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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."
No offense to the ASPCA, but how about a quick and dirty neutering?
How soon before this student will be detained for 'Un-American' behavior?
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Don't just leash your Carnivore, spay or neuter it unless you want to be responsible for little baby Carnivores.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
This would certainly limit the FBI from snooping a post containing the words bomb, blow up, embassy, congress, and president. This guys idea would essentially ruin the Carnivore project. As much as I would like for my freedom to be protected, I do not like the idea of someone sniffing my underwear(computer) for shit stains(anything they deem illegal).
This is an excellent approach! I am really thrilled to see someone coming up with a solution that allows the government all legitimate use while providing the tools to prevent overstepping. And partially funded by the justice department too!
The big problem with this is that even if it's implemented, since under the Patriot Act judges need not sign off on subpoenas, the FBI et al would still be able to get all they keys they want and still access all the data.
For this device to be useful, unfortunately, the law must be changed to require judicial oversight... and the judges must be trustworthy!
Anyone who thinks Carnivore is a ferocious animal right now, please step into the hallway for your I.Q. test.
Everyone else knows that after 9/11 so many people made calls, emails, HAM traffic to the tune of 'terrorist' this, 'Cell' that, that Carnivore must have sustained a complete mental(server) breakdown. Put your thoughts to things of more importance (Israel/Palistineans, Coke vs Pepsi). The chance that something the FBI/CIA built outside of a national coding symposium would be so utterly, absolutely crashed from the traffic of keywords that it doesn't bear looking at. I'm not trying to point you in the direction of unilateral oversight and say it's OK, I'm just saying that 'right now' there are more important things to look at than a system more crashed and confused, that it probably thinks its an Atari 2600 with a buggy version of Combat loaded up
Great, just what we need- something comes along to make the public think it's perfectly okay for the government to monitor email. I don't care how secure it is, I would still rather have no government monitoring at all than even a system that would guaranteed not to be prone to abuse.
I'd personally feel a lot less invaded if I knew the system was in place and in this form.
I'll personally continue to encrypt my emails - as many as possible of course.
Routine use of encryption (like for the one-liners) defeats to some extent traffic analysys.
The recent improvements in factoring (look here and here) don't affect 1536- or 2048-bit keys (or larger). For the time being, public-key encryption is the best means of protecting your e-mail privacy. Don't rely on some guys' kindness - with a little effort you can be sure your nosy admin/ parent/ spouse/ street cop won't "accidentally" read your stuff.
http://www.gnupg.org
if you use a good enough junk-filter, slashdot.org will display a single, *blank*, page
... convert Carnivore into Herbivore (e.g. something that's not going on a legal 'fishing expidition')
Otherwise, only criminals are entitled to [or get any] privacy...
True, they would be able to get all the keys they want - but they would still be limited in the data each key can retrieve. It's highly unlikely that the system would allow the FBI to request key allowing them to access ALL emails, or enough restricted-data keys, without there being some oversight by a third body (the judge)
This is an important developement because it looks like striking the right balance between the individuals' right to privacy and the requirements of the government in their quest to protect us. Whether the system will be used to protect us or not is not something programming can change, sadly, that's a matter for the judges et al signing off on the subpoenas/search warrants/what not
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
The Wired article didn't go into too much detail, but I can see a couple of potential problems here..
- how exactly does the FBI (or whatever) specify *what* they're looking for? Searching for "all traffic containing the keywords TERROR, BOMB, COCAINE and OSAMA" sounds like Carnivore as is, and would be pretty easy to defeat anyway. Anyone remember "The Longest Day", in which the Allies sent messages re: the date of the D-Day invasion over clear channel radio, using a code based on a Rimbaud (I think) poem?
- the data vault might hold the FBI/NSA/whoever to their warrant, it does nothing about intentionally vague/overreaching warrants or the laws that enable them.
- re: using this system to keep medical/financial/etc. info private: Hardly a catch all solution, the data vault can't stop companies from spreading/selling your info after you've given it to them in confidence.
