100mbit connection, so they cant physically record every call.
3. People who run the systems are
-
We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge. - Unknown
I'm sure no one here or at the FBI cares which
This is not the time ti bitch about privacy. You aren't being investigated. I agree that following this there may be an attack on encryption, but right now something very big and (hopefully) very unrelated to anyone reading this is under investigation. They're scouring e-mails for terrorism. I am glad to have my e-mail plain text at this point. It allows them to do their search easier.
Besides, millions of people are under the same, temporary, investigation due to a an attack on a civilian target. I feel as secure in my plain text anonymity right now as I normally would under encryption. Fighting now will rouse suspicion that we are trying to maintain a comm-link for nasty organizations. That's not what we want. We're looking for legitimate privacy for legitimate personal and business reasons. And right now, unless you have reason to be a suspect, you have no reason to bitch about the investigation. I'd be upset if they weren't at least checking.
Leave no stone unturned. Here's my stone. A couple of potato bugs, but none of the maggots you're looking for. OK, you're welcome, have a nice day, and good luck catching those bastards.
(I forget my friggin' nick, that's OK, I'm nobody special)
While I agree with many here that decisions need to be made with reason, not passion. Some contributors seem to suggest that any attempt to limit personal freedoms in the interest of the common good is rooted in the unreasoned passion of mob rule. This is a straw man constructed to support one extreme of the issue.
One only has to watch the television news to see that Americans are hopelessly naïve about the new the new world in which they now live. I see airline passengers and news commentators suggesting that the public will be inconvenienced by the new airport security regulation for the next few weeks. No one in America seems to realize that his way of life before 11 September is irrevocably lost. People seem to suggest that the American people will be afforded the opportunity to reflect on the WTC tragedy and will eventually grow and learn from it. Who is to say that the American people will be afforded the luxury of peaceful reflection? Who is to say that this incident is not the harbinger of even more destructive and vile acts of terrorism? You are now locked in a struggle not for your way of life, but for your life itself.
The goal of these terrorist groups is not to diminish the individual freedoms possessed by American citizens. Their goal is to murder Americans until it becomes too costly to for America to maintain an influence in the Middle East. To maintain that sphere of influence will come at the price of American lives and perhaps American principles and freedoms.
This is the ultimate in no-win situations for ISPs. If they refused to cooperate, you can sure as hell bet that it'd draw not only the ire of the US Government, but of the People--including some of their customers--who are blinded by
rage and indignation at this time. Hardly a few hours went by before black-hearted politicans and "law-enforcement" agencies were vying to see who could blaspheme the dead the most by
co-opting a tragedy for their political gain. Not a day later, you had Republican Congressmen coming out and saying, "This is why we need a missile defense system." (Fuck you! Show me a missile defense system that would stop a suicidal hijacker.) But the People, as a whole, aren't outraged by these reprehensible actions because we're all seeing red, and little else.
Rights and respect are in the peripherial vision. Anything that sounds like an upbraid to the terrorists is now okay. So what is an ISP to do when the Feds come knocking and say, "Let us look at your traffic?" Saying no would make for the biggest PR massacre in the history of Capitalism. The only option is to abandon protection of user rights, which is not something most ISPs look forward to doing.
On the prostitution of the missile defense system by Republican Congressmen on the same day as this tragedy: this is shameful. It doesn't matter whether you believe missile defense will work/should be bought/whatever. That's not the point. Using the occasion of mass murder to politick should be absolutely unacceptable.
It's no different than if someone had come out and said, "This is why we should not be involved in the Middle East." I was hoping that for at least 24 hours, we could leave politics by the wayside. If anything was to be done that day concerning policy, it should have been precisely what was done: review what went wrong and
how to fix it.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, only that it is: America is stuck in a reactionary rut. We're relegated to reacting rather than forging our own path for the time being. For AOL and Earthlink and many others, the obvious problem arises: when can you make a stand on the principles of this country when they directly oppose the republic's bloodlust? I can't blame AOL or Earthlink for this move. They're stuck in a no-win situation. Someone, somewhere, will hopefully make the
very public stand on issues when the climate is more appropriate and drag our enraged People out of their rut and back into secular (meaning: worldly) thinking. But for now, the heat is too stifling.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Investigators discovered the passport of Satam al Suqami, one of the terrorists aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.
