Verisign Offers Wiretapping Services

LinuxDeckard writes "According to this article at FindLaw, VeriSign will soon be offering its 'NetDiscovery' wire tapping services for a monthly fee. NetDiscovery will allow Telecoms to comply with court ordered wire taps." Verisign's press release is informative. This appears to be tapping of voice calls rather than internet usage. I assume it would work something like this: telecom company gets a wiretap notification from the FBI or local police; it routes all calls to/from $TARGET through a Verisign switch; Verisign does the tapping and reporting to the tappers. If you think this doesn't affect you, keep in mind that under the PATRIOT Act the barrier for wiretapping is set very low indeed.

Comments

before you go berzerk...

[Jucius Maximus]

Remember that you have to get a court order even to get very limited wiretapping ability (like looking at where call are going to/from and not listening to them at all. There are time limits and all kinds of restrictions.) Remember what you read in the Tracking Mafiaboy article.

This is not another carnivore.

Re:before you go berzerk...

[Mr Guy]

Either you read the articles attached and didn't believe them, or you didn't read. I guess this is why people post "in case the server goes down". From:The PATRIOT Act link above.

Expanded Surveillance With Reduced Checks and Balances. USAPA expands all four traditional tools of surveillance -- wiretaps, search warrants, pen/trap orders and subpoenas. Their counterparts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allow spying in the U.S. by foreign intelligence agencies have similarly been expanded. This means:

Be careful what you put in that Google search. The government may now spy on web surfing of innocent Americans, including terms entered into search engines, by merely telling a judge anywhere in the U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. The person spied on does not have to be the target of the investigation. This application must be granted and the government is not obligated to report to the court or tell the person spied up what it has done.

Nationwide roving wiretaps. FBI and CIA can now go from phone to phone, computer to computer without demonstrating that each is even being used by a suspect or target of an order. The government may now serve a single wiretap, FISA wiretap or pen/trap order on any person or entity nationwide, regardless of whether that person or entity is named in the order. The government need not make any showing to a court that the particular information or communication to be acquired is relevant to a criminal investigation. In the pen/trap or FISA situations, they do not even have to report where they served the order or what information they received. The EFF believes that the opportunities for abuse of these broad new powers are immense. For pen/trap orders, ISPs or others who are not named in the do have authority under the law to request certification from the Attorney General's office that the order applies to them, but they do not have the authority to request such confirmation from a court.

ISPs hand over more user information. The law makes two changes to increase how much information the government may obtain about users from their ISPs or others who handle or store their online communications. First it allows ISPs to voluntarily hand over all "non-content" information to law enforcement with no need for any court order or subpoena. sec. 212. Second, it expands the records that the government may seek with a simple subpoena (no court review required) to include records of session times and durations, temporarily assigned network (I.P.) addresses; means and source of payments, including credit card or bank account numbers. secs. 210, 211.

New definitions of terrorism expand scope of surveillance. One new definition of terrorism and three expansions of previous terms also expand the scope of surveillance. They are 1) 802 definition of "domestic terrorism" (amending 18 USC 2331), which raises concerns about legitimate protest activity resulting in conviction on terrorism charges, especially if violence erupts; adds to 3 existing definition of terrorism (int'l terrorism per 18 USC 2331, terrorism transcending national borders per 18 USC 2332b, and federal terrorism per amended 18 USC 2332b(g)(5)(B)). These new definitions also expose more people to surveillance (and potential "harboring" and "material support" liability, 803, 805).

Re:This is truly bizarre

[signe]

Actually, Verisign recently acquired Illuminet, which is the largest independant carrier switching network. So they do have a pretty big investment in telecom that plays into this pretty well.

-Todd

Worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

very low indeed

In fact, even without the patriot act, state courts did not deny a single law enforcement request for a wiretap. Not a single one.
--G

Re:not so terrible?

[Super_Frosty]

How is this "informative"?

Didn't anyone notice that his "quotes" from the Constitution are completely bogus? Anyone with basic working knowledge of it knows that Congress isn't given any powers in Article 3 of the Constitution! That section describes powers given to the judiciary.

The phrase "Anysuch powers as are found Necessary to Provide for the Security of said Lands" doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution.

Also, there is nothing in the Eighth Amendment about giving up a right to privacy or soverignty. That amendment mentions only cruel and unusual punishment.

It was a good troll, though.

Verisign controls telephone routing

[Animats]

Verisign owns Illuminet, which runs the routing backbone for the US phone system, called Signalling System 7 (SS7). This gives them enormous power over the phone system.

For example, one commonly used feature is "Internet Offload". This replaces ISP modem pools. When you dial up an ISP's "dial-in number", what may actually happen is that the call gets diverted to a unit in your local central office which performs the modem/POP function and forwards the data as IP messages.

The SS7 system has the database that determines when this happens. Every call today goes out to the SS7 network and its databases to determine where it goes. Thus, control of the SS7 network allows calls to be diverted to wiretapping access points.

I'm surprised that the telcos put up with Verisign having a monopoly in this area.