- If these do become commonplace, how long before a bungled police investigation results in evidence being lost because of one of these things self destructing? And once that happens, how long until they become outlawed?
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
For this device to be useful, unfortunately, the law must be changed to require judicial oversight... and the judges must be trustworthy!
:) ]
[ I said this before, but I like to repeat myself
Current public-key encryption (gnupg, pgp) is strong enough to keep you safe from "casual" prying eyes - like your spouse, children, parents, syadmin, boss, street cops, even the fbi. Maybe they *can* crack it (i mean the feds), but they won't go to that without strong reasons and probably more thinking.
What really pisses me off if this "casual" attitude to authorities snooping my personal communication; I'm sure that if the cia, nsa, kgb, mafia, big corporations or who knows else - want to read my email, they will. But I'm also sure that by using gpg, none of the small big-brothers will get their kicks.
if you use a good enough junk-filter, slashdot.org will display a single, *blank*, page
I guess, for me anyway, the irony here is that a single student did this. Not the FBI or any other agency/department of the government, but a private citizen had to come up with a way to harness and focus the power of Carnivore. I know the FBI probably could have done so themselves, or any other company/corporation, but they didn't. Never underestimate the power of the individual.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
The problem is the people have huge misconceptions about Carnivore. Being concerned about personal privacy, I chose to research Carnivore for an Ethics class at school. I found that Carnivore is pretty much just misunderstood; it is really incapable of doing any large-scale surveillance. There's an independant review that was conducted by IITRI last year that points out that Carnivore is the safest of any online monitoring tool and that it is incapable of wantonly collecting data. Incidentally, the report suggests that Carnivore be open-sourced. Fat chance.
The real issue is whether or not it's right to perform surviellance. I think that it can be necessary at times (with the required warrants) but I also think that it needs to be taken more seriously and greater restrictions need to be in place to ensure that it is only used in extreme situations. If you think that Carnivore could invade your privacy, read up on how many wiretaps are used every year. Carnivore is used much less and is safer to boot. The real problem here is whether the government should be allowed to monitor communications at all, not that Carnivore gives the government some awesome new powers of data capture.
njord
By the way, I really have no association with the government. I'm just a left-winger college student that did a little research and was surprised by what I found.
Even if the FBI physically seized the vault, legally or otherwise, it's supposed to be just about impossible for the cops to crack. Iliev's program runs on an IBM 4758 cryptographic coprocessor, designed to destroy itself if it detects an intrusion attempt. (emphasis added)
I'm curious about this passage from the article. Would the ISP have a backup copy or does it completely eradicate the information? Would it destroy all the Carnivore data at an ISP or just the files that a "hacker" was trying to access?
And finally, if the FBI got a warrant(?) to request the e-mails from a certain person, couldn't that person engineer a "hack" attempt on his own files, thus triggering their destruction before the FBI could access them?
Simply take them to their logical end.
The fact that Carnivore exists, in any form, indicates that the government wants access to all your communications, to know exactly what it is you're saying and hearing.
This modified Carnivore is an attempt to claw a way back up the slippery slope when you've already hit bottom.
You're only real options are either not to say or do or listen to anything the government might find objectionable, or encrypt all your communications.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The article mentions the use of an cryptographic coprocessor that will self destruct if it notices any breach of security, rendering the stored data useless. It also states that this "vault" could be used to store medical information etc..
I for one would like to know for sure that my medical information could be retrieved even after the destruction of the coprocessor.. would be nice when i'm caught in accident and i'm not able to sum up my medical history myself...
Off course it's possible to use a less secure version of this "vault" for this kind of applications
This is one nice solution though to harden the carnivore system against unwanted, illegal, snooping around for nice bits of information that could be used by a cop or fbi agent on the take...
Someone says "You didn't get my email? Carnivore ate my homework prefessor. That is the only explanation."