Are passports needed for internal US flights?
Could a passport really survive from the plane?
If it had would it not be buried under a lot of rubble?
Would the FBI forge a passport?
Would they forge emails?
Now that's scary!
No, they are not. If the FBI was installing Carnivore to nail Osama Bin Laden's terrorist cells, then yes, they are wasting their time.
The FBI is using "anti-terrorism" fears to justify installing Carnivore. Then the FBI will be able to snoop into anyone's Internet communications. Oh yes, there will be many benefits from this, like nailing mobsters and pederasts. Or convincing Senator X they need to bump up the FBI budget, or some embarrassing information may be revealed. Or muscling/terminating potential embarrassments to the agency, after learning it through newspaper/ACLU communications...
Best of all, no need to provide a pathetic justification to the Courts that they need to monitor newpaper/ACLU/Congress/Court transmissions. What a timesaver.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Yes. I was glad the US Government did surveillance and internment during WWII. That's why there were very few successful attacks in the United States by the German government. Maybe if the European contries had thought about such things in 1935, there would have been no WWII or Holocaust. Think about that, when the next hijacked airplane might aim for your office building.
Times like this, I'm glad I run my own local mail server.
As an asside, I'm appalled that news commentary dismissing concerns of our rights is modded offtopic. Clearly /. isn't up to the task of weighty subjects like this and should go back to discussing anime and playstations.
That's all.
He either comes off as a real interesting guy with encyclopedic knowledge,or a pathological liar with an ax to grind
I think nukes are on the way in this mess....check this out from www.drudgereport.com:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this morning refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in America's coming battle with terrorists.
Appearing on ABC's THIS WEEK, Rumsfeld was asked if a possible tactical nuclear strike would be used.
"Can we rule out the use of nuclear weapons?" questioned ABC's Sam Donaldson.
RUMSFELD: You know, that subject--we have an amazing accomplishment that's been achieved on the part of human beings. We've had this unbelievably powerful weapon, nuclear weapons, since what 55 years now plus, and it's not been fired in anger since 1945. That's an amazing accomplishment. I think it reflects a sensitivity on the part of successive presidents that they ought to find as many other ways to deal with problems as is possible.
DONALDSON: I'll have to think about your answer. I don't think the answer was no.
RUMSFELD: The answer was that that we ought to be very proud of the record of humanity that we have not used those weapons for 55 years. And we have to find as many ways possible to deal with this serious problem of terrorism.
And if, Sam, you think of the loss of human life on Tuesday and then put in your head the reality that a number of countries today have other so-called asymmetrical threat capabilities--ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, cyber warfare--these are the kinds of things that are used in this era the 21st century. And a germ warfare attack anywhere in the world would bring about losses of lives not in the thousands but in the millions.
For the sake of your families - be prepared.
/. before:
As I explained on
IT IS ALL A LIE
Carnivore and Echelon will not work against terrorists.
People were complacent - because of this LIE.
They knew billions was being spent on Carnivore & Echelon for just this sort of problem.
Terrorists know they are being looked for by Carnivore and will get around it by other measures.
When not planning face to face - they would use personal couriers.
Perhaps give mobile for single message when required - just using message - go with plan a / b or abort.
I have always said - terrorism is just the excuse they use, the US to raise funds for Carnivore - the UK to justify R.I.P. bill - to spy on the people.
The "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law" argument is made to pressure people to acquiesce - else appear guilty.
It does not address the real reason, why they want this information. They want a surveillance society.
This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
All your finances available for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.
Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on Carnivore will not protect you - IT IS A LIE - TERRORISTS WILL GET AROUND IT.
