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Feds Want to Tap VoIP
An anonymous reader writes "From the Globe and Mail: The FBI and the U.S. Justice Department have renewed their efforts to wiretap voice conversations carried across the Internet. Federal and local police rely heavily on wiretaps. In 2002, the most recent year for which information is available, police intercepted nearly 2,200,000 conversations with court approval, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps for that year cost taxpayers $69.5 million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations."
Well, because there are some legitimate reasons to tap communications of any sort (as in, got a judge to OK it), I figure that it was bound to happen at some point. Though it still creeps me out and makes me eagerly anticipate a nice encrypted VoIP client...
Nautlius is VoIP that uses Blowfish as the cipher.
Here's the home page. Get the software here. It hasn't been updated in awhile, but maybe now there's more of an incentive to do so.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
1) Good luck identifying VoIP traffic
2) Good luck decrypting it
That is all.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
you buy a couple of those Cisco ATA186 VOIP phone adapters (POTS phone jack on one side, ethernet on the other, about $150 each) and route its IP side through your favorite IPSEC VPN box (Netgear makes one for about $150)? Don't you get an untappable phone? Feds would have to ban routing voice traffic through a VPN in order to stop that.
Can VoIP be encrypted in such a way that even if it is intercepted, it is useless? What is to stop someone from writing code that does that? Or will the NSA get involved?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations.
I make that $55,600,000, but they got that cheating Canook/Limey son of a bitch in the end.
I just want to point out that the FBI can currently tap VoIP calls either at the customer side using Carnivore or at the provider's PSTN trunks thanks to CALEA. Really all they're asking for is an easier way to do it.
That's why I'll continue to encrypt all important (and unimportant!) conversations. For email I always use GPG (regardless of how important the message is). For VoIP, if I ever use it, I'll be sure to send the voice data through encrypted channels. Frankly, there's no excuse for not encrypting everything. Let them make laws; beat them with the tech.
:)
/dev/urandom) to your friends :) That will never be illegal, and encrypted data is the same as random data without the key!
And when they outlaw the tech, remember that you can learn how to write encryption software yourself. See Ciphersaber. There you'll learn to write your very own crypto code, and you'll remember how to do it again. I did it a few months ago and could still code something decent up
So don't worry about this. Just encrypt, and when encryption becomes illegal send lots of random data (netcat
My other car is first.
Feds have had the power to get secret warrents from judges from the FISA court since 1978. These judges have never denied American law enforcement a warrant to surveil a conversation.
So under the secret and unchecked FISA court, their powers are essentially unlimited.
This just means they are going through the formality of asking permission - if they don't get it, they'll get it through FISA anyway.
"The FCC should ignore pleas about national security and sophisticated criminals because sophisticated parties will use noncompliant VoIP, available open source and offshore," said Jim Harper of Privacilla.org, a privacy advocacy Web site. "CALEA for VoIP will only be good for busting small-time bookies, small-time potheads and other nincompoops."
Mr. Harper is absolutely correct, anyone with a little bit of sophistication can think of numerous ways around this legislation. Sorry Unlce Sam but the cat's out of the bag and there is no putting it back. Of course this will still be useful at catching small time drug dealers/users, and is another example of the drug war eating away at civil liberties.
The right to privacy is spread implicitly throughout the Bill of Rights. But when the United States Constitution was framed, the Founding Fathers saw no need to explicitly spell out the right to a private conversation. That would have been silly. Two hundred years ago, all conversations were private. If someone else was within earshot, you could just go out behind the barn and have your conversation there. No one could listen in without your knowledge. The right to a private conversation was a natural right, not just in a philosophical sense, but in a law-of-physics sense, given the technology of the time.
But with the coming of the information age, starting with the invention of the telephone, all that has changed. Now most of our conversations are conducted electronically. This allows our most intimate conversations to be exposed without our knowledge. Cellular phone calls may be monitored by anyone with a radio. Electronic mail, sent across the Internet, is no more secure than cellular phone calls. Email is rapidly replacing postal mail, becoming the norm for everyone, not the novelty it was in the past.
Until recently, if the government wanted to violate the privacy of ordinary citizens, they had to expend a certain amount of expense and labor to intercept and steam open and read paper mail. Or they had to listen to and possibly transcribe spoken telephone conversation, at least before automatic voice recognition technology became available. This kind of labor-intensive monitoring was not practical on a large scale. It was only done in important cases when it seemed worthwhile. This is like catching one fish at a time, with a hook and line. Today, email can be routinely and automatically scanned for interesting keywords, on a vast scale, without detection. This is like driftnet fishing. And exponential growth in computer power is making the same thing possible with voice traffic.
Perhaps you think your email is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Are you trying to hide something? If you hide your mail inside envelopes, does that mean you must be a subversive or a drug dealer, or maybe a paranoid nut? Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their email?
What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their email, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their email privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity.
Senate Bill 266, a 1991 omnibus anticrime bill, had an unsettling measure buried in it. If this non-binding resolution had become real law, it would have forced manufacturers of secure communications equipment to insert special "trap doors" in their products, so that the government could read anyone's encrypted messages. It reads, "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications se
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
At least with this fact in play we'll probably see some more decent voip encryption.
Wouldn't any real criminal run his VoIP through a VPN or some other encrypted tunnel, thus making difficult for the Feds to know that it is a VoIP session, let alone decrypt it and understand it? See, the problem with PCs is that they are general purpose devices that allow you to execute arbitrary algorithms -- or even add proprietary hardware to do hardware encryption. So, other than knowing what IP address a suspect is talking to, what good is the wiretap going to do them?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
How do they propose to tap VOIP conversations over private networks? I can understand how federal regulations might get them permission to tap into the networks of the growing VOIP phone providers, but a lot of people (companies, geeks) set up their own internal VOIP networks over IPSEC, secure VLAN's and other such things that would be nearly(?) impossible to detect as VOIP traffic. Not to mention p2p type VOIP clients like those built into the various instant messenging programs that are, well, peer to peer, and don't go through some central server.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
I almost feel like setting up two VoIP lines, using one to call the other, then have a perpetually repeating recording playing over the line with every keyword and phrase they could possibly be looking for interspersed with me screaming "HA HA! GOTCHA! GET BACK TO DOING SOMETHING USEFUL!" .
Hang on, there's a knock at [Lost comm with host]
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
If you're of the tin-foil hat variety, simply use a strong-cipher on your VoIP (no commercial providers - do it yourself) calls and all will be well. Something 400+bit ought to do the job. Make the cipher randomly changing (after every call definatly; during the call if you can configure it) and NO ONE will be listening unless you want them to.
I think it is a lost cause to try to stem the abuse of freedom and rights that government snoops are swarming around like coyotes around some road kill. But VoIP should be much easier for the Common Man to encrypt a la PGP (yes, I understand it would be some other software solution...) I know, I know, why should we have to? Well, I imagine just discussion of this issue could get you labeled as providing material benefit to "terrorists."
