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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
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.
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.
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...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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
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!"
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.
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?
It's almost as if you can read the air quotes around the word 'encryption'...you can assume that even if it is military grade encryption, the NSA knows how to crack it, via back doors or otherwise. After all they were in on DES from the beginning, and had a hand in selecting Rijndael as the new AES.
From an American Mathematical Society report, for instance:
"NIST's evaluation used published research from academic and industry experts and private advice from the National Security Agency (NSA)." Gee, I wonder what kind of 'advice' they gave...