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Government Internet Surveillance Up
Harvey Manfrenjensenton writes "According to this story at Newhouse News Service, the assault on Americans' rights known as the Patriot Act, passed by Congress in October, has produced results that are as disturbing -- and rampant -- as could have been anticipated. Law enforcement used to need a court order to tap your phone, read your mail, etc. Now they just need a whim. ISP's and Telcos can barely keep up with the volume of requests by Feds wanting to read your email." EFF's analysis of the Patriot Act is good reading.
"USA PATRIOT" is an acronym, and a misnomer at that. Lowercasing it only hides this fact, the proper name is capitalized.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Hmm, we're only a little over 18 years behind Big Brother's forcasted schedule...Next we'll have video cameras on top of our computer monitors and TV screens...
What's that on top my monitor? A Web Cam! NOOOOOOOO! It has begun.
Wow. I thought the whole "patriot act" thing was a joke.
Don't forget to register as a patriot!
Monstromart: Where shopping is a baffling ordeal
America is the land of individualism and extremism. You can't just have a little, you want the whole enchilada, and who cares if anyone else goes hungry. So it's no suprise that the government, given a little power, immediately begins to abuse it. In America, we abuse everything -- food, drugs, the law, other people, etc. We lionize the "rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules," yet this is the guy grabbing us on the street and shaking us down for ID for no good reason. People think, hey I've got an important job to do, so it's OK if I stretch the rules. So of course the FBI and other law-enforcement types will do that. I remember reading an article about the cameras that they put all over England, and how the people who run them have a deep respect for the authority they are wielding and the limits they are supposed to respect. In the US, there's no way those guys would have any restraint. OK, so I'm ranting, but the point is, that the US culture does not lend itself to granting a great degree of unchecked power to any group, be it government, corporate, whatever.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Because everybody has inherent human dignity. And part of that dignity is a right to keep your affairs your own. Also, I feel obligated to point out that the Bill of Rights and Constitution were written a *tad* before there was an internet. Oh, and let's not forget, a small group of people called the Supreme Court say we have a right to privacy. For some reason I trust them over an anonymous coward. If you fear terrorists so much that you'd let the government read your email, than truly you are a coward. We still live in an era where human life should have some meaning or value. Get used to it. Fascist. "Those who would sacrifice their liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." That's from your founding father. Why don't you read the Constitution before you start thumping it.
AC comments get piped to
At first I thought it was wierd that there was no "OBVIOUS" tag in front of this headline. Then I realized this isn't FARK...
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
No, they still need a judge to issue a warrant in order to read your e-mail. The article is about things that do not need a warrant, which includes who is sending you mail and who you are sending mail.
The telephone companies and the post office have been giving out this information for decades without a warrant.
Well said, but I prefer:
Reading random quotes by activists and great thinkers can be very enlightening, I highly recommend The Quotations Page, providing quotes since 1994 - quite inspiring.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
They have been able to push each and every pet policy of theirs in the name of "homeland security" and patriotism.
Quoting Samuel Johnson, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
S
I just wish I could convince my friends to use PGP when sending me email. That would solve most of the problems.
Findlaw - Rights Retained by the People
(emphasis added)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Connect from host: departmentjustice02.erols.com/208.58.140.194 to TCP port: 21
I don't run an ftp server, never advertised one, never been into any sort of warez, just have a mail server. And I see that in my logs. What the fuck is going on?
I'm pretty sure that all of these ISPs got instructions from the Feds not to tell anyone about these requests. I know they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on, but I'd worry about being harassed by the justice department for talking about this stuff to the press, which someone has obviously been doing. This is especially true if the CIA gets involved; they can be pretty vindictive.
The proposal, made by Albert Gidari (An "expert" on technology law who represents people? There are names for experts who represent people. To call them an "expert" implies a certain nonbias.) that ISPs need to be held indemnified for violating your privacy if the government asks them too, is an insult.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Quoting Ambrose Bierce, "with respect to Mr. Johnson, I submit that it is the first."
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
That's an important point, there almost wasn't a Bill of Rights. When you make a list, even if you disclaim it with an entry that says that it isn't all inclusive, people will assume that the other rights just aren't as important. Part of the group that wrote the consitution didn't want a list, but the other part that eventually won, knew that if things were left to ambigous, it would be taken as license to do whatever the government wanted to do.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Where do you draw the line?
