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2002 US Wiretap Report
GMontag writes "Full report:2002 WIRETAP REPORT Administrative Office of the United States Courts
Leonidas Ralph Mecham, Director I especially like this part: 'Public Law 106-197 amended 18 U.S.C. 2519(2)(b) to require that reporting should reflect the number of wiretap applications granted for which encryption was encountered and whether such encryption prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted pursuant
to the court orders. Encryption was reported to have been encountered in 16 wiretaps terminated in 2002 and in 18 wiretaps terminated in calendar year 2001 or earlier but reported for the first time in 2002; however, in none of these cases was encryption reported to have prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted.'"
DES broken? The evidence mounts...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
however, in none of these cases was encryption reported to have prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted.
So are we talking ROT13 here, or real encryption? Seems a little unnerving if it's the latter.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Here it is.
Those bad guys really need to learn how to use some real encryption. Yeah, that's what happened....
All your SSH... nevermind.
however, in none of these cases was encryption reported to have prevented law enforcement officials from obtaining the plain text of communications intercepted
Does this mean that all the communications were successfully decrypted? Or maybe it just means that failures were not reported?
-- Brian
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
For those who don't RTFA, here's one interesting number: Average cost per intercept order = $54,586
I don't see any reference to how the number is determined, like if it includes parts of salaries for employees.
Developers: We can use your help.
This makes me glad I ordered a whole slew of phone tap warning stickers from CrimeThinc. I can't wait for them to arrive. Maybe it can help make a difference against the evil Patriot Act.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Make what you will about this report, but consider this for a moment: In what other country in the world would this report ever see the light of day?
if that includes this. Or another situations where the wiretap failed, and the police were able to get the information in a more traditional or creative way rather than breaking the encryption.
Am I going to have to filter everything through my Swedish chef filter? Bork bork bork, bork, bork bork?
I just noticed that for the NY Organized Crime Task Force's 7 intercepts, the average cost was $886,999. Yet for Special Narcotics it's only $8747. I suppose it's due to the duration of the intercepts.
Developers: We can use your help.
You've got two ends of the pipe where the data winds up as plaintext. If either end was compromised, as would seem to be the case, then there's no need to worry about cracking the ciphertext.
It's not the encryption algorithm or perhaps even the implementation that's weak. It's how the user manages his or her data.
16 and 18 encypted. thats nice. is that 16 out of 16, 16 of 1 million? does it say it the artical that i just haven't opened yet?
It looks like there were some 1350 odd state and federal authorised wiretaps. Anyone have any idea how credible this number is? Colour me paranoid but in the current climate I would have expected a much higher number. Or have I just misread the report (OK I admit I only glanced at it)
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Am I going to have to get applicatitions so I can use my Bait n Switch or honey pot box(es) Someone awnser the freakin question!
---
...so long as the feds are able to "extract" the necessary keys and passwords from whoever is involved in the communication. If such data isn't forthcoming, it's easier than ever for the feds to label one a "material witness" and keep them imprisoned for as long as it takes. But that's life in the home of the free...
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
If the government begins to make motions that encryption should be forbidden or removed from the hands of civilians, we're in serious trouble. It will be one of the final death blows to democracy as we know (knew?) it today. When encryption is outlawed, it will mark the end of privacy in the United States. Then things get really bad.
Join Tor today!
10 to 1, they either found other evidence to force the users to voluntarily cough up the keys, got a warrant to put a sniffer on the user's keyboard in the case of computer communications and then retrieved the keys from the computer after they got the password, or they physically copied the encryption keys out of the phones in the case of encrypting phones.
I've always wondered if they can get a password from you involuntarily by just hooking you up to a lie detector and asking questions like, "is the first letter a vowel? Is it 'A'? Is it 'E'? Is the second letter a number?... etc.
Anyway, most encryption is pretty useless if the cracker can own the machine or its keyboard for a while without the user's knowledge and almost all of it is useless if you own the user.
