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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?"
the US is becoming the feared bohemoth, in George Orwell's 1984.
Soon, everyone will have a camera in their homes, and there will be no escaping Big Brother.
no flamebait intended.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Broadband providers say the FBI's request would, for the first time, force cable providers that sell broadband to come under the jurisdiction of 1994's Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which further defined the already existing statutory obligations of telecommunications carriers to help police conduct electronic surveillance. Telephone companies that use their networks to sell broadband have already been following CALEA rules.
Ok, fair enough I suppose. But the fact however, as has been pointed out here, is that not all programs are being written in the US. To make IM, VoIP, IRC, and or whatever other type of program that allows communication over IP have backdoors is bad enough. But to expect that every program on the planet has one is just downright silly. But, thats not really the bad part...
Under CALEA, police must still follow legal procedures when wiretapping Internet communications. Depending on the situation, such wiretaps do not always require court approval, in part because of expanded wiretapping powers put in place by the USA Patriot Act.
Bad, bad, bad. Is it so much to ask for due process here? I mean it's part of our own set of friggen laws. Is it so much to ask that the Feds follow the laws before they make new ones?
--Mike--
Move along people.
It was possible to wiretap anything 10 years ago. At about that time Cisco started shipping some cards that were too fast for capturing traffic on them in real time.
In 3-4 more years they deployed CEF which made NATing traffic to a remote server for collection not work either. Search the net for people swearing about D.O.S.track not working anymore.
The only reason for doing so was profit and that their gear did not have enough CPU. There was nothing about any bloody privacy.
As for one thing I will be very happy if the routers will be forced to have a working debug mode by law.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
So, guys, you prefer an environment where nothing is regulated, where criminals can do their jobs in peace without their privacy being invaded by the 'big bad guys' in law enforcement. Well, come to my country; we are new to democracy, I am sure you would feel more at home!
I'm convinced that a promising business venture would be a non-US ISP which would sell IPSec tunnels to anyone. The termination point would be outside the US and would preserve privacy.
Trolling is a art,
Take a job in construction.
The housing market is so hot right now that we don't have enough labourers to build houses fast enough so we are outsourcing. I just read in the paper the other day that Ottawa is allowing Canadian companies to hire Americans.
Best thing about being in Canada is that our politicians are all crooked (sponsorship scandal?) but at least we are not scared of them.
Rule #1 if you want to work in Canada?
Roof rhymes with Goof
Organizations are powerful in this regard, but by taking voluntary measures, even if they are to the detriment to the consumer, they can show due dilegence both in court cases that relate to criminal activities that occur over their networks and for public relation issues that call for increased monitoring.
Also, by taking such preemptive actions, they may offset legislative controls which would in the end be more costly to implement. God knows I'd pick voluntary measures over the hours I spend trying to figure out how to comply with vague Congressional regulations and rules.
(I for one will be switching to DSL. I believe my money talks, and I'll send e-mails letting corporate management know why they lost my $420/year in fees. If enough people did this, the populace could become just as powerful of a force as any organization or government agency.)
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
It's none of their business what I or anybody else does with a network. Just another great reason to encrypt your traffic. Seems like their just shooting themselves in the foot to me. My first instinct is to say let them go for it, but then the idea of "your tax dollars at work" comes to mind and on second thought I think it's a rather lame waste of money as all they'll see from me is line noise ;)
I wonder how long it will be before we have mandatory key escrow? "To protect us against the terrorists," of course.
when the us had strict crypto laws, the openbsd team made canada their home. so moving to a "warmer" legal climate has worked in the past.
except... since both canada and the united states are members of the wto and signatories to the ftaa a more "relaxed" set of privacy laws in one country could be construed as an unfair subsidy and taken up with either of the two trade organizations dispute resolution bodies.
2 1337 4 u!
I've seriously considered offering a service providing ssh tunneling from say, a pc on a cable modem to a server at a remote location, which would then route the traffic as requested. This should be plenty feasible, as you should be able to use ssh tunneling w/ just about any application.
Now might be a good time to look into this further.
I use gpg in Evolution to clearsign messages. A few of my Windows packing friends and family have expressed an interest in using encryption in their email. Not having a Windows system at my disposal, I haven't found any good drop-in PGP (or gpg) plugin for Outlook Express or Mozilla Mail. Of course, I haven't spent a hell of a lot of time looking.
Yeah, yeah... I should tell them to ditch OE, but doing that implies that I'll be their tech support until the end of time (and I have a problem saying no).
Anyone found a good solution? It should look good and require little interaction. I think Evolution's support of gpg is fantastic.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
yeah.
What ever happened to "... the land of the free, and the home of the brave" ? Sure looks good on a bumper sticker, but are we gonna have to learn to chuckle when we see that?
My life is an open book ... up to a point.
Interesting.. It seemed so wrong when it was happening to my grandparents in Cuba. As a child, I was told to watch what I say (I was nine) when writing to my grandparents because my mail would be read by the Cuban government. At the time, I thought it was the craziest thing in the world--but it seems Americans are getting used to this sort of thing. Unfortunately, encryption wasn't an option. The Cuban government took my grandfather's secret decoder ring.
I'm a Canadian. Big Brother is here, watching. CSIS works hand-in-hand with the CIA.