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
ipsec, ssh tunneling, and VPN configurations can all prevent this with no change to existing code.
Is anyone else outraged that the feds spent $63 million just wiretapping phones for a black market that they created? 1.) Make a drug black-market. 2.) Spend $63 million wiretapping phone investigating the market. 3.) ??? 4.) profit!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That's nice for you, but I wouldn't trade my privacy in silly conversations for the (illusion of) safety in America. Neither would a lot of other people. The problem is, you can't just trade your privacy by endorsing wiretaps. You're trading everyone's privacy. Perhaps you'd like to write a letter allowing the government to listen to all the conversations they want, read your emails, and rifle through your files, but don't speak for the rest of the country.
I think you just fed a troll.
From www.skype.com:
Skype is free and simple software that will enable you to make free calls anywhere in the world in minutes. Skype, created by the people who brought you KaZaA uses innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other Skype users. If you are tired of paying outrageous fees for telephony, Skype is for you!
Skype is quick and easy to install. Just download it, register, and within minutes you can plug in your PC headset and call your friends on Skype. Skype calls have excellent sound quality and are highly secure with end-to-end encryption. Best of all, Skype does not require you to reconfigure your firewall or router--it just works!
"Two hundred years ago, all conversations were private."
Interesting. Written communications weren't, so why say nothing about them I wonder? Stenography & cryptography were already in common use back then...
fortune -o
Not true. I have nothing to hide - I still don't wnat Uncle Sam listening to everything I do. Some of us still believe in privacy.
On a side note, sometimes people have things to hide with good reason. A number of the founding fathers lived as long as they did because of Privacy. A number of blacks were better off because records could be kept from corrupt local governments. People have been persecuted by scientology for speaking out against it - sometimes privacy is the only safeguard. Can you honestly say you trust every single person who has access to your data (government or not) to act in your best interest, or at least the best interest of the country. Here's a hint: if the government can beat it, someone else can too.
I'll take my privacy, thank you very much. The only way to stop power from being abused is to not grant it in the first place. Our society is based on individual freedom - for example, the whole "guilty until proven innocent" thing. Our constitution is set up to let the guilty go free rather than imprison the innocent, should a conflict arise. Would placing the burden of proof on the defense (or eliminating the trial altogether) mean fewer criminals went free? Of course! Would more innocent mean be imprisoned? Of course.
Is it worth it? Hardly. From what I hear, though, if you like that sort of thing, Cuba is not hard to get into.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
through your favorite IPSEC VPN box (Netgear makes one for about $150)?
Probibly, eventually, manufacturers will be directed to provide "backdoors" much like cryptography schemes that the NSA et al have tried to push on the public.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
That seems far too cheap. Can you buy wiretaps in bulk?
'scuse me maam, where are your wiretaps?
Aisle three, right next to the pinhole cameras and poison darts.
For the past few weeks Cryptome has featured a link to an FBI document detailing the means by which such surveillance might take place. This is all just additional evidence that those wanting real security must implement (or at least verify) it themselves.
This would, of course, be a terrific argument in my mind, to just get over ourselves and find a better way to deal with drugs; i.e. make them legal in such a way so that people can have a good time and not pose too much of a threat to society (such as the laws pertaining to alcohol). 'Course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
It's true, it works.
What makes you think that Uncle Sam is going to listen to "everything you do"? Remember, this law doesn't give the gov't carte blanche to listen to the conversations of anyone it chooses to. It must show a court of law that there is sufficient reason that you are using the phone lines to commit a felony. All this law does is put VoIP on the same legal standing as traditional phone lines, with regards to wiretapping.
Equating the gov't trying to stop the illegal actions of mobsters and drug dealers with a police state is pointless hyperbole. There may be issues with wiretapping laws, but your posting certainly doesn't convince me. If there is anything wrong with this statute you'll have to find a better arguement.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
This is just double plus good!
the wonderful us govt, looking out for its' citizens, their lovely declaration of govt by the people for the people.. which is being eroded every second of the day.
god bless america!
My friend was concerned with his privacy (his communications had been tapped in the past) and we used SSH to provide security for our voice communications. It's a reliable system and so far we have no complaints. SSH is a great system for secure calls. VoIP networks should implement SSH.
That's 2,200,000 conversations. A wiretap will take in 3000 to 5000 conversations each, so that's probably 400 to 800 wiretaps for the whole country. It is VERY difficult for an investigator to get a warrant for a wire tap approved.
+1 devils advocate ;-)
"Of course this will still be useful at catching small time drug dealers/users, and is another example of the drug war eating away at civil liberties."
Wars are by definition, destructive forces. Destructive to people, buildings, and liberties. It could be, just as much the "toilet paper" war.
Sure, for a few conversations between buddies, encryption would baffle an individual. However, this is the US government-with tons of money to throw around...they'll find ways around encryption. Usama's satellite phone was "encrypted", but the NSA could crack it easily enough. If it becomes a great enough need, the government would find out how to decrypt it. They wouldn't brute force either. When the British found the Enigma machine, the US and British intelligence services reverse engineered it and then used it for the remainder of the war. Same thing would happen here: If the case was high-profile enough, the FBI would find the program used and reverse engineer it so they could thwart the encryption. I'm willing to bet that Nautlius (Blowfish) has already been cracked by the CIA/FBI/NSA, and that they have their own proprietary software for VoIP tapping. The only way to avoid it would be to design your own encryption software, and then make sure it doesn't fall into the US Military's/FBI's/NSA's/CIA's hands. Those agencies employ some of the best hackers/programmers in the field, and it would be near impossible to keep multiple VoIP conversations encrypted without changing software every conversation (and even then, you would have to have every conversation based on the understanding that those may be decrypted later.) This is because of the open structure of the internet.
/me goes to neighbour's house with my shotgun, i knock on neighbours door and tell him to give me the keys to his car, he asks 'why?', i reply 'well, i'm not entirely sure that it's road-worthy, and i don't want you crashing into my house, so give me your keys and i'll take it for a ride, now, you're going to give me the keys right? otherwise it's obvious you have something to hide, i guess your car isn't road worthy, omg you know its dangerous and want it to crash into my house, you son of a bitch! *bang*..0.7 seconds..*bang*
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
Christ, $56 million a year to tap phones checking for people selling drugs? At some point doesn't it just become cheaper for the federal government to just step in, contact the drug dealers, buy all the drugs they have, and destroy them??
The unfortunate problem is that since we have crap like the Patriot Act, it isn't as hard for the government to get whatever access it likes. By now, they pretty much DON'T need a reason anymore...
Jebus, we need to unleash the pain on these feds. What are they going todo when we start running ipsec tunnels for all our voip connections? What is more scary? The fact that they want to do all of these big brother things? Or that the old techonolgy systems allowed them to do these things?
Wouldn't any real criminal run his VoIP through a VPN or some other encrypted tunnel ...
No. Criminals generally do dumb things and get caught, even the more intelligent ones. They only need to make one mistake. That is law enforcements advantage. Crime can be a pretty unforgiving profession.