Now, I certianly dont know too much about encryption, but I used to talk with people who know an awful lot about it. I was under the impression that if things were actually truely encrypted, they could not be turned into plain text. In essence all we are doing is making it hard to read. not impossible.
This doesnt suprize me one little bit. Is it all a placebo(i cant spell) to make people think that public networks are safe enough to let out personal information? i dunno, just a thought.
How Now Brown Cow
The chair is against the wall.
John has a long mustache.
Maybe the plain text was recovered by other means rather than dycryption.
Only 16 taps were encrypted? Either the "bad guys" don't even try, or they're not tapping the right people.
lexbaby
"Be Brave, Be Loyal, Be True." -- Hawkeye Pierce
They have very special secret state of the art ways of breaking most encryption these days, expecially since the patriot act. They secretly arrest the person/s involve and tie them to a chair in a little room that doesnt exist on any architecture drawrings. Then some guy breaks the person/s arms until they just tell them the contents of the encrypted msg. You only get two chances. There ready for steganography too, and they put on the rubber gloves for that one, and I doubt they use vasoline folks.
Given that the average cost of a federal wiretap in 2002 was $75,659, I imagine there was a strong incentive for gov't wiretappers to get their money's worth. And given the feds' almost unparalleled codebraking resources, it would take pretty solid encryption to sneak one past them.
The supposed 100% success ratio in cracking encrypted communications is most likely because the individuals under surveillance (mainly drug smugglers and organized crime) lack the sophistication necessary to match wits with the feds.
I'd assume that the most elite, technically savvy criminals out there don't get caught by law enforcement wiretapping, for two reasons:
1. They are subtle enough that they never even come under suspicion, and are thus not under surveillance.
2. They are smart enough to communicate in ways that are not easily intercepted by the feds: private couriers, simple signals that were agreed upon in advance, etc.. Those that rely on electronic communications probably use steganography or other means to disguise the fact that a "message" is even being sent. Let's face it, a suspected drug dealer sending a simple, encrypted text message may as well be waving a big red flag and shouting: "look at me! I've got something to hide!"
Even if DES was broken, this would never be used for anything but national security concerns. Since when it comes to court, you have to lift the lid on how you obtained the information.
In the few cases I've heard about in detail, it seemed that law enforcement "beat" encryption by simple changing interception points. Like, for one guy they broke into his house while he was gone, and put a transmitter right into his phone.
In an internet case, they similarly broke into the guy's house and attached the transmitter to his PS/2 port on the inside of the box to get his PGP password.
Not listed are probably intercepts by intelligence organizations... at least that's what it smells like.
Another interesting table is this one. It gives $/tap. The average cost is over $50K. That suggests that a wiretap is going to take a big bite out of almost any agency's budget (average cost for the Feds is $75K). The cost may be the best protection of our privacy. Certainly it seems a better bet than the judiciary.
Finally, there is the table which shows arrests and convictions. Slightly over half of the arrests related to wiretaps result in convictions. Does anyone know how that compares to investigations without wiretaps? It suggests that more than half of the wiretaps were in response to some broken law. Hopefully they were good laws, rather than DMCA-style disasters.
In short, one could almost imagine that the folks in the tin-foil hats are crazy to worry about the cops tapping their computers.
See what I've been reading.
Simple numbers game, if equation/algorithm generates key, key can be broken. With modern storage getting larger, cheaper, and most importantly: smaller; why the h$*# don't we see One Time Pad encryption utilizing a 1/2 gig compact flash card??? Depending on transmission environment (ie, XOR'd to 64kb/s MP3, WAV, WMA :) ) you could surely get at least 3-6mo of talk time... Then melt the card... Then again the NSA might pull up in a white van and kidna.......... :)
...first of all, it benefits them to *not* report failures- Heck, even lying about successfully breaking some encryption probably happens~ ...secondly, they aren't going to report failures, because they need to justify the budget and manpower to continue in this vein (ok, not that success/failure in the government seems to be a major factor in the funding decisions >:) ...third, if they want it bad enough, there are other means (thumbscrews anyone? ;)
LosT
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
They would just decrypt the encrypted message with you, a small room with one bright light, and an "instrument" or two. It's not all bad over here.