We now have anti-biker laws that go wayyyyy beyond what is happening in USA right now. Being part of a criminal organization here is harmful to your health! The CIA/DEA/FBI _ALL_ have offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, etc.
If I could suggest a place to move it would be Holland, so far they are BY FAR the most Liberal, free country on earth. I'm not talking about drug laws either.
Mod +5 Drunk
Better yet, point those webcams out the window and let "The Man" watch the cars going down your street... Out of focus, of course, because you wouldn't want to broadcast someone's license plate... Let them watch your grass grow, or squirrels playing with their nuts in the trees...
*sigh* guess its time to break out the tin-foil hats...
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm a Canadian. Big Brother is here, watching. CSIS works hand-in-hand with the CIA.
As does the RCMP, apparently:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/
That said, we have only so much tolerance for Big Brother, and especially for the wishes of our southern brethren. CSIS may do the CIA's bidding, but when an issue is outed and has popular support, they will often back down.
Plus, CSIS has a reputation for being bloody incompetent. It may be unjustified, but it's true.
That's kind of ironic. Before 9/11, I would have been interested in moving to the U.S.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
But, you know...seriously...while no huge fan of Pres. Bush....from what I hear from Kerry...and the more I learn of him and his views. I don't really see him making ANY kind of difference over issues like this (privacy)...or most the others. I think both parties are so owned by big money obligations to corporate interests...that nothing will change.
At this point...the only real difference I see is in who wants to raise my taxes...and even that isn't a sure thing on either side to bet on...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Isn't this exactly what AnonX promises? For $6/month, you can tunnel all of your traffic over an encrypted VPN to Vanatua and then to the Internet at large. Vanatua has excellent privacy protection, and AnonX doesn't keep any logs, anyway. The FBI's pressure on ISP's makes AnonX seem even more attractive.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
as a tbt (technical barrier to trade). despite the wto's fluffy wording about not wanting to impose standards on member nations, the definition of tbt's is very loosely worded. the mitigating factor to this are a series of special case exceptions that deal with: human and animal health, the environment and a few other areas. i spent 20 minutes looking for anything on privacy as an escape from tbt action and came up with zilch. it may be there, but i doubt it.
now, for this to happen, a nation would have to launch a complaint with the wto and go through the whole rigamarole. it's not like the wto keeps it's own watch dog. however, given the united states' recent, uh, "committment to domestic security" i suspect that this issue is more likely to find itself at the top of the pile than the bottom.
lastly, the wto likes for complaining nations to be able to present a dollar value for damages. but it is not required. the entire dispute procedure can be followed through without the complaining nation ever formally stating how much money was lost due to a tbt.
Moreover, as the US's behaviour regarding soft wood and Canadian wheat has shown, these "dispute resolution bodies" have, apparently, no teeth, anyway, so who gives a damn?
no teeth? if you're the united states, maybe. if you're a smaller nation you often can't afford economically to piss off the big players. nobody wants to give the ustr an excuse to retalliate. and don't forget that the dsb can get member nations to impose sanctions. technically these sanctions do not even need to be limited the same sector as the disagreement.
2 1337 4 u!
Face it people, all this surveillance is going to happen. The government is going to have complete information about you and contrl over you in a few short years. The Internet can be a great tool for communication and education, just like television could have been. It can also be a tool for control, just like television is.
America is in the hands of the bad guys, and within our lifetimes we will have a totalitarian government ruling a flock of consumer/workers who generate wealth for the top 2%. Just like in the good old days, only with HDTV. It's pretty much that way now, but in the future it won't be a secret, and people won't really care as long as the can buy cheap gas, eat Big Macs and watch American Idol on a 42-incher.
I've come to the conclusion that it's just the way the human race works. Some people take charge because the rest let them. Unless you are one of those take-charge types, the best thing you can hope to do is take care of yourself, your family and other people you care about, stay under the radar and live as well as possible. Democracy is like every other good thing that survives until They Who Must Own Everything figure out how to hack it.
Hand them over ofcourse. Despite the fact people in america do not get a fair trial. If you believe they do look a little bit closer at the system of plea bargaining, people are in jail in america without ever having been found guilty or even have had a trial in front of a jury or judge. Nice eh? Oh sure you can refuse the plea bargain. couple of years in jail vs life when you got no money and no experience with the legal system.
No I am afraid that the worst thing in the world that ever happened was the collapse of the soviet union. At least when they were around america had some opposition. Sure sucked if you lived in the soviet union but now the whole world is living in the US.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm all for *more* monitoring -- I want it so widespread that everyone knows that every phone call they make and every email they send *will* be monitored by big brother at some point. The more awareness people have about how easily the government can listen in on their private conversations, the more they will demand that transparent encryption be built in to their phones and email programs. Wholesale wiretapping will make encryption mainstream.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Well, the good news is we all have access to encryption software-- but then again, the govt may already have quantum computing or something. Yeah, we're all screwed.
I doubt it. It's not a big effort for an ISP or the Feds to record all packets being sent from a given IP end point. And since computer traffic is a lot easier to encrypt then phone traffic, if you're paranoid, it's easy to hide what you're doing. Use good crypto and what's the government know? that you sent and recieved packets from a select number of hosts.
bance.net
Didn't you mean "... the land of the fee, and the home of the [tax] slave"?
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