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Carnivore No More
wikinerd writes "FBI has retired the controversial Carnivore software, strongly criticized by privacy advocates for its email capturing abilities. However, it is believed that unspecified commercial surveillance tools are employed now. What does that mean for Internet users' privacy?"
FBI has begun to install its less intimidating sounding "herbivore" software accross the globe. Vegetarians rejoice.
It means no change for Internet user's privacy, but confirms that the FBI weren't up to managing a large project, even in their core area.
Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion:
Privatize the FBI! I'm sure Halliburton would love that contract, but McDonald's would surely also be in the bidding. After all, who would suspect a few Ronald McDonalds wandering around the neighbourhood of being agents? Nobody, that's who! And by the time you notice their guns and badges -- TOO LATE, criminal!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Clearly this is evidence that Carnivore ran on a Microsoft Windows and Itanium platform.
I knew who my enemy was so to speak. Now we are fighting an unknown evil. Do you really think that FBI and NSA and giving up on snooping in the digitial age?
The thought that someone might be able to link me back the county singer websites I visit a work is scary. I need my anomity!
You'd think they'd name it something like "Perfectly harmless investigating program that would never ever violate your privacy"
Calling it Carnivore was asking for an uproar.
Open Source it or give it abandonware status?
That would be fun!
It can decode ASCII plaintext in real-time? Wow, now that is impressive.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm sure the techies at FBI headquarters get lonely sorting through all the false positives these programs churn up. Instead of encrypting our email, I say include a friendly message for them. Hey, they're geeks too. (probably read slashdot)
First, make sure you include one or more key words, (pr3sid3nt, b0mb, j1h4d) then include a hello to the kind folks who snoop your correspondence for you.
This is not necessarily true. They could have developed a system that was so unusable and with so high development costs, that the only thing to do was to pull the plug on the project. The IRS has had to do this at least once in the last decade.
The better path for the FBI would be to develop a gradual improvement in software, thoroughly testing each app for compatibility with the existing system. That's not the type of project that Federal empire builders and big contractors want.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
Privacy? What privacy?
Do you want criminals running your life?
Of course not!
But the world is full of criminals who want to run your life.
What you need is police, to protect you from criminals. Then there's the problem of police protecting themselves from criminals -- or not, as the case may be -- but that's another story.
-kgj
-kgj
No, no. You're got it all mixed up.
Carnivore merely reads your email (and web pages).
The project that goes through your hard disk and updates all your existing files to reflect the policy that was always in force (DON'T call it "changed") is code named "Winston".
>
> perhaps they may have some ideas for your FBI
Where the fuck do you think we're running the live beta and the scalability tests? Soviet Russia? :)
I'm only half in jest. Soviet Russia was the alpha test for both the surveillance system and the sociopolitical system. It failed - two coups, and economic collapse.
China was the beta. It succeeded. One attempted coup - crushed instantly, because the Chinese learned how to deal with dissidents. Political stability is rock-solid, and economic growth is stellar.
The full system goes live, planet-wide, within 10 years. You're free to choose whether or not to buy in now, but it's a limited time offer.
I bought in because steak tastes better than dog food, a plasma-screen TV made by slave labor beats making plasma-screen TVs for $0.01/h, and because winning is just plain more fun than losing.
I kinda like your slogan. "Try China". I did. And I liked it.
was I modded down for stupidity, mentioning country music or both?