What, were you expecting something different here? Fine..
IN SOVIET RUSSIA... encryption wiretaps YOU!
paintball
I've always wondered if they can get a password from you involuntarily by just hooking you up to a lie detector and asking questions like, "is the first letter a vowel? Is it 'A'? Is it 'E'? Is the second letter a number?... etc.
Only if you believe in the polygraph's ability to tell truth. Polygraphs are garbage; see for yourself. Their primary use is to scare people who don't know better into confessing something they otherwise wouldn't.
- [source unknown, seen in .sig files for at least 10 years]
The ones that they knew enough about already to even get a tap on are the stupid criminals - so not much crypto in use.
If you can't tap them, you just bug them. Bugging is quite a bit easier anyway - so the crypto is not preventing them from getting the data.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
If ``higher level'' means ``arrest the guy you sent the encrypted message to, and get him to decrypt it'', I'm sure you're right.
The gov't may be able to do a bit more than they say, but keeping/learning secrets isn't generally a technological problem; it's a social problem. Governments have been solving the learning secrets problem for thousands of years. If they know you have a secret, they can learn it. If they don't know, they'll never try.
See what I've been reading.
Dues thees meun thet my ROT 13 phune-a is nut zee secooreety unsver I ves luukeeng fur? Em I gueeng tu hefe-a tu feelter iferytheeng thruoogh my Svedeesh cheff feelter? Bork bork bork, bork, bork bork?
You have no rights. This is the United States of Amerika.
Very truly yours,
Richard B. Cheney
Get Your War On 23
So, who knows how many active taps they have and how many of them are encrypted?
Is encrypting something multiple times more secure? Say if I run something through PGP twice with different keys, wouldn't that be pretty much bulletproof?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Table 3
Major Offenses for Which Court-Authorized Intercepts Were Granted
Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2519
January 1 Through December 31, 2002
Other
Racketeering
Homicide and Assault
Narcotics
Gambling
Kidnapping
Bribery
Larceny, Theft, and
Robbery
Loansharking, Usury,
and Extortion
See report for numbers.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
'muffy' is NOT a good encryption key. Either that, or get a better name for your pet.
the polygraph is not a lie detector. A polygraph actually records a number of different signals. Respiration, persperation... A polygraph only detects your output, not your internal processes. That may eventually change with walk-through brain scanners at the airports...
The polygraph operator may be thoroughly trained to interpret this data, or they might simply have bought a polygraph and hired themselves out immediately. Training and certification varies greatly from state to state. It's claimed that they measure 'deceptive reactions' pretty well, (bear in mind that they also run on Windows..No, i'm not kidding.) If you really believe what you're saying, a polygraph won't pick that up. But on the other hand, it might. I would say that the jury's out on their effectiveness, but they don't let polygraph results anywhere near a jury. (we'll get to that.) Dweceptive behaviour is not the same as lying. If you give a patently false answer to every question, it messes with the baseline. If you give honest answers that mislead, it may or may not pick them up. If you tell the truth but think about something bad you've done lately, you might get a false positive. It's that messy.
Voice analysers promise similar results- the ability to pick up changes in a person's voice, microtremors, when deceptive intent creeps in... but have also been shown to be faulty. And then shown to be fine. And then faulty again. And so on.
The supreme court has ruled that polygraph tests can be administered- but that the data may not be used as evidence in court. Although it is illegal to make a polygraph test part of the private industry hiring practice, the feds can do this all they want, and are expanding their activities in this regard as more sophisticated, digital equipment becomes available.