Also, who says the amateurs, less sophisticated, less tech savvy aren't worth catching?
There's a problem with that. The FBI isn't listening to every phone conversation in the US for key words, and they treat VoIP the same as regular phone conversations. So before they "listened in" they would have to prove to a judge that they had a reason to suspect you were doing something violating federal law. So unless you were really a federal criminal, you're only wasting your bandwidth.
BTW, this same article is also available over on news.com.com. Anyway, lemme quote:
"The agencies have asked the Federal Communications Commission to order companies offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to rewire their networks to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on subscribers' conversations."
Think about that one for a minute. How is a VoIP provider going to ensure that? There is only one way, turn off and disable all use of encryption in their VoIP network, unless the provider has access to the keys used.
Now think of IM networks, email servers, or just about any other Internet service. What are they going to do, outlaw all "non-sanctioned" client software using encryption? Are we gearing up for another Clipper Chip fiasco here?
FCC chairman Michael Powell has just come down on the side of VoIP providers saying, in part:
"Rapidly expanding voice communications over the Internet should be protected from excessive government regulation and from being pigeonholed as simple phone service". He goes on to say "harm from misregulation of VoIP could take "decades to fix."
"You [can] create a very hostile regulatory environment for voice-over-IP providers in the United States," Powell said.
He added "there is nothing to stop" the companies from moving to other countries and setting up computer systems to serve U.S. customers.
Exactly. Welcome to the Internet age.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
"Is anyone else outraged that the feds spent $63 million just wiretapping phones for a black market that they created? 1.) Make a drug black-market. 2.) Spend $63 million wiretapping phone investigating the market. 3.) ??? 4.) profit!"
Oh lookie! The pro/anti-drug argument (another kind of war) makes an apperance. Quick! Outlaw the argument.
3-????
4-Well someone will figure out how to make money, or at least a better discusion.
The article is extremely misleading. It quotes "conversations" but the important statistic is the number of authorized State and Federal wiretaps...only 1358. The average number of conversations per wiretap exceeds 2000!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
taken from their "EULA"
(c) the skype software is utilized and distributed by third parties
which are unrelated to skyper. you acknowledge that installation of
the skype software will allow third parties who are not affiliated
with skyper the ability to access your computer ("outside parties").
you agree that skyper will not be liable for any damage, claim or loss
of any kind whatsoever, including but not limited to indirect,
incidental, special or consequential damages as stated in paragraph
9(a) above, resulting from any actions or omissions of the outside
parties.
Bottom line: Skype is a backdoor to the machines it is installed on -
for some undisclosed "third parties", not really what you want to hear when it comes to "secure" software egh
It's not like their going to announce how and why they monitor people. i.e. Patriot Act.
You have a SSN, Drivers License, Credit Cards, Home Address, IP address, etc, etc.
This is just another way to monitor people.
If you don't like it, don't use it, because
you will be monitored.
Listening to VOIP conversations is equivalent to not allowing encryption and to allowing listening to all internet traffic.
VOIP can connect directly from one IP to another. There is no need for anyone in between. VOIP can use open source software and be encrypted, so that anyone listening cannot know the method of encryption, or the encryption key.
that's why we have this expression in English called "necessary evil." moron.
think of this problem algebraically. give the bad outcomes of each decision a weight corresponding to the "badness" of the result. the badness of a drug dealer or some other criminal is far greater than someone listening to your conversation.
now consider the fact that the police already have plenty of things to worry about not including your personal conversations, then why would they bother wasting the time and effort?
basically the only card you can play is governmental corruption, and i'm sorry but that is a losing hand.
you are simple-minded and lose. game over
The Feds get all their phone sex for free, while me, I gotta pay $2.99/minute!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note that this article of the consitution does not say no searches and seizures. Just unreasonable ones. The courts have determined that with probable cause (and your definition is wrong, btw) a telephone may be tapped.
Oh, and also, the Tenth comes to mind here.. nowhere in the Constitution is the Federal Government granted the right to tap telephones, therefore they don't have it.
Yes, because clearly the Founding Fathers hated it when the British would tap their telephones....
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Better than being a boojum at least. ;)
fortune -o
"This would, of course, be a terrific argument in my mind, to just get over ourselves and find a better way to deal with drugs; i.e. make them legal in such a way so that people can have a good time and not pose too much of a threat to society (such as the laws pertaining to alcohol)."
Well considering the number of people over the years I've seen shoveled into a grave. I'd say there's no such thing. It's all about playing the odds. Odds that someone else's loved ones will be killed, instead of yours.
What if you always have your computer with you? It would be a bit hard for anybody to install something without my knowledge on my laptop.
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Cant this be solved like every other protocol security issue?? - Tunnel it through SSH.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
That you use DES.
:-P
Using an encryption scheme that doesn't allow NSA to decrypt you is unpatriotic!
Next, they will outlaw Crypto... Phun! Then, according to their master plan, EVERYBODY will be a fellon because nearly all computers use crypto... ooh.. lets just ban math so people won't even be able to understand crypto. Sweet... roll back the clocks, its time to set the time to the year 1984.
Why not develop a cellphone device that changed the sound going in and going out?
For instance, you could enter a keycode into a program, and it would re-format all voice data into meaningless noise without person X on the other end using the same (or a permutation of) the same code.
This would make wiretaps useless without... the code.
I'm not saying legalize everything, just treat addiction to hard drugs as a medical issue and let medical doctors prescribe for maintance while helping their patients. Marijuana (something much safer than alcohol) needs to be legalized and taxed.
Get the facts about marijuana. End the drug war now.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I won't mind as long as:
1) they have a warrant
2) they take the cost upon their own shoulders and not upon the company or individuals concerned.
What this means is that we must be vigilant about the laws surrounding warrants and how they are obtained.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Most of the best encryption algorithms are open, as in open-source. "Reverse engineering" is not even applicable, because they rely on known calculations that are extremely difficult (astronomically computationally expensive) to run backwards. That is the whole theory behind public-key encryption.
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Personally, it seems to me that VoIP is pretty cut and dry in this matter: it is a "telecommunications carrier". It is simply a new medium for the same thing we did on copper lines.
The most difficult (and dangerous) aspect is things like IM services with voice capacity. Actually, anyone two people with microphones and email could evade the police and FBI pretty easily by recording small sound files and emailing them (possibly even encrypting them to be sure). In such a case as this, where communications begin to forgo the use of any third-party to facilitate the information between two people, we will see a lot of hot debate.
When communications as distributed and "P2P" as this become more common place, many questions will be raised. But, we must look at how things would have to be implemented, before we can judge the rules that must be applied to them. Can we mandate that wiretaps must be available even for peer-to-peer exchange of communications? Would we then need to make requests directly to those being tapped, or those they are in contact with, stating they must, for a specified time, transmit all communications to the authoritive agencies for monitoring? Surely, no one would comply! Then, should the ISPs and backbone servers scan all packets for personal communications to or from individuals on a national "Tapped List"? But, what of all the data they would have to peak into to find these few, when most they have no right to touch, except to pass along?