Taken from the PDF of his proposal "Prototyping an Armored Data Vault Rights Management on Big Brother's Computer" Alex Iliev and Sean Smith Department of Computer Science/Institute for Security Technology Studies Dartmouth College PDF can be found at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~pkilab/papers/bb.pdf "This paper reports our experimental work in using commercial secure coprocessors to control access to private data. In our initial project, we look at archived network traffc. We seek to protect the privacy rights of a large population of data producers by restricting computation on a central authority's machine. The coprocessor approach provides more exibility and assurance in specifying and enforcing access policy than purely cryptographic schemes. This work extends to other application domains, such as distributing and sharing academic research data.This paper reports our experimental work in using commercial secure coprocessors to control access to private data. In our initial project, we look at archived network traffc. We seek to protect the privacy rights of a large population of data producers by restricting computation on a central authority's machine. The coprocessor approach provides more exibility and assurance in specifying and enforcing access policy than purely cryptographic schemes. This work extends to other application domains, such as distributing and sharing academic research data."
> I take that back.
> The guy's paper clears says it was funded by DoJ.
>
> Wired == suckAssJournalism
Learn to read carefully; the article clearly states
"The U.S. Department of Justice and IBM partially funded this research."
Wired isn't my journalistic choice, but this criticism at least is unfounded.
So what is this story all about? Media whoring and fundraising?
Problem: we have invetented this cool technology, which noone is going to understand because it's a little complex and "people" (replace with "reporters" or "managers" as you see fit) are stupid. So how are we going to get some attention (and as a result, more funding)?
Solution: we apply our gadget to some area where it doesn't really fit in (just sort of will do), but which will result in loads of attention because we'll get connected with the latest buzzwords and issues.
Problem solved.
Idempotent operation: Like MS software, wether you run it once or often, that doesn't make it any better.
This wasn't developed to defeat Carnivore, it was developed as a research project, funded by IBM to make use of their 4758 cryptographic coprocessor.
I know... Let's turn the net into the wild west, where the person with the fastest ping flooder wins. "Ugh! Ya got me sheriff!" While I would like to be so naive as to think that the net could survive without regulation, the sad facts are that the very thing that makes it so useful to us is the same thing that makes it useful to foriegn (and domestic) entities looking to do us harm. Yes, I know they can find other ways to do it, but not quite as quick and efficiently as on the net. Our entire society is rapidly going digital and that real estate is going to need some kind of defense and monitoring, just like the boarders of our nation.
The big debatable question is how you do it. I think it was an interview with Neal Stephonson posted to Slash that correctly noted that it's not nessisarily the monitoring of our lives, but whether that monitoring has a watchdog in place to keep the power from being abused. Personally, I think Alex has the right idea. You need a search warrent to enter an search a house and likewise you'd need something similar to access somebodies digital "life", both requiring just cause. I'm not saying that they're not prone to abuse, but it'd sure go a long ways in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the problem I see with Alex's system is not it's security, but in what Carny was originally designed to do. It is an evidence collector, designed to proactively track names and keywords, not wait for the e-police to have just cause to raid a database. Putting a search warrent lock on Carny defeats the entire purpose of having a system that illuminates potential problems before they happen. I think there acually needs to be a group that monitors everything the CIA/FBI/FIAA pulls from Carny and asks if it's A) relevant to the defense of our nation and B) Even ethical. That's the counter balance systems like Carnivore need, not simply a padlock.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Carnivore is just the domestic version of the Echelon system for use on americans by americans.
Echelon is used for those situations where your government wants to read information on foreign companies, organisations & individuals.
I wonder how many tourists, immigrants and US citizens that work for foreign owned companies or belong to international organisations there are.
It could easily be over 12 million people in the USA at any time are being watched by Big Brother.
Carnivore is just the tip of the iceberg on this issue.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
I think people need a history lesson on all the arguments surrounding the Clipper chip. Remember, the problem isn't always government (although that's definitely part of it), but the inability of government to effectively protect the information from third parties that will abuse it. Key escrow is something that can and will be compromised. And because it is a technology that can and will infiltrated everything, it will allow complete access to your privacy by anyone who wants it. Again, it's the Clipper chip all over again!
