Dartmouth Student Invents A Carnivore Leash

timdorr writes: "Looks like a student at Dartmouth wants to turn Carnivore into a much more resonable tool according to this Wired article. I'd personally feel a lot less invaded if I knew the system was in place and in this form. Hopefully the government takes notice becuase Carnivore still seems like quite a loophole for our government to exploit."

Comments

Running on Linux?

[ChTh]

Shouldn't it be OpenBSD? ;)

Paranoia

[Pedrito]

Why is everyone so paranoid about Carnivore? I don't get it. They need a warrant to use it, and they can't use anything that's not in the warrant against you. Same rules as phone tapping. Why not have a big uproar about phone tapping? Granted, phone taps don't collect everything and sniff through it, but the end-result is the same.

Being a, more or less, law abiding citizen, I have no issues with it at all. I might be a little concerned if I were dealing drugs over the internet, or performing some similar crime, but really, come on. You think the FBI is really concerned with how your day has been? That you just got an 'A' on your exam? Or that you hate your boss?

Sorry, but I think everyone blows this stuff way out of proportion. When I see carnivore being abused, then I'll be concerned, but until then, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Paranoia

[No One]

They need a warrant to use it, and they can't use anything that's not in the warrant against you. Same rules as phone tapping. Why not have a big uproar about phone tapping? Granted, phone taps don't collect everything and sniff through it, but the end-result is the same.

Since the passage of the Patriot Act, they don't need a warrant anymore. They can do it whenever they want, to whoever they want, in complete secrecy. You'll never know if it is being abused, but that doesn't mean it won't be. Also, as you said, it does read every email that passes through the system. Carnivore is a black box that the FBI refuses to let anyone, even Congress, look through. What reason do you have to believe that it's discarding "interesting" emails from others?

That idiotic "if you're not doing anything illegal you don't have anything to worry about" argument has been refuted so many times in so many places that I'm not even going to bother.

And WHY would you give the FBI the benefit of the doubt? This is an organization that has been constantly abusing its authority since it was the BOI in the 1920s. And even while abusing the authority they're given, they expect us to give them more? Fuck that. When they show they deserve my trust, I'll give it to them. But it's up to them to prove they deserve it.