We sail to rough waters. I pray for us all.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
How is this flamebait???
Yes, I know it wouldn't work.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Drug related everything costs taxpayers lots of money. Legalize drugs and you save a lot of money. That way law enforcement can focus on things that really do matter.
Mobile VOIP handset. Go anywhere with it. There's a Windows client so you can call to/from desktops. It runs open source encryption software:
Cryptophone.
Guess what? Make VOIP tappable and only the true criminals will have untappable VOIP software.
The good:
--If there is a wiretap, they are only getting your conversation, and not ever piece of data your computer spits out. It looks like they would need a different warrant for that too.
--The tap would be located not at your ISP, but at your VOIP provider. This helps guarantee privacy for the people not specified in the warrant.
--This places VOIP on more of an equal footing as traditional phone services. If they are legally the same for what they have to provide the cops, they could then argue they are the same legally when it comes to their protection as common carriers.
The bad:
--The VOIP companies would have to re-wire their networks so that all conversations go through a tappable trunk line. That, or they would have to set up infrastructure to siphon off individuals phone calls to a 3rd location (which is what I would prefer. Let the VOIP provider pull a copy of the conversation off the trunk line instead of the cops). This means more $ needed in development and implementation.
--Requlation may (ok, probably will) stifle innovation. By regulating things like how a wiretap is to be done, it will be harder for open source and closed source products to work in multiple countries. This then leads to problems with interoperability between national networks.
Overall, I don't see this as too alarming.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
If criminals were smart, they would be running telcoms or energy companies, or on Wall Street, hyping Internet stocks. Oh, wait....
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
see the way the athiests hated it on slashdot it thought it was somehow pro-Christianity.
this was about as probablee as Frank 'the Tank' winning the debate against James Carville in 'Old School'.
Realistically, all the feds are trying to do is keep pace with the advance of technology. They've had the ability to tap phones for as long as they have been around. Even if they were able to listen to and record every single call made, someone still has to transcribe the call. Even with the transcriptions done, someone else has to put the pieces together to make it useful intelligence, otherwise it remains valueless information. Intel work gets HARDER when the mass of data increases exponentially.
pathetic.
this has the potential to make private/personal VOIP illegal
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
hes actally a troll, and a pretty good one, check the journal :)
Many of the people responding to this thread are missing the big picture.
There will always be a screw-you-I'm-doing-this-the-OSS-way-with-crypto solution available. What does this solution cost? Well you might think it's free.
It isn't.
By adopting some OSS mechanism to communicate with whomever you choose, you impose a burden on the other party, namely, they have to install and have access to the same (or compatible) OSS VoIP software.
While this might be great for you and your hacker buddies, it won't help you call your parents, grandma, or your fiancee. It also won't help you call your doctor, lawyer, investment partner, stock broker or bank.
Wait, there's more going on here.
There are technical implication for the service providers. Most of the better designed VoIP protocols (like SIP, as an example) are all about establishing sessions. There is a location service somewhere that a user-agent (UA) (phone) can find, based on the number or URI that you call. This location service will either proxy your connection request to the other client, or it will redirect your user-agent to contact the other party directly. (Think HTTP 302 response code -- in fact -- SIP uses the same structure).
Once your UA has contacted the other party, some handshaking happens where you try to figure out what CODECs you will use to exchange audio, video, facsimile, IMs etc. Then end result is a collection of sessions directly between the user-agents that called one another.
Let me make that REALLY clear. Beyond the proxy / location service, the VSP (voice provider) is not in ANY way involved in the media flows. Why should it be? It doesn't care.
Enter CALEA requirements -- which are really poorly laid our I might add -- suddenly the VSP must carry the media and relay it to the other party and optionally duplicate each CODEC frame and send it to some black box (or red box as the case may be).
This has serious consequences on bandwidth consumption for VSPs.
But they can just do this when there is a tap! (You object)
And I counter with the fact that such an arrangement violates the CALEA requirements that a party subject to monitoring cannot know that they are under surveillance. End result? All media MUST flow through a choke point from which it could be duplicated.
This has catastrophic consequences on the bandwidth a VSP can expect to need to meet their service levels.
This may or may not be a Good Thing. I think it is NOT a Good Thing. One thing is certain, this issue is a very Material Thing for VSPs.
Well, yes. This is exactly what they will begin to do, if the "problem" becomes serious enough. Key escrow schemes have been proposed before; they'll be proposed again. We enjoy a certain amount of anonymity because the Internet's still a bit like the wild west. It won't last forever.
you mean "innocent until proven guilty." i think.. i was confused for a minute.
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
--And that Natalia Baron ho' ain't hard on the eyes either. I wanna see those two cumbanks going ASS-2-ASS like at the end of Requiem For A Dream. You're right about the quality of the show though; now all I like to do is tape parts of it with those two, splice it together with bits of old DS9 footage featuring 7 of 69 and watch it with the sound off and plenty of tissus and Aloe Vera lotion at hand. IT'S SPERMTASTIC!!!!!!!!!
Not yet.
"If you're using crypto, the FBI will just break into your house/office and backdoor your computer."
Forever known as "Goatsexing" a computer.
It's not the easiest program to use, but it does work well. It's development has been discontinued, but you can still get the source code if you get it quickly. I'd like very much to see someone pick up its development, or to at least use its technology in a new program.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I bet the majority of people who wound up in the Soviet GULAG under Stalin thought that way, too. Yeah, you don't matter--until the moment that the Maximum Leader decides that you do. And that is the problem with a runaway security state, isn't it?
Tap this!
" That's survival of the fittest"
And when that cheese-eater crosses the centerline and headends into you, is that "survival of the fittist"? How nice of you to volunteer.
That's why I'll continue to encrypt all important (and unimportant!) conversations. For email I always use GPG (regardless of how important the message is).
-- Begin cyphertext -- ,jbn ui nute45v q
rREd hg uyyuyt 56dgvjk 88 yfd rt jgjhgyu i
88 g7jg kjh 9h hlkjghf y6 iu o i9uh fxdtet
hg 66f ibhhkh jtydrs jhb
-- End cyphertext --
-- MarkusQ
Why don't you go through some of the records of COINTELPRO? The reason we have so many of the restrictions we do (many of which are being undone by P.A.T.R.I.O.T.) is because our government has been caught-- relatively recently-- abusing its powers, and using them to spy on political dissenters.
The recent craziness regarding terrorist attacks has undone a lot of the protections that we've come to take for granted in the past couple of decades. We have to deal with the fact that freedom of speech and conscience are always going to be at risk, as long as we're willing to be careless about protecting them.
Fcuk The Feds!!! Sue Me!!!
2,200,000 taps? good god that is sickly a sickly number.
i just get a giddy feeling in my stomach to know my tax dollars are being wasted on drug related bullshit like this. "The war on drugs".... such a complete waste.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
GNAA is whack.
All drugs. Fine, put a warning on the packet, these drugs will kill you, but FFS legalise them!