It's more likely that brain imaging will evolve to replace the polygraph- and even then, it probably won't be 100%. There will always be those who can believe what they are saying to be true. It's all about confidence. So to answer the question- yes, they could try, but they might not be able to get anything useful from it, and if you know enough about how they work, you could give them enough false positives that they'd never work it out. Then they'd simply get a court order to bug your keyboard instead, out of sheer frustration. Unless you were deemed a REAL threat to national security- in which case they import you to egypt for 'questioning...'
sorry if i sound pessimistic. But the answer is that if it's that important, they'll use something more proven than a polygraph....
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Or maybe I just need to check the shielding on my tinfoil hat, but history says that the above is probably much closer to the truth than anyone in the administration wants to admit.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Has anybody read about chaffing and winnowing? (http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/chaffing.txt) What is its strength compared to normal encryption?
Anyway, the reason I was wondering is all the comments about extracting passwords from people. What would happen if something were encrypted in a way that different passwords revealed different content? It would be trivial with chaffing and winnowing, but I'm sure it could work with other types of encryption.
The key idea is that of plausible deniability. Say you interleave three streams of data: the real stuff, the decoy stuff, and some random garbage to mess with messages sizes. If you can give 'them' the password for the decoy stuff, and it works, aren't you pretty much off the hook?
federal goverment has released stats that said no one dies in federal prison....
because people are always pronouced dead in an ambulance or off the property. Can't trust any stats especially ones that don't sound likely
Actually, Bush is a lawless illegal president.
- What's our "population"? Criminals (and from the looks of that report, primarily drug dealers.
- What are we trying to answer? Whether computer encryption is easily breakable by government wiretapping and other mechanisms.
- What info do we know?
- 1) Criminals are generally stupid (why else would they be breaking the law so blatantly to require an investigation that cost >$50k?!)
- 2) The government wiretaps did not encounter any problem with encryptions that prevented a wiretap from being successful
The primary problem with most of you is that you're making a mountain out of a statistical molehill. Considering 95% or more of all criminals are complete morons, why would you assume any of them would be using secure 128-bit encryption, steganography, and other such encryption tools to encode their communications? They're usually more interested in how they're gonna whack that jerkoff down the street for lookin' at their girl the wrong way.I think you missed the point... this was supposed to ridicule an unsuccessful measure.
Anyone remember the SPAM-ENCRYPTION-FILTER?
:-)
Or how about my own filter: RECIPE-FILTER_101, it goes like this:
I am entering the PAGE1 of the Curie Salmon Onion Fried Cake. The Ingredients have been injected, this berry moment. The oven is lit. I am proceeding to return the pan to the baker.
Or this:
The ingredients have been collected. They are mixing...done. Proceeding to pinch the loaf into the pan. The baster is in the way of the spoon, must attain spatula. Baker is delivering the loaf. Baker has retained the pan. Proceeding to the store exit. The change has been received. Have a nice day, sir.
You obviously don't know what I have been talking about...Because that is my conversation in a restraunt as I take a shit! HAHAHA! Yes, I pinch many loafs into the toilett! I unclog many log jams too! And don't get me started on log cabins...
> The authorities of our great nation will not abuse these extra survelliance powers, they will only use them to safeguard our freedoms.
Yea, right, dream on.
All this non-abuse would be why we're facing massive (years of) falsified DNA evidence and purgered testomony from the FBI?
And every few years we face massive (sometimes numbering in the hundreds) of prisoner releases for similar prosacutorial abuses by various "authorities" in various places?
Dear sir, I am an American and I am against you.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
Additionally, given the immense inertia of the government, could the Patriot Act even have an effect by now? My guess is that any successful intercepts of terrorist plans recently are still done the same way they would have been done five or ten years ago.
A good example of the inertia would be the Department of Homeland Security. They are progressing towards their goals, but I wouldn't be suprised if another decade goes by before any changes have really become effective. There are just too many people, too many departments, too many systems, etc.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I'm convinced that Iran/Contra must have been considered the penultimate act of patriotism. How else could one rationally explain former convict John Poindexter's involvement with the TIA effort? (For those with short memories, his felony conviction for his involvement with Iran/Contra was overturned on a technicality).
