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Network Associates Buys "Better Carnivore"

Posted by michael on from the need-bigger-hard-drives dept.

ShaunC writes "CNet is reporting that Network Associates has just purchased a software company called Traxess, whose main product - DragNet - supposedly makes Carnivore look like a toy. DragNet is capable of monitoring everything from email to web, FTP sessions to IMs, even print jobs and VOIP conversations; sorting the protocols and logging it all to disk at gigabit speeds. One NAI exec envisions "the government using it to investigate employees and hackers." NAI has also issued a press release about DragNet."

3 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, this is a no-brainer, but... by StupidKatz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Encrypt your traffic!

    They might see that it is SMTP traffic, but they can't see what you wrote. They might see it's web traffic, but they can't see exactly what it is. They might see an ssh session, but they can't sniff your root password. (Thanks to sftp, they can't grab your password there, either!)

    Since some protocol headers can't very well be encrypted, there's no good reason to try running services on alternate ports; maybe now I can finally get my friends to install PGP (or similar) on their machines.

    1. Re:Okay, this is a no-brainer, but... by pesc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry, but encryption really does not solve the problem. It helps (a teeny weeny bit), but if you think you are safe just because you use encryption, think again.

      They might see that it is SMTP traffic, but they can't see what you wrote

      Yes, they can see that you are mailing newjobs@careerpath.com, sales@cybersex.com and tipping off anonymoustips@big.newspaper.com, but they can't see what you actually wrote.

      They might see it's web traffic, but they can't see exactly what it is
      They can see that you frequent www.goatse.cx, but they can't see what you saw. They may have to go there themselves...

      They might see an ssh session, but they can't sniff your root password
      They can see that you ssh to our.competitor.com and eevil.haxors.md, but can't see what you are doing. Time to target some other surveillance techniques on you!

      Yeah, you are leaving them completely in the dark by using super-duper cant-ever-crack-this 128-bit encryption...

      --

      )9TSS
  2. Don't fear the technology, fear those who use it by dh003i · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The technology itself is fine, and potentially beneficial, if properly and very narrowly used. It could accomplish a lot of good. But any good it could accomplish would be obliterated by the vast rights violations that would take place if it was mis-used.

    In other words, this technology should be controlled by courts, which would grant access to government agencies to use it (i.e., by giving a temporary pass for limited purposes) for very specific and targetted purposes, when warranted by probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

    But if we fear this kind of technology and want to outlaw it off-hand, declaring the technology evil, then we're no better than the RIAA/MPAA, who want to ban technologies (DVD-R(W), DVD-RAM, CD-RW, CD-R, P2P, etc) simply because they *can* be used for illegal purposes.

    --
    social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen