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Wiretapping the Web Easier Than Ever
theodp writes "All the trends are toward easier to tap, says an EFF attorney in MSNBC's recap of last week's 5-0 FCC vote to require broadband and VoIP providers to provide Uncle Sam with wiretapping backdoors and a recent Court decision that stored e-mail is not protected under a strict reading of wiretap laws. Civil-liberties concerns aside, MSNBC notes the FCC is also exploring its Internet regulatory options, including placing tariffs on online newspapers and requiring e-tailers to process 911 calls."
MSNBC notes the FCC is also exploring its Internet regulatory options, including placing tariffs on online newspapers and requiring e-tailers to process 911 calls."
This will move online newspapers & the like away from FCC regulatory effect.
In other words, more offshoring forced by regulation. Wonderful.
What modern encrypted VoIP options are there? I know pgpfone, but that's old, and I know PGP for email. Is there a OSS group working on this? "...[T]he FCC is also exploring its Internet regulatory options, including placing tariffs on online newspapers and requiring e-tailers to process 911 calls." Also, how the hell do those ideas make any sense? Tarriffs on online newspapers? To do what? e-tailers to process 911 calls? I don't even know what they mean by that.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
GnuPG, PGP, and the like are only useful for communication between nerds. Mere mortals have no idea what public key encryption is, never mind how to use it. Nor do they want to bother.
All they want to do is expand their sphere of influence and further gouge Americans in true Big Government style while controlling with an Iron Fist. VoIP annoys them because they are not getting a piece of the pie they made *NO* contribution to and seek only to bring down.
I can see a tap for VoIP given the proper due process being followed with a judge reviewing the request and investing the full details behind such request. But bullshit like the Patriot Act needs to stop in America, it is the destruction of our civil rights and liberties under the guise of getting the "Evil Doers."
What you say is true. But you are wrong, it doesn't have to stay that way. Voting might not get us there, so armed revolution is the only choice. Unfortunatly, not enough people, not even people on Slashdot care enough to do anything about it. I'll admit that I too do not have the will to do anything about it, although I would like things to change. It is an incredibly difficult world we live in, and getting more difficult as technology eclipses our lives. I guess we will just have to see how long we can take it.
thisnukes4u.net
Even 10 years ago, there never was an expectation of privacy on the internet (which is why SSL was developed for secure web transactions). Maybe they're making it a little more plug and play than it used to be, but sniffing a network for plaintext passwords and messages has always been relatively easy.
This is really just another kick in the butt for us all to be using various forms of strong encryption (SSH, PGP, etc) as a regular part of our daily communications.
Seriously though.
Right now there are *many* ways of streaming audio data from point to point across the internet. The only thing that sucks about it, is that ma bell and friends wont route your call through thier network.
Now lets say in 5 years when evreyone is using VOIP and evreyone has an internet connection in some form or another. What is to stop me from firing up my fav app and connecting a mic to my DRM enabled computer and type in your new IPv6 address?
Would we be able to bypass all the corporations entirely? How long till the phone companies get thier protocols hacked, etc?
And as always if some one is ever going to do something that is remotely illegal then they are either stupid and will get caught or use another method and get around.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
What is the bigg issue here? are we afraid that the FBI is going to intercept and read our SPAM? Please do, and while you are at it, delete it for me. Seriously, am I just that naive.? who cares? If anyone thinks that this wasn't happening before, I think their the naive ones.
I said this before, and I will say this again and again, there is nothing private, you are not anonymous, there is simply no-such-thing.
I would suspect that those concerned about wiretap laws and so-called invasion of privacy are truly paranoid, or just plain trying to hide something.
I am not suggesting that the government get carte blanche access to everything, there does need to be some oversight. I know, I know, the oversight commitee will be corrupt, right? (I think that they make pills to ease paranoia).
so, Someone, please draw me a picture, how is this so bad, what the hell is so private, they are not putting cameras in our houses...wait, are they?
wiretapping at the end of the day isnt really an issue online, its so easy to encrypt and its just going to get easier as more and more programs build functionality in for the average user. Although there is the problem of tracing, you cant exactly hide where your packets are going (unless you used an elaborate distributed system of people taking your packets and secretly passing them on while generating random traffic to other places) and you could also have a man-in-the-middle attack if you have no other communications channel to send keys. The point is, if everyone enctrypts, key-word flagging will be out and wiretapping will only be used in cases where its absolutely needed because only those cases will have the resources to spend time cracking encryption or tracing things or waiting for a new key to be given. Still it doesnt mean it should be a green light for tapping, but it already is, the patriot act sorted that out years ago.
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Even after all the news surrounding the recent VoIP problems, wiretapping, TOS agreements, etc I still just signed up for Vonage, the $30/month for unlimited local and long distance was to good to pass up (Not to mention my great dislike for my current telco and the fact that I can't get another one unless I lived on the other side of the street).
My question though about wiretapping is: Is it that big of a deal? From what I've read the same rules apply, so they can't just tap into you for no reason at all. So it just seems sort of like a moot point to scream and yell about VoIP tapping, since landlines have already had that for quite some time. Where's the "This is bad because" deal? Are we worried that because now that there's a wiretapping rule in place that it means that there's the potential for hackers to exploit it? Something else?
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
As soon as the government governs without the consent of the people, and the people say NO MORE then the government legally has no power
That's a real good joke. Ideally, you're right. Now, back to reality, when the people say "NO MORE" that's when they become inmates.
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Learn how to speak with a thick southern accent and then speak without moving your lips and they wont get a thing. I have yet to find a "you talk it types" program that could handle a thick accent
And it's no small surprise that you were modded "troll". We can't have people like you upsetting this delicate social order.
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I think that it's becoming more clear every day that the U.S. is headed in the direction of becoming a police state. The threat of "terrorism" is being used by the governemnt to expand its police powers in the name of "defending liberty." This is as good an example of double-speak as I can think of. Every step the government has taken since 9/11 has seen a reduction in the liberty of Americans to have privacy, be free from unwarranted intrusions and searches, etc.
Unfortunately, I do not think that John Kerry, if elected, will stop this trend. He has not made protection of civil liberties, except for abortion, a major issue in his campaign. He voted for PATRIOT and, AFAIK, has made no calls for it to be repealed, re-examined, sunsetted, etc. He has given me no reason to vote for him.
On the other hand, the Libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik http://www.badnarik.org/index.php is calling for a halt to the expansion of the government's police powers. I intend to vote for him as I don't accept that a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote. I urge anyone concerned about the growth and misuse of governemnt power to consider a vote for Badnarik.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P
You taught someone about using GPG including the concepts of key expiration, key signing, how to deal with key compromises, and what to do if some third party pretending to be someone else claims their key changed in a mere 5 minutes? Properly using encryption is more than just "hit a button to encrypt."
1) You cannot place a tariff on a newspaper. That would be one of the most obvious violations of the first ammendment I've ever seen. "Oh, you can criticize the government, but there is a tariff on that." riiiiggghhht....
2) Online retailers process 911 calls? Huh?
3) The last one is the scariest part. The US government has basically found a way to get around the constitution. They don't have the power to do something, but they can set up an agency that claims the power. But this agency can bite them back by doing things the congress doesn't want.
Does the charter for the FCC state what it can and cannot do? The FCC is the greatest example of a regulatory agency that expands it's own powers based on it's own decisions. I begin to think that the entire purpose of the FCC should begin to be questioned, and maybe the charter that established it should be rewritten.
Alternatively, you could elect to not use your work e-mail for personal correspondence. Too radical?
I don't buy into that separation of work and home junk. Corporate masters know EXACTLY what they're doing with those policies, and it's not just covering their legal angles.
Communication is a basic human function just like using the toilet. Does your company provide toilet facilities only to hang a sign on the door saying,"Only to be used for the processing of water and food consumed at lunchtime"?
Ideally: no one uses work e-mail for anything but slave-driven work. REALITY: The CEO has no qualms about getting the grocery list on his work account, why should anyone else?
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