You are a simple-minded dimwit if you believe different. What a big supprise it will be to you, when they use chemical or biological weapons to kill thousands.
Carnivore will not help you one bit. Government are immoral to use this excuse - especially at this time.
***
In the news today: Bin Laden British cell planned gas attack on European Parliament
Quote: "ISLAMIC terrorists based in Britain and controlled by Osama bin Laden planned a devastating attack in February on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg.
Sarin gas is an easily made chemical weapon, 26 times more deadly than cyanide. Developed during the Second World War by the Nazis, it is odourless and almost impossible to detect. Its potential for use in a large crowd was proved when Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult, killed 12 people and affected 5,000 more using sarin gas on the Tokyo underground in March 1995."
Telegraph Newspaper [telegraph.co.uk]
***
The authorities hide simple solution to trademark and domain name problem to abridge your free speech rights. The US Government violate the First Amendment - WIPO.org.uk
I've ordered my copy of a distro that works
This is why the Arabs have NEVER attacked any Israeli religious targets. It is not the religion that bothers them. It is the lack of religion. It is the secular Israel that offends, not the Jewish one.
This BS is at best due to ignorance, at worst it is a calculated lie, designed to show moral equivalence between "one side" and the "other side".
We will be sorely tempted--because we strongly believe in our values---to attempt to impose them on those we aid. We will demand they embrace democracy?. We will demand they allow freedom of speech and yes, religion? Will we insist that they become as secular as we are? And if we do, will we just be creating more Osama Ben Ladens?
The answers are obvious to those who are not ignorant and learn from history. When was the last time suicide pilots attacked American targets? What was the outcome?
When Japan surrendered, a broad program and effort was put in place to change a nation of fanatics, who believed in a living god (the emperor), into one of the most advanced democratic nations in todays world.
We just need to have the resolve to do it again.
As an employee of Earthlink I have been very interested in the reports that we are using Carnivore.
I have inquired with various people in the company, and, as far as I know we have NOT and WILL not install Carnivore. We value our own privacy and our customers. I am proud to be able to say this. I hope other ISP's take a similar stance.
Anyone who would plan and coordinate such and attack, would surely use plain text email right? WRONG. These people are not stupid, IF they are using the internet as a communication platform, they are surely using a combination of steanography and cryptography and anonymous newsgroup postings, email, etc.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Nobody has the patience nor the time to go through all our mails, but if it helps finding people connected to the attack, then so be it.
Does this mean surveillance, I don't think so and they shouldn't unless autorized by a judge.
Listening to phone calls is essentially the same.
For me as long as they get a judge order, then they could track someone's mail and I won't object.
The only question left is which countrie's judge wshould order such a thing. If I am from X country, should a Y country judge allow reading my mail? I don't know an answer for this.
Note: Most Third World nationals leave their countries to America and the West to get away from injustice, corruption, state terror and live and speak freely. This includes most non Western countries. Those who launched the New York attack are the same assholes that many in those countries tried to get away from!
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
From a legal POV, this is a moot point. The Constitution does not grant me any rights. There are several inalienable rights that I was born with and these rights may not be voted away by anyone.
In the real world however, there are people with guns who operate huge prisons and I may find myself there if I don't "go along" with the mob.
I will not go along with the mob. The Founders intent in writing the Constitution was to prevent the government from rallying the masses behind some tragic event like this one. Some points:
My personal communication belongs to me. Period, end of story, shut it, zzzzp!... I OWN, WAS BORN WITH, NO ONE MAY TAKE IT AWAY, the right to secure said comminications IN ANY WAY I CAN.
Thank you, you may now go back to trying to out-patriot each other.