Oh wait...there's this thing called irony.
They're just looking out for the interests of the American people. The rich anyway.
Assuming you are serious...
Check out this Nixon enemies list info about how the government can use its power to screw over citizens who disagree with it.
I worked for Cong. John Conyers for a few years, and I know the FBI and IRS was used against him personally, in part because he helped lead the impeachment process.
Anyone who believes the government won't abuse its powers and use them against honest citizens is sadly misinformed.
Encryption can not be that easy to crack. Just last year a former FBI man was trying to get congress to outlaw the strong encryption and to put back doors for obtaining encryption keys... supposedly it never made it through congress. Which tells me they can't crack strong encryption, or it would be extremely difficult.
Most likely this story is referring to people who used very little encryption strength. Or one of Microsofts back doors.
This is why Microsoft never gets in real trouble from the Justice Department, because they make their "deals" with the Justice Department... this is my opinion anyways. (just like their hidden and locked index.dat files).
My take on this is that the feds cannot most encryption - there's no way they are breaking 1024bit PGP and the like, not with brute force or mere analytical technique. No, more likely, then get a search warrant for your house, take your computer, and find the plain text password and secret key on it. That doesn't count, it my mind. This announcement is just a bluff - "don't you criminals use encryption, because we can break it!" I think they are lying. I think they are doing anything they can to discourage encryption because they can't break it.
Remember, in these kinds of reports the government agency generating the report for Congress (the source of all $$$) is trying to make themselves look good. With that in mind, pay attention to the bolded parts:
OK, if we don't want to report failure don't "terminate" the wiretap. Just stop using it and we don't have to tell anyone that we're stumped.
In this case, pay attention to what isn't written:
Note that the report doesn't say all text of communications intercepted. So if all the feds got off a wiretap was "OK, turn on your encryption now!", under what appear to be the rules of this report that wiretap would be considered "successful" in getting plaintext messages.
That, however, does not mean that he wasn't guilty as sin; only that he can't legally be punished for it. In any event, under no circumstances should he be serving in a senior Pentagon position requiring any level of security clearance.
There are two main problems at work here. Whom is listening in on your conversations, and who let them?
The person within the law enforcement community listening in on your calls may not be perfect. They could use this information to their own ends. They might tip off a friend as to when you are going on vacation and have the rob you. Or they might let that information slip in a public place, with the same result. They might be a childmolester in the making, or a murderer, or something else. Just because you get a government check does not make you a saint. I wish it did.
Problem one : Unknown people spying on you.
The second problem deals with lazy people. Mainly the public who hjave given our governemnt their passive approval of this abuse. The public agrees and maybe even likes this lack of liberty in their own home. They enjoy their temporary safety, at the expenses of some unseen freedoms.
Problem two : The people.
The people, meaning you reading this, if you want things to change need to change yourself first. Change. Become someone who takes an active role in the shaping of your community and become a letter writing machine. Vote! Get the word out. Get out of that chair. If you don't I really don't want to hear your complaints, because you are the problem.
I have faith in the people. I have greater faith in those that read Slashdot. They are people who "hack" things when they need it. The government needs to hear from us. We have to enlighten people as to the lost freedoms. I see that things will change. The dream of freedom must live in the United States at all costs for the simple reason that without that dream there is little need for the United States.
I know how stupid and corny that sounds, but it's true. When you drive by a school and see those kids playing, know that they are counting on you to correct these problems. Think about what you would tell them about maintaining freedom. What advise you might offer. Take your own advise.
Freedom is not free. It take time, effort, and sometimes lives. There are peolpe who lied bloody in a field as the life slowly drained from their bodies who all had the same thoughts in their minds as they died. They though that dying was not that high a price if others will live free and keep the dream alive.