All the police and courts are doing is creating false scarcity which in a market economy simply pushes up the price, which in turn encourages suppliers. How long has the War On Drugs been going on? Decades. Since before I was born and they're still patently losing.
We are having to deal with the effects of the high price of drugs; Muggings, prostitution, burglaries, car jacking, gang warfare etc.
Just legalise the bloody stuff, regulate the quality and stick some tax on it to pay for rehabilitation.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Seriously, SSL is good to secure pretty much everything. You might have to worry about padding if your packets' lengths vary depending on content, but if not, don't reinvent the wheel.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Well I don't think they realize how much it would cost to do this. Prepare for an increase in taxes. Unless a normal packet sniffer can do this.
You may tap my phone. You may monitor my VOIP. You may intercept my e-mails. You may pillage my mail box and scrounge through my trash can. I accept all of these violations of my civil rights so that you can employ one more FBI agent and help stave off George's hemorrhaging unemployment figures. It's a form of entertainment for me, to say silly things in these mediums, just to amuse the man sitting in the van down the street, sipping cold coffee and eating stale donuts.
But I'll be damned if you're touching my carrier pigeons. I will feed them steroids and fit them with armor, if necessary, to keep you from interfering with my God-given right to private communications.
Any ideas?
It makes sense for them to use wiretaps to catch drug dealers that aren't the CIA's own. Most of the money that going into CIA terrorist activities comes from drug money, because it's harder ( basically impossibly ) to track than tax money.
And then there's the fact that those people who use drugs are far more likely to lean to the left ( away from the CIA & Pentagon ).
Looks like 1984 is here, only 20 years later than predicted. Enjoy your fascist society, Americans. Land of the free, my arse!
Isn't SSL designed for a streaming connection? In the case of VoIP, you need to have lots of small (10-40 bytes) chunks encrypted intependently (because some may get lost), so it's completely different than a TCP connection.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
uh huh.
-rick
Overgrow the government! Repeal, and end the war on drugs. More harm than otherwise.
www.overgrow.com
Not sure how other providers work, but Vonage does it this way. They have all their equipment, gateways, etc housed in several CLECs across the country. A call from the PSTN to a Vonage number goes to a CLEC containing a Vonage gateway, and from that point on all traffic goes through the public Internet. So if you wanted to tap one of these calls, you'd have to set up some equipment at the CLECs that Vonage uses.
However, you also have Vonage to Vonage calls, in which case they don't touch CLECs or the PSTN (the call never leaves the public Internet), so I don't have any idea how they'd go tapping those. They'd probably have to goto your ISP for something like that.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
PDF file (218 pages)
There's plenty of hardware software combinations to get it done...
In other government news... The government also wants to control your mind via psychotronics, and now back to Jennifer and Ben
MoFscker
69.5 * 80% = more than half a mars probe
I think you mean "Feds Gonna Tap VoIP"
the spooks are already required to disconnect (or ditch-and-not-listen-to any recording) the instant they realize it's a call that is unrelated to the matter being investigated.
So I can, for example, call my dealer, talk a few minutes about my hemaroids, and then I place my order. Wait until that gets out!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
I'm sorry, troll? the above comment makes sense. I am glad that our government is able to get WARRANTS to tap phone lines. They can't get a warrant without probable cause, and if you're innocent, who cares? it's not like there's a good chance that the people listening know you personally so you won't be embarrassed. You can expect to have a private phone call if you haven't done anything wrong. The possiblity that someone will be listening is very very low (unless you've done something). But for the few times when somebody innocent makes a private phone call and it's tapped into, the chances that it will hurt them is even lower. If a cop knows you just had sex with your dog, who cares? you don't know the cop, i'm sure he doesn't know anybody you know, and nobody you ever come into contact with with know. So for those few innocent people, it's worth it for people to be able to tap into phone lines. Think how many guilty people have been caught due to wire tapping before they have been able to do more bad stuff. I'm probably hurting my karma here by supporting partial "fascism" (and yes, i'm glad they have to get a warrant. at least that keeps them from abusing their power), but I'd like people to look at negative vs. positive side effects of certain things, and wire tapping does a lot more positive.
This has something of a law enforcement component to it but there is certainly a Baby Bell lobbyist in the mix somewhere. By making the requirement that VoIP be accessible for tapping it will limit the number of startups, while the truly criminal will simply encrypted their traffic.
Its sad but not surprising in today's climate. The US isn't what it once was - the largest threat to our way of life isn't al Queda - its our own sold out congress and behavior like this.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
Firstly, I want to make it clear that I do value my privacy, and it is (or would be, at least) comforting to know that my communications are private. I'm with all of you on that.
But what do you expect authorities to do? These people have jobs, they have responsibilities. FOr FBI agents, heir responsibility is to catch criminals, often drug dealers. (Let's not get into whether that's a worthwhile goal--for marijuana, it's questionable, but for lots of other things, not so much.) How are they supposed to do that? These things are all about connections between people. Exchanges and conversations between individuals. Without tapping conversations, their only feasible way to EVER catch practically anybody is if they get a tip from another person, and then they would still have a hard time convicting them.
Of course, there are other things tapping is used for as well. Important things. Things that might be even harder to find through other means than drug deals.
So I don't like this, ultimately, but I can't find a way around it, if these people are going to do their jobs, and as such I think it's unfair to get mad at some of these people for doing what they do.
Just a thought.
>as in, got a judge to OK it
Its not 2000 anymore. Thanks to both Patriot acts (didnt you know the second one was passed in a spending bill?) judicial oversight is mostly a thing of the past. The constitutional protections we took for granted are gone. I don't know why John Ashcroft has such a problem with judicial oversight, but he does and Congress and the Executive branch not SCOTUS (as far as I can tell) don't seem to care much.
This is a very different America than just a couple years ago and we've already seen abuses with the Patriot act being used in non-terror cases like drug trafficking. This just opens up the door to more COINTELPRO and other FBI abuses.
Encryption is more important now than ever. Maybe when the post-911 hysteria and power grabs are over we can have faith in an iota in due process but right now "trusting your government" is the worst thing you can do. Worse, all justifications for recording communication can apply to all communication. If you agree with this, why not put little mics on every person in the country?
Not to mention, last I checked PGPfone is a free download and easy to use. If criminals wanted to speak freely they could use that with impunity.
This is just another way to make VoIP companies subject to regulation. I gaurantee the phone companies are pushing this because they see it as a way to convince the gubbmint to regulate a competing industry with almost no current barrier to entry. Even I can write a half assed VoIP application. But I sure as hell won't if I'm subject to the kind of regulations that the phone companies are.
All I can say is I worked as a R&D software engineer for Nortel Networks, and this is nothing new.
We were (and they still are) developing voice-over-ip infrastructure equipment (Succession as they call it) and it was -required- that we implement a way for feds to tap the lines before we could even consider rolling out and selling the product.
There are a lot of gov't requirements behind the scenes than you might realize (and people can't talk about)...