Rob
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
What I really want to know is why everytime someone says that something like this happens everyone seems to froth at the mouth about how this is a violation of this and that. What you people need to realize is that you are sending mail on THEIR servers and it is THEIR right to do what THEY want with them, they are only letting you people use them. If they use carnivore and you don't like it go somewhere else. If the monitor your traffic and you don't like it, use a different service. If they read your email and you don't want them to, don't send email or go elsewhere. You know there is such a their rights to do business how they see fit. It isn't really your place to tell companies how they should be doing their business and how they should be conducting themselves. They are in this for the money not just to provide a service. If they think this will make their image look good then they will do it, if not they probly won't.
You see one of the great things about our society is that competition exists for everything (except in the occurence of a monopoly which for the most part mucks up the whole economy and the rest of society with it). Since competition exists, why don't you use it instead of complaining about what company A is doing. Go use company B if company A isn't working the way you want it to, that is what our society should do. Unfortunately it is people who just complain instead of doing something about it. The way our society works one person actually can make a difference and not just get lost in the crowd as we tend to think we will.
Big businesses tend to think that we won't do anything about their actions that surpress us little by little. They think this because they know that the american public has gotten lazy and slothful. We would rather fit in or do the easiest thing with is simply to complain and not do something. This is why we haven't made bills to protect us against things like DMCA and SSSCA and so forth. What we should do is get groups together to generate laws that protect us, the technology people in a time when the fasionable thing to do is pass laws to restrict what we can do with our computers.
end rant
1 - Defeat keyword searches. The Feds can't possibly read everyone's email. Presumably they store the text and then do giant keyword/keyphrase searches using some clever code. So, send your text as a image file (PNG/TIFF/JPG etc). Simply write it on a text editor and then either do a screen grab or import it into something like Gimp. The guy at the other end can read it without needing any crypto software, but the Fed's keyword tracker will skip straight over it. Worried that they have OCR? Simple: Use cursive fonts and keep changing them; rotate the text to a funny angle; use patterned backgrounds.
2 - Load up their decrypt machines - Let's assume that they have some big hardware which tries to decrypt any binary files that they don't understand. So, give it something to chew on. Grab 50K from /dev/random and email it to a friend. Then he can send some of his entropy back again. We have lots of bright people here on /., presumably someone could come up with a little script to automate this? Perhaps it could randomly choose words from /usr/share/dict/words to put in the subject line.
It's going to take a long time for them to word a law which makes these activities illegal
I know many human rights groups that depend on hushmail for protection from hostile gov't eyes. What are the security issues there? Purely legal, or technical as well?
Pay attention to the language. "We're not installing." That could very well mean that the FBI is installing for us. But then I figure that if they really want to know the contents of my email then let them. I have nothing to hide. If they (the FBI) really get off on reading about what my wife wants me to pick up at the store, what jokes I pass along to my friends, etc then fine. I still have yet to hear a real reason, for why they shouldn't. What is it that people are afraid of? What makes you think that they don't already scan the phone signals for keywords? Besides, maybe if they scan enough email they might actually learn something. Like how to install a better OS like Linux.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
All the FBI is going to find is:
Hi! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice
See you later. Thanks
AC's cheerfully ignored
masses are asses
in case u never noticed
it was the mob that had Jesus killed
it was mob opinion that led to Newton being condemned to house arrest for claiming that
the we circled the sun, and that feathers and apples fall at same speed
...you need to be alert to defend yourself and others. We in Canada wish you and yours well.
I've got no child pornography to worry about, and If the FBI, or whatever agency wanted in, asked I'd be happy to give them access, but I DO object to MY ISP providing access without #1 legal documentation, #2 my permission.
Now I could not find anywhere wether a writ was issued in this instance or not so this may all be smoke if the FBI had a warrant more power to them.
I disagree with the above AC, NOW IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TIME to ensure the FBI adheres to the rules, anyone we catch we must make sure IT STICKS. I'd hate to read about a case being thrown out because of a due process violation.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
but I could not find anywhere where it stated as warrant was issued or even asked for, and with the political climate the way it is I would not be too suprrised if someone at AOL thought the were helping by 'voluntarily' providing all the info the FBI could ask for.