Time Warner To Comply With Wiretap Law

rekkanoryo writes "Time Warner Cable is taking steps to comply with the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, which requires telecommunications providers 'to help police conduct electronic surveilance.' Note that broadband providers are not yet required to comply with the law, but the FBI has stated its desire to force broadband providers under the law's jurisdiction. Invasion of privacy anyone?"

Comments

PGP

[slavefishy]

Now would be the time to get using PGP and similar software.

Re:PGP

[pla]

Now would be the time to get using PGP and similar software.

Not a bad point at all - Such tools have existed for well over a decade, yet very few people use them. Time to really get on the ball and start teaching our friends and relatives - Even if we make it totally automated at their end, the goal has changed somewhat. Thanks to this new law, it doesn't really matter if physical access to either end compromises the connection, we just need to make sure nothing goes out in cleartext. So, even something as simple as "Okay Mom, if a little box pops up saying something about GPG, just type my birthday, okay?" would represent a dramatic improvement over our current situation.

However, we need to make the use of encryption more ubiquitous than just email. For example, almost no traffic leaves my house that doesn't use SSL. However, for *incoming*, therein we have the biggest flaw in security. Currently, we have almost no way to prevent our ISP (or the feds through them) from watching our web browsing. Even using an anonymizing proxy doesn't help much, if the traffic itself comes to me in the clear.

Ah, I babble a bit. Overall, I just want to make the point that we need to stop talking about how we can get around stupid laws like this with encryption, and start doing so, before it becomes a real problem. So, anyone reading this... Don't put it off until tomorrow. Install GPG on the PCs of everyone you know today. Tell their browser to use an anonymizing proxy that always uses https (Do any? If you know of one, please reply with a link). Outright remove any telnet and FTP clients from their machine, and replace them with SSH and SFTP clients. Kill AIM, and replace it with the encryption-enabled version of Trillian.

We need to make sure that everything going in or out uses encryption.


As an aside, if everyone used encrypted email, spam would cease to exist. It just costs to much CPU time for the spammers to encrypt ten million messages, thus making a "perfect" email filter as simple as dumping any unencrypted messages. Who needs Bill Gates? We just need to start using the tools already available.

The law, anyone?

[SunPin]

What happens if they don't comply? This is a serious case of "resistance is futile." Time Warner and the FBI are just playing their proper roles. Congress is the group that needs a clue.

What about satellite ISP?

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

So the article mentions new laws for cable and DSL. I wonder if they have covered their bases with wiretap laws for satellite ISPs?
I know little about how staellite internet access is set up beyond the cost and latency specs. Anyone know if there's less/more/similar difficulty involved something like direcway traffic? I would imagine they can still stick something like our friend "carnivore" at the direcway base station?

Alright, I understand the privacy issue...

[ERJ]

But is this really Time Warners fault? They are making provisions to comply with a law. Yes, it does not yet apply to them, but there is a good chance that it will and they are preparing for that. Shouldn't the real issue here be with the law, not the company?

Amazing.

[musingmelpomene]

Megacorporations, for once, have amazing power to do a huge amount of good for freedom in this country - by refusing to comply. They wield enough political power to shut this ridiculous new measure down. Their "pull" could be used to make sure this law never took effect.

But instead, they're kowtowing to the government, ensuring that we lose another of the few shreds of privacy we had left.

Organized resistance by individuals is great - but organized resistance by corporations (who should realize that, with all the corporate scandals, may be hurting themselves by giving more wiretap power to the government) would be fantastic and pretty much unstoppable.

Let's see a show of corporate brute force! Who's with me?

Re:Amazing.

[nomadic]

Megacorporations, for once, have amazing power to do a huge amount of good for freedom in this country - by refusing to comply.

Oh god no. The day corporations stop complying with the laws you don't like is the day they'll stop complying with the laws you do like.

Environmental regulations? Out the window. OSHA laws? Gone. Child labor? Hiya kids, grab a pick and head to the mines. We can go back to the early part of the century when companies could spy on their workers' private lives in order to ensure they were living "morally".

encrypted

[millahtime]

So, how do you tap something with 128bit or better encryption???? What happens when it gets to 512bit encryption???? Can the FBI really decrypt that to tap it???

Encryption

[lofoforabr]

That kind of thing won't work. At least not for the more sophisticated criminal networks, who will surely use encryption to do away with wiretapping.
It's like banning guns in the hope that criminals won't get them either. They will still do what they are used to do, but by other means.

Tired of it.

[robslimo]

Good Dog. I'm tired of this erosion of my rights. Yeah, 9-11 was a Bad Thing (tm) and something had to be done, but the situation is getting out of hand. It ain't just GWB, either. The lawmakers as a whole are either reacting to or catering to the fear factor.

Wiretapping has worked pretty well in the past... but with the proper legal steps taken first (court orders, whatever). Even this has been abused, but I can't see how wholesale wiretapping can be a good thing, ever.

Questions...

[vchoy]

Quote: "Legal experts said the 85-page filing includes language that could be interpreted as forcing companies to build back doors into everything..."

How would they enforce this with regards to encryption technologies?
My point is if people have something to hide, then they will use whatever mechanism there is out there to hide it. Can authorities really achieve their goals by simply imposing wiretapping laws on broadband providers?

Re:said it before, and i'll say it again....

[millahtime]

So, it's ok to tap the phone but if the communication goes over the internet it's not ok to tap???? Why is one ok but not the other???

To tap either one they would still need a court order. The same approval process. It's not like they can just go monitor anyone they want whenever they want.

would be required to

[Phrack]

Given some previous announcements of Time Warner to get into the phone biz (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/36287 for one example), they would already be required to comply with wiretap laws. Nothing surprising here.

Don't blame the provider for the law. Blame your lawmaker.

Re:said it before, and i'll say it again....

[DAldredge]

Well , the can. All they have to do is 'pinky swear' that it is part of a National Security Matter. Just like they said the USA PATRIOT act would be used only against terrorists. Well, till they used it against that strip club owener is Vegas who has NO TERRORIST TIES>

In short, they lie.

Privacy? Over PUBLIC wires?

[blcamp]

C'mon people.

The internet is a PUBLIC network of public content. Where the hell does anyone get the idea that there is a concept of privacy involved here?

(This is not intended to be sarcastic, rhetorical, nor trolling.)

If you have (or seek) private information, encrypt it (or have it encrypted), (have it) wrap(ped) it in a .zip or other file, and encrypt the thing again.

If you don't want the Government to watch what you are saying and/or doing, then don't give them anything to watch.

This isn't a Bush or Ashcroft thing... this is a technology thing. Any time technology is seen as capable of doing something, ANYTHING, you can bet someone will try do do so... without regard to whom is in charge.