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FBI Wants to Tap The Net

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-own-your-soul dept.

Majik was among the stream sof people submitting this story about the FBI wanting to tap the net. Makes carnivore look like a baby monitor since this tracks all packets, and would be placed at key locations on the net.

6 of 503 comments (clear)

  1. Great... by don_carnage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The next thing you know, they'll want control of all major routers; It's just one more step to bring the Internet under US control. Welp folks, it's time we built our own network...

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  2. Performance, price to consumers? by weez75 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's pretty clear that everyone is going to scream about how horrible this is for privacy. Granted, it will be frightening in its approximation of of Orwell's Big Brother but don't overlook that this will slow internet traffic down considerably. Imagine peeking in on every packet sent! Further, to accomodate this I have a feeling the cost will be passed down to you and I--the taxpaying public. I see farms of servers collecting and storing data, offices filled with high-paid IT staff and IT forensic specialists. So, to recap: bad for privacy, slows down the net, and we'll pay for the privilege of being spied on. I'll have say this isn't in our best interest...

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  3. Get in the habit of using Crypto now... by Bonker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And make this unfeasable for real production use.

    Breaking 2048 bit DH compression on one packet or transmission is feasible, given time and a (very) powerful computer.

    If the FBI were to have to crack even 2-5% of the billions of packets that went through their system, however, it would make this system completely unworkable.

    Use PGP or GPG. Sign your messages. Let other people know that you prefer messages sent to you in encrypted formats. Surf and download from sites who use SSL. It's not that hard, and once you get in the habit of encrypting data, you'll feel safer and more secure.

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    1. Re:Get in the habit of using Crypto now... by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Insightful
      • If the FBI were to have to crack even 2-5% of the billions of packets

      If even 2-5% of active voters wrote to their elected representatives telling them to knock this on the head, it would get stopped and stopped hard. That might be a more achievable goal.

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  4. Centralized network means single point of failure by techmuse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One major problem exposed by this idea is that the Internet will suddenly have a single point of failure (and slowness) where all of the packets have to go through. Do you like your Internet slow and vulnerable?

  5. This is much more sinister that it seems by cosmosis · · Score: 4, Insightful
    As any student of history will tell you, giving the FBI this much more power fares badly for all of us. McCarthyism anyone? The first thing they are going to do is gather up information on anyone who ordered any books on any belief or activity they don't like - including drugs, computer security/hacking, anarchy, libretarianism, free-thinking, etc. So if you frequent any sites of this ilk or bought any nooks from Amazon like this you will be tagged by the FBI as a suspected terrorist.



    After a while, these people will be rounded up and questioned, intimidated and possible detained. And if the current set of laws that just passed gets any worse, then you might even get jailed without due process, and incarcerated for life based on these information retrieval practices. Sound ominous so far? It should. This stuff is right in line with Nazi Germany too. Lets just hope they don't start lining us all up and shooting us because we are "terrorists, hackers, druggies", etc. Never forget that it was Orrin Hatch who called for the Death Penalty for anyone caught using drugs.

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