Why the hell is there a space? If it's an acroynm, shouldn't it be written "USAPATRIOT"?
Thanks for those resources...I'll consult them in the future...but not when I'm lynxing it. ;-D
So basically, screw privacy and due process, we have evil commie spies ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H excuse me, terrorists to ferret out!
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
What we need is a real technological solution, not a political solution
to prevent this intrusion of our privacy - and even more it should be
something doable in the USA and not rely on over-seas servers, because
that is only a short term solution that could bend to political and
military pressure. Even more importantly, it should be an infrastructure
where we can engage in commerce and transactions in a fair way without 3rd
party intervention or involvement. The solution should be indistinguishable
from other random and legitimate communication, verify-able for accountability, but untraceable to defend against coercive force.
Quoting Ambrose Bierce, "With all due respect to an enlightened lexicographer, I submit that it is the first."
A few things I found noteworthy...
The amount of subpoenas that carriers receive today is roughly doubling every month -- we're talking about hundreds of thousands of subpoenas for customer records
...HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS!!! There are hundreds of thousands of suspected terrorists or people with involvement in terrorist activities in the US each month??
"The war on terrorism is basically a war of intelligence," Scowcroft said. "Every time they move, every time they get money or spend money, there's a trace, somewhere. What we need to do is get as many of those traces as we can and put them together into a mosaic which will allow us to uncover the al-Qaida network."
It seems to me that the full power of the US intelligence community has had more than enough time to uncover terrorist organizations operating in the US. I understand that it is much, much more difficult to conduct investigations in other countries, but the domestic investigations are getting ridiculous. What is really disturbing, is the way that the "al-Qaida network" is turning into a real-life Immanuel Goldstein....and we must take any and all measures to find him, no matter what it takes.
This ties in wonderfully with the brilliant idea from the Feds to use Microsoft Passport. One really bad idea deserves a companion.
Quoting from the article:
"The problem that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face is not insufficient information -- "they are choking on information," Dempsey said. The deficiency is in targeting and analysis. The Patriot Act was based on "the assumption if you pour more data into the system, then the picture would become clearer, and I think that's a false presumption," Dempsey said."
Not only are ISPs and others having a hard time dealing with the flood of requests, but it seems Uncle Sam doesn't have the resources to crunch the data it's currently getting. This might be good in so far as it may someday make law enforcement more selective of the information they collect, or perhaps we'll all just be on file indefinately. Someday when they dig up Indiana's Arc from the storage they'll find thousands of hard drives full of emails and chat sessions.
Just my $.02
I know a student here from Iran (my girlfriend has a friend dating him) almost every time he emails me (we both use Yahoo email) my browser security gets switched "on" then "off" (i have it set to warn me when switching from-to secure mode)it switches with no page change (i have to acept the changs the way i have it set)
then i go to yahoo mail....never has happend with any email except from him.
Tyrrany
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
"Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt." -Patrick Henry, June 5, 1788
This is just an excuse for spying on the US public (gee I'm glad I live in oztraya where similar legislation won't b passed for another couple of weeks). Serious terrorists use encryption, and hide their tracks. They have fake names. I'm not suggesting they can't be caught, but not that easily. The main thing the USA PATRIOT act will do will deter wannabe luser terrorists (the script-kiddies of the terrorist world), and depressed high schools from blowing things up. For a little while at least.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
At Truman State University there were fliers put up for a "town meeting" to discuss the then-new Patriat Act. I don't think I'll ever forget them. They said in large words:
CANADA
Looking better than ever...
I know that it is against the grain here at Slashdot, but how many people here have actually read the provisions in the USA PATRIOT act? After hearing everyone on here complain and complain about it, I was sure that it was going to be a crock when I actually started analyzing it. Personally, I like almost all of the changes that the Act introduced, and I have been amazed at the clarity that the bill has.
For example:
The computer tresspass statute. This statute says that law enforcement doesn't have to get a warrant to eavesdrop on a computer tresspasser if they have the permission of the owner of the computer (very generalized). Think about what the problem was here. Somebody calls the FBI and says that a hacker had broken into their computer. The FBI could not watch what the hacker did on the computer, even with the permission of the owner of the computer, because it was assumed that it violated the privacy of the hacker. Come on. You have to admit that is pretty silly. Do you want the FBI to have to take several hours to draft and get a warrant signed in a situation such as that?
