FBI Carnivore Screwup Destroys E-Mail Evidence

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The FBI apparently used Carivore in an attempt to collect information on Osama bin Laden't network. Unfortunately they screwed up and collected information on "non-covered targets" (*ahem*, isn't this the sort of thing we weren't supposed to worry about...). Then the FBI tech was "so upset" that he destroyed ALL of the collected email, not only the information that was not covered by the warrant. Here is the SF Gate Story and EPIC's press release."

Comments

Fbi Document

[alphaseven]

Here's the original FBI memo: http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/fisa.html

check THIS out

[drDugan]

www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html

you've got to read it to believe it.

The author of "Carnivore"...

[newerbob]

... Patrick Naughton is a complete IDIOT. (Another reference to his work is here

I was forced to work for this pervert for a few months . Everyone knew he was bad news, even before he entered a guilty plea for possession of child pornography including photos of infants.

Why are we letting pedophiles write software to catch criminals?

This guy is NO GENIUS! After all, he thought there really were young girls in an IRC chat room called "Dads & Daughters Sex" and he got caught!

Patrick was supposed to be an Internet Expert, yet he didn't even PGP his kiddie porn!

The Walt Disney Company lost $1Billion dollars investing in Patrick Naughton's company (his college roommate and best friend still works for Disney!). Now the FBI lost hard-earned evidence investing in Naughton's technology.

-Disney paid the price for Naughton's stupidity.

The FBI paid the price for Naughton's stupidity.

And THE AMERICAN PUBLIC did, too! By standing still while "pretty boy" Patrick was able to plea bargain by writing crappy software for the FBI, he got out of jail sooner and he's free to endanger more young girls, maybe even your son or daughter!

Re:The author of "Carnivore"...

[newerbob]

Here are some more links to Naughton's plea-bargain with the FBI (writing software in exchange for freedom): here

here it says he's "helping law enforcement track down pedophiles

and here it says that the FBI's deal to have him write snoop software saved him from jail.

Re:hmmm

[karlm]

Do you think you'd feel silly if you found out it actually runs on Linux?

At least as of last year, Carnivore/DCS-1000 ran on NT 4.0 (not sure which service pack). Yeah, the poster prbably would be a little embarassed if s/he discovered Carnivore was deployed on Linux, but the poster need not worry. Most people arround here know that Carnivore runson NT 4. That's part of a lot of people's concerns. I'd feel much better if my government used more robust means to collect evidence. If someone cracks a Carnivore box, it comes with nice GUI tools to facilitate blackmail and information theft.

The FBI comes in with the box and hooks it up to the same LAN as the mail server to be monitored. I think it sniffs traffic instead of passing all of the traffic in one NIC and out another.