The Australian Federal police, do more wiretaps than the American three letter abbreivated law divisions, yet this hasnt become an issue yet. Technology is slightly slower to take up than other countries, but it is getting there. The AFP have almost limiteless resources and It would be interesting to see their take on this situation. Hell they might already be doing it for all I know. References: http://www.alp.org.au/media/0902/20002179.html
But they've got to have a pretty damned good reason to go to all that trouble. I don't think they're going to do all that to a simple home user who wants to chat privately with their significant other. If they go to that trouble to install keyloggers and the like, then they already know pretty much the culprit is who they want...
Of those 2.2 million calls reported that were tapped, how many were actually criminals? And how many other calls were tapped illegally by the same groups? It sounds like X-Files to me. The truth is out there.
Why do people keep moderating up this troll?
Perhaps it's ok if they physically break in to install monitoring devices and such. There are valid reasons for law enforcement to perform survalence. The problem is that it is too easy for them to monitor whoever they want whenever they want, and so they do it without even thinking about whether or not they have any reason to do so. Gaining physical access and installing monitoring devices, while it entirely circumvents any sort of crypto, is more costly than pulling data off the wires, and thus less likely to happen without a good reason. It will still happen without a good reason sometimes, but this will occur less frequently if the costs are greater.
I don't know what you guys are complaining about, 80 wire taps for a penny seems pretty cheap to me. :P
why does everyone hate scientology anyway? and what IS it?
is it good, or is it whack?
...or running for congress.
" It seems pretty stupid. Seems to me I should be allowed to do whatever I want to my own body, so long as I'm not harming others. "
Funny thing about consequences is that it's too late to realize that you're harming others when they happen. Does the person who drink to excess because he can do what ever he wants with his body, goes out and runs over a family, realize beforehand that he would harm someone?
In short, the "As long as I'm not hurting others" excuse fails the litmus test of history. People are bad at accurately gauging the future consequences of their actions. Don't make me pull out a history book and prove it. This forum isn't big enough to contain all the examples.
For example, I have heard from former PacBell CO technicians that the wiretap and pen trace rate in the Los Angeles area is staggeringly high -- in some offices, upwards of 10% of the circuits have some sort of "tap" installed (From a remote terminal, a tap looked the same as a simple trace device that only records the number dialed, not the voice traffic on the line).
Unless of course the reason there is a tap on your line is not to produce admissable criminal evidence, but because you (or the line) a politcal activist, a nosy reporter, associated with an unpopular political organization, or just chose to support the wrong candidate in the last election... If you want to know more about government abuse of wiretaps (and increase the likelyhood of being the subject of a wiretap yourself), just do a little research into the past and present of communications intercepts and abuse by the public and private sector -- COINTELPRO, CALEA, RISSNET, MAGLOCLEN, IN-Q-TEL, Takefuji, DSC1000.Or just pick up a newspaper and read about the neverending stream of FBI bugging devices found in Philadelphia over the past three months...
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Remember the Clipper Chip? Practically nobody wanted to use something like that so it simply disappeared. AFAIK several other countries (eg. France) have laws severely restricting cryptography.
(No it's not working and secure cyptography cannot be stopped.)
The problem with your post is that WoD isn't just about Marijuana. There is a whole slew of drugs and "substances" (sniffing for example). There was a story earlier about teenagers abusing cough medication. Making Marijuana legal will only make a slight dent.
The problem with the world right now is simply we're disrespectful, and shallow with respect to our bodies. We abuse them with drugs, and food. We shape this, and carve that, inject this, and suck that because deep down we're unhappy with ourselves. Our bodies aren't temples, but something we simply occupy, and do as we wish, because science can fix our mistakes. When we learn to love and respect ourselves "as we are" then we will not feel the need to snort this, and inhale that to compensate for the fact that life isn't what we wish it to be.
Well, at least we don't have to worry about all those drugs, anymore.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
...has been sent to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
They're telling you that if you download Skype from a server they don't control, then they're not responsible for you installing what you download. I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty fair to not claim responsibility for what someone downloads from someone else's server.
NO thats just bad luck. Its not like the drug war stops that kind of mess anyway. In fact there is no way now for a police officer to tell if you are intoxicated beyond judgement and expensive and time comsuming piss tests. If drugs were legal than scientists could come up with new products that would test for drug intoxication onsite (much like a breathalizer) because there would be a large profit margin for it. Instead, its easier to get away with snorting coke and driving rather than drinking and driving because the cop doesn't have a surefire way to bust you if you no longer possess the drug. Many people have this idea that if we legalize drugs that everybody will start using them and no one will be safe from the crazed junkies. Truth is, boys and girls, people all over the country are doing drugs anyway. The only safe haven from encoutering a dangerous druggie you have now is the same as the one you would have if drugs were legal, pure luck.
Open Source Sushi
..would this obviate the need for a Fed tap on VoIP, if they assumed everyone who opened the page was guilty?
(dons pointy tinfoil hat)
(realizes he donned said hat too late...and doffs it.)
I, for one, welcome our new VoIP overlords. ( I feel terrible about this...but I lost my train of thought...really...it has nothing to do with the jack-booted thugs at my door demanding I hand over my lapto......
For you idiots who don't have a clue about the thugs running this circus called the usa,
Bush likes to help supply drugs
that's what he calls fighting the drug war.
Bush Will Not Stop Afghan Opium Trade
Charles R. Smith
Thursday, March 28, 2002
The Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan. President Bush, who previously linked the Afghan drug trade directly to terrorism, has now decided not to destroy the Afghan opium crop.
"The war in Afghanistan will be decided within the next six weeks based on whether or not the poppy crops go to market," stated a U.S. intelligence official who recently returned from Afghanistan.
The source, who requested that he not be identified, noted that the opium poppy fields are blooming and ready for harvest. U.S. forces could destroy the crops using aerial spraying techniques, but no such actions are planned.
"If the estimated 3,000 tons of opium reaches market, it will lead to a new upsurge in international terrorism and a great loss in international credibility for the Bush administration and the United States' ability to conduct war in the 21st century. America's enemies throughout the world from China to North Korea to Iran will be emboldened by this lack of strategic vision and political will," said the source.
U.N. Ban on Opium Trade
The U.S. and all its allies signed onto a worldwide ban on opium sales. In January 2002, the U.N. issued a report on the Afghan opium production, noting that allied forces needed to act quickly to destroy the 2002 opium poppy crops before the end of spring.
"The global importance of the ban on opium poppy cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan is enormous," states the January 2002 U.N. report on drug trafficking.
"Afghanistan has been the main source of illicit opium: 70 percent of global illicit opium production in 2000 and up to 90 percent of heroin in European drug markets originated from Afghanistan," states the U.N. report.
"There are reliable indications that opium poppy cultivation has resumed since October 2001 in some areas (such as the southern provinces Uruzgan, Helmand, Nangarhar and Kandahar), following the effective implementation of the Taliban ban on cultivation in 2001, not only because of the breakdown in law and order, but also because the farmers are desperate to find a means of survival following the prolonged drought," states the U.N. report.