Need I revisit the the classic boofernery of the Social Security Number? Outlawed by the government for use outside of its specific creation, it is now used by everyone. And it is extremely easy to obtain, let alone steal! Now the government wants to introduce a national ID, something that is "more controlled" than the SSN. But it too will be easy to obtain and steal in no time as well. Only now, with a national ID, more people will put more of that so-called "faith" it in, so good Americans will have a tougher time proving someone has stolen their identity when it does happen (and it will). And if Microsoft gets Passport behind an "eID," God help us!
Combine this with the CBDTPA/SSSCA, and there's plenty to worry about. The CBDTPA/SSSCA is exactly a pro-Clipper chip mentality! Only it isn't the FBI asking for it, but "Big Media." Heck, I'm surprised no one in "Big Media" is selling the CBDTPA/SSSCA to the government as an "unified solution" for "guaranting copyrights, privacy and law-enforcement" all in one shabang!
Now this researcher has got "all the answers." His solution? Implement an encrypted recording and storage system with key escrow for access. How original! How many times are we going to go in the same damn circle on this???
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
"The source code for the vault, which runs under the Linux operating system, is available on Dartmouth's website."
So this system will itself be illegal when Senator Hollings and his ilk finally get non-security-compliant systems banned.
Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
Carnivor cannot catch real terrorists. There is no way that is possible - the various encryption techniques can encrypt unbreakably and disguise the fact that any encryption is going on. Programs to do this are free (both meanings). Any real terrorist or anyone with any real degree of malice or danger would encrpt their communciations in such a way that breaking them takes more time than the FBI can afford to spend... say, 10,000,000 years.
While I'd agree most would be intelligent enough to do so, one should also never underestimate the stupidity of criminals, or people in general. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if many did send things in the open.
The FBI needs a court order or the permission of one of the two parties involved to get a wiretap. It's not trivial.
Carnivore, on the other hand, listens without permission from the judicial system, without any oversight. There is no balance to this power.
Sure, Carnivore is equivalent to a phone tap for email---a phone tap that the feds can apply to anyone, for any reason, on the merest whim.
I think the tin-foil hats are justified here.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The Internet has become a personal communications medium, with people blissfully chatting away on email, instant messagers, message boards, et cetera. The question is simple: If it was your phone, would you let a machine be installed to listen to all of your conversations without judicial oversight?
No? Well, how about we read all of your mail as a matter of routine.
No again? Why not have someone follow me around and tape all of my meatspace conversations?
Still no? So why are you giving in so easily when it's just the Internet?
Anybody who thinks that this capability won't be abused just has their head in the sand. It's only a matter of time.
LV
Woot w00t w007.
A phone tap requires a court order. Carnivore does not. That's the important difference.
No personal vendetta is required; law enforcement officials may have the purest of intentions while stepping on my rights, but that doesn't justify them.
If we trust law enforcement to make these decisions, we give up on the whole idea of judicial oversight---the cops become accountable to no one.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I fail to understand why this system is all that much better? This box records everything! Yes, each "conversation" is stored encrypted, and supposedly the FBI needs a court order to get the keys. Carnivore on the other hand looks at everything, but only records those things relevant to the court order, as determined by the settings entered into Carnivore. Yes, there is a chance it could be set up wrong, and that was the subject of the many recommendations IITRI made to improve the product. However the stuff that is not recorded by Carnivore can never be recovered, by definition of not being recorded in the first place. There is no opportunity to go back to court to ask for more keys. It has either been recorded or not.
While I am not a big fan of Carnivore, I fail to see how this system protects us any better.
Key escrow is something that can and will be compromised. And because it is a technology that can and will infiltrated everything, it will allow complete access to your privacy by anyone who wants it.
Who said anything about key escrow?
I'd imagine this sort of system would use public key technology. The Carnivore boxes would not be able to decrypt the stuff it encrypts. There's nothing to compromise.
The private key needed to decode it would be kept in a secure location. As long as RSA doesn't have some fatal flaw, i'm confident the key won't be compromised.