With all that is happening sometimes I think that the dream of freedom and liberty will die with us, but then my faith returns. I wil take action. I hope you will also.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
...I think if the terrorists had a repairman see the bombs they had...
Previously, you mentioned the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers. I'm going to presume then, that by "terrorists", here, you mean them. What bombs, then? Who needs bombs when you've got a large projectile with a lot of fuel inside?
Ohh, I see... *points* TROLL!
"You're either with us or against us."
Well, given that option, I'm against you. What do you intend to do about it? Come and bomb the shit out of me like Bush did all of those people that were "against" him?
And why exactly should it have any effect ? The way things are going in the USA right now, we're getting slowly but surely in a state of near everlasting, constant terror. At what point will the number of people that "disappear" in the "special" facilities outnumber the real terrorism victims ? On top of that the CIA, FBA and NSA had more than enough man power and funds to tackle the problem before it happened. They were just too busy doing some economical espionage on their european allies.
These technicalities are essential to the legal system.
It is tempting to 'cut through the crap' and make decisions go the way that they ought to, but ultimately this destroys justice. After all, there are people out there who believe the Miranda warning is also a "technicality," and in general that it is a "technicality" when illegally acquired evidence is thrown out of court. And it is true that these rules sometimes allow the guilty (like Poindexter) to be declared free and innocent.
But believe it or not, when this happens, it's actually good. Yes, a slimeball gets to go free, but it is much more important that prosecutors and law enforcement agents have a respect for the protections that the law gives to all citizens. If we do away with these "technicalities," then there is that much less protection against illegal search and seizure and self-incrimination as a matter of general policy.
You might want to check out this site which debunks the myth that polygraphs work. And yes, I'll bet most people probably give up their passwords themselves. For instance, Jim Bell, the guy behind Assination Politcs, a guy who should know better, gave up his PGP passphrase as part of his plea bargin. He is now suing the state of Washington and a host of others for the costs of breaking the encryption, brute-force using 1997 hardware.
According to the report encryption was encountered on only 18 wiretaps. It is entirely possible very poor encryption tools were used in these cases.
Given that most wiretaps were for narcotics and that your average drug dealer isn't exactly a rocket scientist, I suspect most of the "encryption" was somthing lame Joe criminal picked up out of a "spy/PI" catalog.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
I thought that the tin-foil-hats were crazy by definition.
So if they got around the encryption to decypher the conversations, they violated the DMCA and should be punished. Right? Hillary where are you now, bitch!??
another way to look at it is that this kind of legislation is (to borrow economic terms) a trailing indicator, not a leading one.
still, the inertia of the beuracracy is not to be discounted; just keep in mind that said inertia is very negligible when the ability to doublethink is concentrated among the few people, behind closed doors, who hold the lever of control. this is a wonderful thing if those people are good people but highly destructive otherwise.
Remember the Scarfo case where they tapped the keyboard:i ntable303859.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/28/tech/pr
If you're using a crt monitor, they can also reproduce the image in a van outside your place.
The part of this report that I find interesting is how few wiretaps there actually are. CALEA (Communications Assistance Law Enforcement Agencies) has caused many millions of dollars of upgrades to telephone switches. Unless wiretaps prevent a truly national crime (i.e. Twin Towers) it does not seem like we are getting our moneys worth.
OTOH.. it is also encouraging that out of 260 million or so citizens, so little wiretap activity is required.
That's only part of the cost. Back when Guliani was busting the New York Mafia, they had to pay New York Telephone's retail rates for each wiretap. Their wiretapping bill exceeded $1 million a year, and the New York FBI office wasn't budgeted for it. Much of the pressure for CALEA (the "communications assistance to law enforcement act) came from those days.
Now, law enforcement doesn't have to pay telcos directly. Telcos are authorized to pass wiretapping costs along to their customers. During the "transition period", when wiretapping was being added to the phone system, tax money was paid directly to telcos to install wiretapping gear. Those numbers aren't included in the court figures, but they appear in the CALEA report to Congress.. Between 1997 and 2001, $499 million was spent on adding wiretapping technology to the phone system. Your tax dollars at work.
- 168 bit 3des, Diffie-Hellman (1024 bit modulus)
- fips 140-1
- installs on handset side, which means it can work with digital/pbx, ISDN, IP phone, etc, and would require a tap to be placed in the handset, not just in the phone base
- no password for you to find or beat out of me, so your recording of my modem noise is that much harder to figure out
http://mediafilter.org/CAQ/CAQ56brother2.html
Nothing affirmed in this, looks like supposition or rumor but the FBI can call on ANY Federal agency for almost any item or process.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I agree that the GOVERNMENT has only our best interest in mind. However the government is not a friendly, father figure like a diety. Many people are under the impression that because of what our country (and government) stands for is good, the government can only do good.
Unfortunately the government is not a friendly, caretaker. The government is composed of people and people can be evil. It is men (and women) that will have access to our information via the PATRIOT act. It is these people that I believe have no right to my private information.
In a perfect world this would not be a problem. However in a perfect world, we would not have terrorists, governmental scandals, or war.
I do not oppose the PATRIOT act because I am a criminal or have something to hide. I oppose the PATRIOT act becuase I am NOT a criminal and have the right to be treated as such.
Since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law, how many terrorist attacks have we had? None. Zero
richard reid ++
Does this report say if an intercepted internet communication is considered a "wiretap"? Or is it just modem taps that are included in the report? Something like a network sniffer, or the artist formerly known as Carnivore, or of course Echelon or the new USAPA powers probably are not counted in this report. In fact the Patriot Act stuff is definitely not counted, according to the site. It seems likely that the vast majority of intercepted communications these days are done under the new powers of the FISA... so this report tells us nothing.
Since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law, how many terrorist attacks have we had? None. Zero.
At least one. The farmer who drove up to D.C. and threatened to blow up a bomb unless the tobacco laws were changed. That was a use (or rather, threat to use) force against a civilian target for the purpose of changing a governmental policy, so falls under the rather liberal definition of "terrorist" that people use these days.
The fact that it didn't succeed is besides the point. The US has charged other people for much less than that.
From what I recall (I'm sure someone will bring it up) this data seems to only include wiretaps that are requested under judical review. However, under the PATRIOT act, the FBI doesn't need to go to judical review in some instances (e.g. such as demanding library or bookstore records, or tracking computer activity. Can't remember the exact wording for terrorists). Therefore, despite a 9% decrease over 2001, the reason is more likely that officers that were looking at racketeering aand drugs have been transferred over to homeland security duties or catching terrorists(e.g. less people are tracking crimminals). And hence their new activities are more or less unregulated (such as those poor sods who have been detained and not charged and have been sitting in jail for months) the actual wiretapping rate is much higher than indicated.
It's not just 'free' that concerns me - that he's in a key position that demands a level of integrity that he does not posses.
I have no problem with the notion that Poindexter is free, but he should be serving in a position that is more suited to his character. I have a few ideas of my own, but I'm also open to suggestions.
It's not just 'free' that concerns me - that he's in a key position that demands a level of integrity that he does not posses.
I think this is exactly why he was chosen. Remember these are the same people demanded less accurate felon information so they could eliminate at least 50,000 legal black voters from the rolls in Florida, the same people who deployed the same voting machines to white and mixed districts but programmed the ones in 95%+ white counties to return a spoiled vote to the voter, and to trash the spoiled votes in the 25%+ black counties. They asked for more innacurate felon information to the point where less than 5% of those kicked off the rolls were actually inelligable to vote, they kicked off a judge, an senior election official, and a shitload of ministers for heavens sake. Do you think they WANT an honest man directing the office of domestic contro-- err, surveillance?
Since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law, how many terrorist attacks have we had? None. Zero.
How about John Mohammad? Lee Malvo? The Anthrax Killer.