This Is Your CIA
Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed.
The threat to overthrow Musharraf is motivated in part by Islamic radical groups linked to the Pakistani intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The radical groups reportedly obtain their primary funding through opium production and trade.
"Pakistan's intelligence service is corrupt, unreliable, and we don't owe them a damn thing. The CIA has a very checkered past as far as who they choose to get in the sack with. Maybe it's time to stop being clever and do the right thing," stated another source close to the Bush administration.
"If they [the CIA] are in fact opposing the destruction of the Afghan opium trade, it'll only serve to perpetuate the belief that the CIA is an agency devoid of morals; off on their own program rather than that of our constitutionally elected government," stated the source.
"If we don't take this opportunity to destroy the opium production in Afghanistan, we are no better than the Taliban, who did nothing to stop it despite claims to the contrary," he concluded.
This Is Your CIA on Drugs
The CIA decision not to stop the Afghan opium production has been greeted silently by U.S. allies. According to intelligence sources, both the U.K. and French governments have quietly given their approval of the American policy by not acting in accordance with the U.N. global ban on opium traffic.
However, one forei
The only way to guarantee being able to tap voip is to generally outlaw and/or regulate cryptography, such as only allowing very weak cryptography, or mandating a scheme where all keys have to be known with the state authorities.
At the same time, such a system (key escrow) will make use of cryptography across national borders impossible, since there is no state or supranational authority (such as the UN) that would be trusted by all national states to keep the keys needed for decryption.
Can you imagine France to use cryptography using keys known by the US authorities? Can you imagine the US using a system whose keys are entrusted to some U.N. authority? In the latter case, if the US would want to get a key in order to decrypt some domestic voip conversation, would the UN allow it?
In other words: if the US really wants to keep this possibility, the only option is to either outlaw cryptography totally, or to mandate a scheme that can only work domestically and outlawing all other forms of cryptography.
Either way, international ecommerce is killed.
I think that the US autorities, whether they like it or not, have to be prepared for a time where they can no longer tap communications at all, or they must accept a severe blow to the global (and thus national) economy.
Agreed, but this misses the point. Anyone wanting secure communication will use direct VOIP, with open source software with encryption of their own choosing.
The FBI has in the past been used for political purposes, so having the FBI able to hear everything can be political repression.
A recent "60 Minutes" program said that about 40% of the people in U.S. prisons are very low-level drug dealers, too poor even to hire a lawyer. The U.S. government has the highest percentage of its people in prison of any country, ever, more than 6 times that of European nations. This makes some people say that the U.S. government is preparing for a repressive regime.
with trillons of $ at stake.
The drug cartel can buy what it wants to protect it self, and they do.
The drug cartells have so much cash they can afford to design/build their own sat and launch from china for their own private voice calls under a fake company designed for normal sat calls or even just launch from russia.
On the ground, they have so much cash they can hire the best guns in town (esp after all these unemployed ppl) to make their own high tech russian design encryptos tiny phones. And they do.
THe only way the big cartells can be touched is with the military, even then the US isnt going to go thumping down 5 countries and doing it.
Even after all this, after 30-60 years of drug dealing and using all profits to make legit businesses and reinvesting in markets and whatnot, its estimated up to 20% of the world GDP is derived from drug trafficing, so tearing all those down would just cause a massive collapse, you cant just seize 20% of all businesses in the US and 'resell em' at bargin prices. The drug barons will trash/burn their old businesses down after being seized and even after that would probably hunt down the new owners.
Bottom line, legalize all drugs, (no cant do that, the old fatcats dont like drugs) but then the CIA would loose 1/2 its revenue.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
And this coming from an Anonymous Coward...
Paraphrasing Andre Bacard, people who have nothing to hide are either complete dullards or extreme exhibitionists.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
80% of the federal wiretaps are to enforce drug laws? Sounds like reducing or eliminating the relevant drug laws would drastically reduce the need for wiretaps, helping to alleviate many of the other issues surrounding the liberal use of government eavesdropping.
It isn't always just perpetrators who cause the problems and impose costs on society. It's also the mere fact that our lawmakers have decided to make particular activities illegal. Not only do we spend billions enforcing a variety of behavior-restricting rules, we end up creating additional secondary rules that further restrict the rights of everybody and increase the power of the government. The copyright system is another good example. Reducing copyright protection would reduce the need to monitor and control every little electronic activity anybody performs, and to trend toward criminalizing any technology that might threaten the business activities of copyright holders.
If you suggest eliminating drug or copyright laws, people will immediately envision the streets littered with semi-conscious heroin addicts, or a world without music, literature, film or techical innovation because nobody has any incentive to create anything. Probably neither extreme would actually happen. On the other hand, a picture of a world where average people routinely curtail what they say and do for fear that they might look suspicious to the ubiquitous surveillance system is much more probable. There's already an empirical basis for it.
We should examine the root laws that spawn these secondary restrictions and determine which ones are really worth enforcing, not just in terms of the financial cost but in terms of the freedoms lost.
Well I'm not exactly going to be discussing any drug deals with grandma....
I'd just make it illegal to do anything illegal. Problem solved!
One wonders then how it is they were able to deal with crime before the advent of technology.
:-)
Actually, they didn't have too hard a time. They found the suspect, and questioned him - using whatever methods were deemed appropriate at the time - until they had a confession.
Easy as pie. No technology needed at all.
Forensics was initially very unpopular with law enforcement, as it meant a sh*tload of extra work, seemingly with no visible payoff. People who advocated it had a hard time keeping their rank.
Power corrupts you know.
I think that was my point.
Power doesn't corrupt neither more nor less than in previous generations, anyway. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to how good or bad humans behave. Especially in a group.
What you just said suggests that you have very little knowledge of how public-key cryptography works. It is highly unlikely that any of the PGP ciphers have been broken - they have been studied for years and no serious flaws have been found (that's why they're in PGP!) To draw a parallel between that and the Enigma machine is just plain laughable. With current computing power the US government wouldn't be able to crack a single PGP message by the time the universe came to an end.
If criminals were smart, they would be running telcoms or energy companies, or on Wall Street, hyping Internet stocks.
Or they might be running one of the world's most evil monopolies. OOPS! Sorry BillyG, I let the cat out of the bag! Off to jail with your sorry criminal ass.
Remember, don't do business with convicted felons.
Yeah but what if someone left the country? If you leave the US, are no longer a US citizen, and reveal this information while you live in say, Italy, can the US then drag your ass back and charge you with a crime?
If you don't think and obey like us, if your "different", well then maybe your a criminal or terrorist or un-american or .... Better investigate and toss you in jail.
Joe McCarthy
PS: I miss Joe Stalin.....
"They can't get a warrant without probable cause, and if you're innocent, who cares?"
Probable cause (Judicial Oversight) for wiretaps is out the window bubba, or don't you read the news?
It matters because it's a question of degrees.
