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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.'"
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.
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?
Could be a ton of things.
Could be that they got one end of the transmission to roll over on his buddy and hand out the plain text, this seems most likely. All the tough guy criminals squeal like little piggies when a DA starts talking about jail time.
Could be they got the password to decrypt the wiretaps, or the plain text, through normal policework (like a warrant to search the PC). The fact that guy A is talking to known crime figure B is probably enough for such a warrant, regardless of whether its known what they said.
I mean, if somethings encrypted on the wire, then it was plaintext when it went in, and when it came out. I'd think most detectives would try another angle before they sat around trying to brute force decrypt a transmission.
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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.
Easier, sure, but also a helluva lot more detectible. You gotta figure that anytime you have a local device, you're running a pretty high risk of getting caught given that you (a) have to place it, (b) have to have something physically there that might be found, and (c) it has to transmit data out somehow. Tapping a line at the phone company has none of these drawbacks.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
Believe me, right now I'm more worried about the bad guys getting my passwords than law enforcement. The bad guys might know what to do with the data I send around, law enforcement can't touch it without going to jail themselves. I'll keep using SSH, thank you very much.
I do find it interesting that most of the taps had to do with narcotics... what passwords do drug dealers use that are easy to guess?
The main reason that I included that passage in the story was because it appears that no investigation was thwarted by encryption.
Point being, all of this claptrap on restricting encryption is just that, meaningless nonsense.
If encryption were creating a real problem for law enforcement then there would be some number of un-decripted messages to account for and I would not assume even that would create a problem in each instance.
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Your right... in the U.S. They'd decrypt the message with you during a 20 year to life term in a maximum security prison without ever charging you with anything or giving you a trial by your peers.
The decryption sessions would occur in a a small dark room where you would be "inconvienenced" and "annoyed" and "harrased" by being forced to stand for LONG periods of time, having food and water withheld, being locked in a 3x3 room with no human contact for weeks on end, being woken up at random times just to be asked a question hoping that in a sleepy state you might divulsge something, having sound payed and near painful levels for hours/days on end.
Yea... the U.S. system is SOOO much better than the old Soviet system. At least the Soviets had the balls to make it common knowledge what they did, you knew what to expect. Here in the U.S. the government pussyfoots around the issue and makes you think that the "interviewees" are treated just like you and I when questioned by the local beat cop.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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
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
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.