Next, much of the changes in how email is handled was changed so that the laws are the same with email as it is with telephone. It is pretty easy for the FBI to find out who you are emailing. But it takes quite a bit more work for them to actually read your email. This is congruant to the ability of the FBI to get a Pen tap/trace on a telephone to find out who you are calling, compared to requiring a warrant to actually listen in on your calls.
It is amazing to note people's perception of the DoJ. The FBI and the US Attorneys are not some huge govt. agency listening in on everyones phone calls and reading everyones email. They are an overworked, underpaid agency doing its best to combat crime within a wierd, confusing legal system. Of course they overstep their bounds sometimes, but the amount of good work that they do with the miniscule resources and respect they have is amazing.
I for one say good job!
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Anything named the "Patriot Act" has to be bad for you. I personally am frightened everytime I hear the term "Homeland Security" reminds me too much of being in Nazi Germany, or Oceania.
"Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. "Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moment's respite deserve only the end of a rope." -Patrick Henry
What have they asked you for lately ?
;) Yeah, I know /. is not a telco or ISP but I'll bet Someone has asked you for Something by now.
I'm not joking
Anyone else here feel safe enough to post 'anonymous' or otherwise on what they have been asked for ?
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Has anyone else noticed this quote showing up a lot? I havn't
And this is only the edge of the iceberg!
I stole this Sig
If you ever figure out how to do that let us all know. Its been mulled over for several years now.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
If you read the following quote from the article: "The subpoenas are beginning to impose a financial burden on companies"
When companies start complaining, the government usually listens.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
They have been doing this for years, with the postal system. There is something called a mail cover. Essentially, a law enforcement agency submits a request to the postal inspector to have mail monitored for a recipient. While they do not physically open the mail, they do keep track of who is sending and recieving mail, and general information that can be discovered about the contents of the mail from without. This is done without court order and with no particular oversight. Furthermore, you don't have the right to know if this is being done, nor does it need to be brought up at trial should it be used as an evidence gathering technique.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
--Samuel Johnson
At least give a good karma whoring link if you are going to qoute something like that.
Hammer of Truth
That's how real terrorists communicate, they record their secret memos on Celine Dion MP3's. You can only hear them if you play them backwards. Try it and see for yourself!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
This will just force the general populace to use strong crypto - a good step for freedom.
Public opinion always went along the lines of "If it is hard to eavesdrop, why use encryption."
Now it'll be "I bet the IRS is looking at my spending habits on a whim - Better encrypt huh?"
Remember kids! Guns don't kill people - Americans kill people.
But do they really want to read all the spam pr0n mail I get? I dont even bother reading it.
Right now we are lucky... lucky because there is a giant imbalance between information and the means to process it.
But that gap is going to shrink... as more programmers and database analysts get hired and design methods for extracting the information given to them.
Do you really think the government's insatiable hunger for information is going to diminish? The key to finding terrorists is not in looking at their criminal history, racial profiling or by their favorite books.The key is in finding those who dissent against certain policies of the US and take a best guess at whether they are committed enough to lash out against them that they are willing to take their own life or other's lives in order to acheive attention for their cause.
So think about that the next time you complain about gun laws or taxes or the war on drugs or whether your speeding ticket was unfair. Because when the supply of information is dwarfed by the ability to interpret it, it may be your front door that gets kicked down at three in the morning.
Hammer of Truth
If they're sending so many subpoenas that ISPs can't keep up, then doesn't that make it harder for the really important requests to go through? I mean, if this keeps up, then won't it give real terrorists a "buffer zone" of time in which they can send unencrypted emails and act on them before the feds can even get the emails from the ISPs?
c-hack.com |
This is good example of why Priority downloads and uploads never worked well in internet desighns. As soon as someone relized that if they set their downloads to high priority then they will get super speeds on all their transfers. Unfortunetely, everybody else soon did the same and it ended up actually SLOWING the system down or just flat out crashing it.
Something similiar will probably happen with this. The companies wont be able to keep up with the demand and will probably close down or get the tech indistry to bribe congress into repelling (or at least limit) the law since they are loosing money doing this.