It used to cost more in time and money to go to FISA, so marginal cases were discouraged. But no need to bother with that anymore -- with the (blanket, mass-produced) National Security Letter (implemented December, 03), they've endowed law enforcement with all the powers of the Stazi. These are historic, unprecedented, regressive, repressive, changes to our government. Congratulations, to The Party and our corrupt Congress.
To those who would depend on encryption, yes I use it as a matter of course as well, but if outlawed (the very next step), no dice.
I'm surprised that the twenty-somethings here just do not think you can effect any change whatsoever, and adopt a defensive posture. Concentrating on avoidance, rather than repair. That just does not work; if you run, it activates a pursuit reflex (as in wolves), and things get exponentially worse for you. It's the world that you're inheriting, you know. Maybe you just don't appreciate what regimes of the past were like... it's the only answer I can think of for this cultural apathy.
You have to speak out, rationally and clearly, especially when you're in a crowd hostile to your ideas. That's when you have the most effect, because at least half the people in that crowd are uncertain. Yeah, it's harder, but just bitching among friends does absolutely fscking nothing.
The corollary to this, as Noam Chomsky says, is that free speech means allowing precisely that speech which you abhor, at the time you abhor it.
Understand that ALL messages of importance are directed to the 20% of the population which is politically participating. EVERYthing else (sitcoms, sports, shopping hysteria, etc) are just to keep that other 80% from thinking about important matters... to keep them busy. (mooo)
Will the 2004 elections be suspended? I doubt it, but I also doubt that we'll see 2008 elections since Gen. Tommy Franks feels that another major terrorist attack would require suspension of the Constitution. (Why hasn't this guy been arrested for treason?!)
Campaign finance reform is national security.
They always use false arguments to get surveillance society.
Quote from article:
The agencies have asked the Federal Communications Commission to order companies offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to rewire their networks to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on subscribers' conversations.
Without such mandatory rules, the two agencies predicted in a letter to the FCC last month that "criminals, terrorists, and spies (could) use VoIP services to avoid lawfully authorized surveillance." The letter also was signed by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
I have put the following argument many times:
Ask Security Services in the US, UK, Indonesia (Bali) or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
Perhaps using mobile when absolutely essential, saying - "Meet you in the pub Monday" (human bomb to target A), or Tuesday (target B) or Sunday (abort).
The Internet has become a tool for government to snoop on their people - 24/7.
The terrorism argument is a dummy - total bull*.
INTERNET SURVEILLANCE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP TERRORISTS - THAT IS SPIN AND PROPAGANDA
This propaganda is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) to say the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Please see any one of my posts on this topic.
GPG and PGP relies on numbers that are extremely hard to factor. In fact unfactorability is the lynchpin of most encryption methods. So a massively-parallel factoring engine made up of specialized ASICs could work wonders... (cough)
Also, I have to wonder about the AES (Rijndael) algo, which is a recent development. Although it is Dutch, it is the product of our 'modern political times', so could it have a backdoor?
Campaign finance reform is national security.
They could mandate that any attempt to subvert the govt's ability to listen is illegal. This defeats all hope of encryption as defense.
How about concentrating on who's passing these damned laws, for a change? Get to the source of the problem?
Campaign finance reform is national security.
"The analog phone network is pretty physically secure" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhaHAHAHAHAHAHA. *gasp*breath*
you poor dissilusioned soul.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Do you mean a judicially-reviewed warrant? Because that power has now been taken away from the Judiciary. The Executive branch has been given authority by The Party (Dec 03), to issue a blanket letter. An historic change in (im)balance of power.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
All you need is call setup, to get IP/ports at both ends of the virtual circuit. Get this with any of the (already-installed) Carnivore machines at ALL major ISPs; get setup with a new machine at Vontage; or by port-sniffing the backbone. Thence track the call at level2 router taps (backbone).
Unfortunately, no problem.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
Clark said yesterday that it's a lie that government can't keep us absolutely safe from another terrorist attack. Surely no one at /. will stand in the way of Clark's capability as president to keep us safe?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I can't understand why some high net-worth individual hasn't hired a sniper to take out drug lords? Surely some rich kids have died of smack? So why hasn't Dad done something about it?! Chicken, I guess.
Oh, another drug lord takes his place? No problem.... Give them the same security hysteria that's trying to be sold to us.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
Skype uses port 80, if there is a firewall. VOIP cannot be identified in any reliable way.
Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it.
Homer, The Iliad
police intercepted nearly 2,200,000 conversations with court approval
how many did they intercept without court approval?
I wonder how much of this is a moot point because if they see 'suspicious' IP traffic whats to stop them from making like the RIAA and finding out who you are and then just placing an old fashioned microphone bug in your house? Even the best encryption doesnt do much against them listening to your voice from the next room... the solution to this kind of problem lies far away from just stopping them intercepting your email... we really do need to start holding our law enforcement more accountable again, like back in the days when you needed warrants for these things. Revising (or removing) the patriot acts might be a start
Cited elsewhere from some Comp Sci textbook:
"What you do in the bathroom is not a secret, but it is private."
Wise words. Originally used to define semantics for a security model I think, but it's just as good a response to the "only criminals have something to hide" bit.
Ashcroft: We'll take your case off the burner, if you'll help us put "Trusted Computing" in every home and business.
Gates: OK.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
One word: DMCA. (And more such laws staying between the geeks and the enjoyment of life.)
"In 2002, the most recent year for which information is available, police intercepted nearly 2,200,000 conversations with court approval, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps for that year cost taxpayers $69.5 million, and approximately 80 per cent were related to drug investigations."
...
Well I don't know what the police / FBI would be doing if it weren't for the war on drugs. I'm so pleased that they have something to keep them busy.
It really takes the heat off my counterfitting and white-slavery operations!
NOTE to FBI: This post is a joke and for humor value only. I am not involved in any illegal activity, nor do I dissent with the presidential administration in any way. Please don't take me to guantanamo (sp?)
I'd like to challenge whoever modded the parent comment 'off-topic'. I think that cheekyboy is actually raising a good point. The USA (the country that I love) is losing it's unilateral control on the satellite/encrypt/information economy, and it's something that was bound to happen. Groups that we consider 'evil' (as we once hated the bear of mother russia or the regime of west germany) may soon be able to collect data and information using their own secure networks. Iran is looking to put up a comsat in the near future, the USSR and France have started opening up their satellite networks to businesses.
Our government is trying to contain this situation and keep as much of a grasp on the flow of information around the world as they can. This is in their nature, and is in their design. I doubt that bin-whozen will be wispering into the mouthpiece of the first private VOIP-net cellphone within days of it's release in Ginza; but I do recognize that this 'leveling of the playing field' will be an unhappy day for the 1984-esqe fans.
You may not think that this changing in the balance of who controls the floodgates of the 'information age' is pertinent to the topic. But some of us do, so save the 'OT' for the "bsd/linux/mac/sco/m$-is-dying" tripe, don't just smack it on something you don't happen to agree with.
wise words from a wise man:
"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet." - William Gibson
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse