"Dark Alleys" on the Internet

nokilli writes "Sounding the alarmist tone many of us became used to in the early days of the web, The New York Times has a story that talks about "national security" concerns over the myriad ways in which two people (i.e., terrorists) can communicate using the Internet today [NYT=Kneel before Zod]. They're talking about monitoring chat rooms, email servers, etc. I'd like to see how they plan on monitoring my mage as it talks to your cleric in some obscure, nearly impossible to reach (unless you're level 50) corner of our favorite MUD."

Comments

Re:impossible

[justkarl]

they can monitor everything they want, but it will be in vein. There are so many avenues for communcation they can't monitor everything..

Remember, kids:
Vein: Blood vessel that returns blood to the heart.
Vain: without sucess or excessively proud.

Re:Server Access?

[leuk_he]

They can arrest and hold you (without charges) just for being a (terrorist) suspect, what you are right now. The only way to come out of prison is to reveal your password. I hope for you it is just porn.

Re:impossible

[Total_Wimp]

We used to say the same thing about electronic dossiers--that storage was so expensive there was no way to keep all that transactional data forever. Now they can.

So they can store it. Can they find it through all the noise?

If out of every 300 million people there are a couple dozen terrorists, how do you expect to find the terrorists talking about bombs through all the talk about bombs in video games, bombs in the movies, blonde bombshells and new cars that are "the bomb"?

Even if you solve storage and you solve relevance, you still have to solve monitoring every delivery avenue. With the incentive of P2P, video games and new hardware you have several new avenues opening up every day. What if they terrorist wanted to communicate via handwritten text on his new Nintendo DS? Is that monitored?

When communication was just phone and post, spies used flashes of light, pigeons and cleverly placed symbols in public locations. There is always a way to communicate without being spotted. Being able to store all you _can_ find will only help a little bit.

TW

Re:More ominous than that...

[Kurt Granroth]

I think that the message here is much more ominous than what the surface story tells. The young man simply stated his great dislike for the United States government that is in place. He also made a flip comment about himself being a pilot of one 9/11 planes that crashed into the towers. I only see a crime here if he actually did the task.

If that was the only reason he was arrested and indicted, then I agree that this is a scary precedent. But is it the reason? I don't think this story gives that kind of detail. This is all it says:

Mr. Walker, a 19-year-old student, is accused, among other things, of using his roommate's computer to communicate with - and offer aid to - a federally designated terrorist group in Somalia and with helping to run a jihadist Web site.

"I hate the U.S. government," is among the statements Mr. Walker is said to have posted online. "I wish I could have been flying one of the planes on Sept. 11."

It doesn't say that he is accused of making treasonous speech or inciting war or anything at all of the type. He is accused of offering aid and running a website for known terrorist groups. The quotes from Walker seem to be included only to make him look obviously guilty to the reader.

Still, this article doesn't say very much at all. It's entirely possible that those statements really are the crux of the case ("offering aid"). If that's the case, then I agree, this case if far more serious than anything to do with "wiretapping the Internet". This would be a dagger deep into the heart of our notion of free speech.

So with that in mind, I tend to think that this case is something else. Yes, I know we've lost a lot of our rights concerning free speech in the past few years, but I don't think we've gotten quite that far.