The problem with the Clipper Chip was that it would allow the government a way to read messages that we had encrypted. Carnivote doesn't do that. It's purpose is to allow the government to read message that we were too stupid or lazy to encrypt.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Why aren't be putting our collective weight behind FreeS/WAN?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Let's look at it this way. If I have to go to a judge to request a tap, spelling out why I need it, then it's a serious thing. If I don't have to, then it's a casual thing - so the possibilities of misuse become that much greater.
...
...
Let's say someone is misusing it. If they have to knowingly decieve a judge in order to get their tap, then if they are caught it's obvious to all. If they don't have to get prior approval, it can be blown off with "oh that's the wrong address, sorry" without any easy way of proving that it is not the case. And as it's a casual thing, generate a load of taps - the "oh that shouldn't have been there" excuse becomes all the more plausable
Everyone accepts that misuse is always likely to occur (human nature). That's why you should have a set of checks and balances to disuade people from casual misuse.
But it's all smoke. The constitution (4th amnd.) says that your right of "privacy" should only be disturbed if authorised by a judge. If the government/authorities want to change that, then they need a new amendment (nothing less will do). Anything less is "not the american way". What's the point in having a constitution (contyract between people and government) if it's not followed by the government?
I've always understood that you are innocent until proven "a criminal". It's not that criminal's can't find out if they are under surveilance, it's *anyone*, criminal or otherwise can't find out. Who decides if it's a just cause -oit used to be a judge
"designed to destroy itself if it detects an intrusion attempt. " - sounds like something out of Mission Impossible - but seriously won't the FBI just cite something like "national security" or some other phrase to get what they want when they haven't got a valid case?
Video Game cheats, hints a
The difference between this and the Clipper chip was that the clipper chip was going to be backed by a law that required ALL encryption in the US (personal, corperate, government, whatever...) be done under key escrow. It made it illegal to use any encryption that did not support key escrow and you had to get your keys from a federal agency (so they could insure that they had a key in escrow). The Clipper proposal took encryption out of the hands of the common man (no PGP or anything else, only government sanctioned encryption)
The Dartmouth proposal is key escrow, but not as wide ranged as the Clipper proposal. This proposal does not state that you can't use PGP( or ROT-13 or some other encryption technology) for personal reasons, or that you can't create a private encrypted (VPN) digital voice channel between you and your friend (or partner in crime).
The proposal is that if ISPs are forced to provide a standard mechanism for government agencies to snoop transmissions (ala CALEA for telco) then make the mechanism encrypt the data in a way that forces a process to be followed (even if a portion of that process is illegal, such as stealing escrowed keys)
Currently the data is available with no auditing at all. Anyone who has the capability (agencies) can force there way into an ISP and take the info, even threaten the ISP to remain silent that the event even occured. With technology of this nature, the event could be logged and audited later (even reporting which key was used so it could be invalidated)
This proposal needs lots of peer review; however it's not the Clipper Chip revisited.
=Shreak
First of all, the FBI gets a warrant for the DATA. If the ISP is unable to get the DATA themselves, the FBI can then insist that they install the Carnivore box. On the other hand, courts have ruled that if the ISP can indeed get the data, then Carnivore isn't needed.
Second of all, the reason the FBI created Carnivore was because existing tools could not get the data. This encryption device is based upon existing tools, and therefore does not help get the data at all. For example, if the warrant requires the ISP to deliver copies of the suspect's e-mail, this device cannot do it.
Third, people persist in believing that Carnivore is a keyword search engine like the rumored Echelon. This is false: no judge would grant a court order allowing the FBI the ability to search for keywords. (This encryption device is based upon a keyword search engine). A typical court order would be one that allows the FBI to get all e-mail to/from a named e-mail account. Another example would be a lesser court order allowing the FBI to record the e-mail addresses to/from the specified account, but not the contents.
I have written a Carnivore engine that has previously been written up in /. It, and a Carnivore FAQ, is at: http://www.robertgraham.com/altivore/.
Wow! You're really brilliant! I'm in awe! I find myself wanting to kiss your feet, or something.
Now, for the benefit of the unwashed masses, could you take the time to expound? I'm sure they'd *really* appreciate it.
668: Neighbour of the Beast