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
I tend to believe that the government is able to either break or circumvent levels of encryption at a much higher level than commonly thought. I mean, it's entirely possible that old devices were being used for communication, but it seems to be if you're going to be cautious enough to encrypt comms at least one or two would have done it properly.
I wonder: If encryption on the line prevents a court-ordered wiretap from obtaining useful information, is that enough cause to, say, break in and bug the room? The wording of the statement seems to suggest that...
Now, I'd be suspicious if only the American government were the ones making the standards. But something like Rijendel (aka AES) was developed in Europe. Unless you get all global-conspiratory, I very much doubt the government has broken all the ciphers. If they did, they'd keep in under wraps as NSA/military intelligence anyway.
However, in civilian matters, if they know who you are and have enough to get a wiretap on you, you're on very thin ice already. I hardly doubt they'll brute force it with so many easier ways of getting the information they seek. Despite all the talk of encryption, the primary defense is still obscurity.
As for the second point, yes I'm sure it is. If they have enough evidence to get a wire tap, they'll also get the search warrant required to wiretap in at the end instead. After all, I believe a wiretap is usual harder to get than a search warrant really. One is just a one-time search with your knowledge, the second is recording your actions without your knowledge for an extended period of time.
Kjella
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The parent post is probably the dumbest thing I have ever read in my life. I am a stupider person for having read that post. If there were some way I could un-read that post, I might be able to continue my career in IT. Since that is not possible, I will have to retire now. Thanks a lot poster, you've ruined my career.
When you admit that you know nothing about a subject, following that admission with a bunch of conjecture in a forum full of people with at least half a clue doesn't really make for interesting reading.
BT
...oh wait...never mind. There isn't any difference here.
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In 2-way communications, there is no need for entering a passphrase except for the authentification to exclude "Man in the middle". The key exchange should be fully transparent for the user. For instance, there is "Diffie-Hellman key agreement". The used key should be destroyed. Then, if the user is caught and tortured, he cannot reveal the key, and maximum that law enforcement can do - to obtain a passphrase that is of no use for deciphering past traffic.
The second. I believe the usable phone scrambler should be a standalone device with public domain (Or GPLed) software and hardware. The attempt of law enforcement to include a backdoor into such code will presumably fail. To create such a device, a popular PIC16F873 microchip and any external modem is quite sufficient.
And the last. I have no pity to criminals. If you can control a criminal gang but have not spent some money to secure your comms - then your fate is in your own hands. Darwinism rules.
I'm sure most here will scoff at what i'm about to say but I find it interesting that no matter how many people, no matter how many faster and faster processors (and more of them) there are - seti *always* has plenty of data to send to everyone at all times of the day.
I think it's disgustingly brilliant that the u.s. gov't most likely has access to the computing power from people all over the world. most likely for such purposes.
if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
I have it on good authority* that what passes for (not bad) encryption these days has a cracking time measured in a few tens of mS on specialized hardware.
Further, this person related that trunk lines are screened for encrypted info to specifically decrypt and examine.
*Second hand from someone who would know.
Some were wondering abut this elsewhere.
In a March 4 Senate hearing, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller announced that "in the one-year period from September 11 [2001] to September 19, 2002, we have obtained more than double the number of emergency FISAs [warrants] as compared to the total number of emergency FISAs we obtained in the prior 23-year history of the FISA statute." Attorney General John Ashcroft announced at the same hearing that the FBI had sought "over 1,000" FISA warrants in 2002.
So it appears the number of post-9/11 covert warrants is about equal to the number of public ones.
While I find this disturbing, 3,000 or so wiretap orders still isn't much in the grand scheme of things.
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If this is true, it suggests that the U.S. government has become quite corrupt, albeit in ways that are not entirely obvious. Given that whomever suggested and/or supported Poindexter's involvement had their reasons for doing so, the fact that it has happened in no way suggests that there is anything right about it, that it should be allowed to go unchallenged, or that remedial action should not be forthcoming.