198.137.241.10 (resolves to e002.eop.gov)
198.137.241.11 (resolves to sseop102.eop.gov)
EOP is Executive Office of You-Know-Who, and I can only conjecture as to what the "SS" stands for. I don't have any political content on my website so I don't know why they'd be stopping by. All they requested was the index.
I've also had several hits from senate.gov, and one from 38.203.152.66 (ns1.dcitp.gov). A cursory glance at http://www.dcitp.gov (funny Flash intro!) reveals that DCITP is essentially the Fed's cybercrime training center. I don't know whether to be flattered or worried...
My firewall box has denied 35 _inbound_ packets today from a "Calypso Online" in Herndon, VA:Not major in and of itself, but this IP block was previously assigned to a company called "Cyveillance.com." Cyveillance's repeated inbound probes were what earned that IP block a spot in my firewall to begin with, and while the IPs now belong to Calypso, the new owner is up to the same tricks.
Cyveillance still exists; they've moved to 63.100.163.127 and are still as blatant as ever about what they do: "100 Percent Relevant Intelligence Mined Directly From the Internet - Cyveillance." I can't figure out who Calypso Online is, calypso.com is registered and seems a likely suspect; it resolves but isn't running a web server. Perhaps Cyveillance and Calypso are one in the same.
What does all this mean? Quite possibly nothing, but quite possibly something. All I know is I hate the idea of being monitored and I've been painting firewall rules with a broad brush lately.
Holy cow, people.. If this one isn't a hotbutton issue, I surely don't know what is! /. channel, but now I'm starting to wonder...
I didn't *think* that I signed onto a low traffic
The (so-called) 'patriot' act is a burning bag of shit on the front porch of the framers of our Constitution!
When the Supremes get their mitts on this POS legislation, they'll tear it apart! It'll be Hideous!
I'm at a loss here.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Thank you for your attention.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Only U.S. Citizens need apply. Relocation to the Washington D.C. area is required.
They prefer you apply online!
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Who comes up with these contrived names anyways?
Do they pay someone to do this, or do US lawmakers have nothing to do better themselves than try to come up with these silly acronyms that are just PR buzz?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Y o u c o u l d l i n k e v e r y c h a r a c t e r a n d h a v e l e f t o v e r s . . .
Bandwidth is a terrible thing to waste :)
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
I think freenet is a start, but it is not completely anonymous or untraceable yet, but with a few modifications can be made that way. I also think digital cash technology is out there, but the main systems in use today are too propriatory - a GPL'd solution could cause dramatic change.
What we need is a real technological solution, not a political solution to prevent this intrusion of our privacy - and even more it should be something doable in the USA
Funny you should mention that, as the lead story in todays wired is this:
A leash for carnavore
It's an open source system a guy has developed that encrypts all customer records, such that
1) No one can access them without an encryption key.
2) The only way it will provide a decryption key is upon being presented with an electronic request digitally signed by a judge.
3) The key it provides will ONLY decrypt the information specified by the judge and nothing more. No more abusing genuine warrents for overbroad fishing expeditions.
It's a great concept. It allows law enforcement all the data they are entitled to, and preclude rights-violations. And for this reason, law enforcement will probably fight it tooth and nail, and make sure it never gets used.
But an ISP in the USA that sells "secure, private" net access as a premium service could use this system as one hell of a selling point, and perhaps get the ball rolling. No overseas severs needed.
Great idea.
Surely the feds could quite easily gain some sort of access to put packet
sniffers on an isp's network and read anyones email, without the need to ask
the ISP's or Telco's.
Sure they could, however nothing they gathered would have been admissible in
court. In addition, if they were caught, it would lead to severe punishment
under the former laws. Illegal wiretapping and conducting an illegal
investigation used to be very strictly enforced, even if the prepatrator was
the FBI. Now, they can gather whatever they wish, use it in a court of law if
anything ever turns up and not have to prove that you did anything wrong to
get their attention in the first place. Whatever happens to us, remember, we
deserve it because we didn't stop it.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
1. Install TLS-enabled SMTP daemons to "opportunistically" encrypt as much email as possible.
2. Use PGP/GPG when practical
3. Use SSH for all remote accesses and file transfers (aren't you already?)
4. Install and use IPSEC (e.g., FreeSWAN) if possible
5. If you use IMAP or POP, install SSL-encrypted versions of their clients and servers
6. Set up your own SMTP servers (with TLS enabled) instead of relying on your ISP's servers
7. Support https on all your web servers, even for open data.
And anything else that will help make the encrypted haystack just a little bigger.
What we need here, aside from the ben franklin quotes and correct acronyms for anti terrorism act - is a new RFC:
A protocol for quickly getting email/internet content to government agencies:
Should include an open stream of info going direct from the agency to the telco/ISP, which can be opened and closed when both parties agree to a subpoena and to a filter which will allow them both to get that info. It's not fair to get the poor sysadmins to have to do all the dirty work!
To help the agency and telco interact, they should appoint 2 mediators: one within the telco to approve the filter and the subpoena, and the other to ask for it at the agency, and to have open access to all the data at the ISP, but sworn to keep it to themselves until the legal bits are approved...
As for wether it's right or wrong, I think they can look at whatever they want. Provided we can look at them back. Open information!! Purveying Access To Real Information Over The world. (might need a counter-RFC...).
Ale
" On your feet on on your knees."
On your knees- beggin'. And I ain't much one for beggin'. I say 'Fuck it!' Let's fight this thing!
Aeieieieiei Chomp chomp chomp belch!
graspee
The line, the good captain informs us, must be drawn here. This far, and (apparently) no further.
If you want to join us, you've got to really hate the Borg.
I mean, besides trans-warp conduits, a sense of identity and belonging, increased efficiency, longer life-spans and cooler laser-pointers, what have the Borg ever done for us ?
graspee
The part that gets me is the library book thing. Not because I'm reading about explosives and poinson, but because I'm getting a shitload of computer books along with things like Masters of Deception, the Hacker Ethic, Takedown, and so forth. I do not break into computers and generally avoid things that are illegal, but wouldn't a library record like that draw some attention? How about the fact that I later went up to the central county library to have a look at a non-circulating utility map of the county?
Yes, these things may be suspicious, but I was sure I had the right to the privacy to do such things until recently. No, I wouldn't have checked out these books if I thought the government might be monitoring who checks out certain books, and its a shame that in the future I will feel hesitant to check out some of those books. I really don't know how to feel about it. Should I avoid checking out 'hacking' books, should I avoid computer books from the library entirely, or should I just go on as I always have? Will the government really go through and find everyone who has checked out Masters of Deception and run through the rest of their library record to look for patterns, or am I just being paranoid?
I am sorry to inform you, but it was not just Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft. Many Democrats and Republicans vote for this bill.
We live in an era of unprecedented governmental respect for civil liberties.
One can see this respect even in the USA PATRIOT Act that uses tortuous language to try and make the act consistent with the Constitution and various court rulings. The British, with a more flexible notion of a constitution and a different role for the judiciary, simply hand government new powers to fight terrorism without such concern for precedent.
A good deal of the USAPA consists of minor, even miniscule, changes to earlier acts, like:
This highly legalistic approach to extending government powers shows that the government is mindful of what it is taking away and wishes to precisely delineate its new powers. It provides conventional recourse to the courts if the powers are exceeded or abused.
..and sort out the warrants later. This widespread monitoring is only due to the lack of proliferation of hard encryption (or any encryption) on the internet.
..don't panic
It was definitely a patent pressure vote. They still did not have to sign it. Only one senator voted no. It certainly tells me it was not a party thing. Both are responsible for it. I just dislike finger pointers, especially when they are misleading.
The fact is both parties voted for it, so both parties agreed with it. If they did not agree with it, they should have voted no.
They have been able to push each and every pet policy of theirs in the name of "homeland security" and patriotism.
With the exception of their pet arctic oil-drilling project, which went down in the Senate yesterday. They were pushing that one hard in the name of "energy security" from evil foreign oil producers.
Their "free ride" may not be over, but it is certainly slowing down.
Then again, there aren't cute migrating caribou on the net to turn into a rallying point against wire tapping.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
But what the hell are the postal workers, etc. going to do to me if they read about something they don't want me to be doing while they are opening my mail? Most likely nothing. Now compare that with the government and what they do to people when they find them doing things they don't like. There's a BIG difference.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.