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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.
If they retired carnivore, it's likely only because now they have something "better".. or "worse" depending on how you look at it.
Don't Tread on Me
Instead, the bureau turned to unnamed commercially-available products to conduct Internet surveillance thirteen times in criminal investigations in that period.
How much does it cost? I'm really sick of paying for this crap.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
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.
Check this little image from the article. "Carnivore's official logo shows bload-soaked incisors closing over a stream of data". EVIL!
It's a packet sniffer that reconstructs data (mail and web sites, as it seems from the article), not a boogieman! I agree, it can be a dangerous tool for privacy in the wrong hands, but still, it's not like you can just put it in your PC and start reading your neighour's mail.
They wouldn't have retired it unless they 1. Created a new app that supercedes it or 2. Found another way to retrieve the same information more effectively. Federal security agencies are kinda funny like that.
HaHaHaHa!
Not if they don't know what key was used... A better way would be to encrypt the actual e-mail itself instead of relying on the way it is transmitted to keep your content secure. You can never trust the messenger.
thisnukes4u.net
...hello new echelon iteration?
They didn't just give up a method of infiltration - that's just foolish.
no news here. move along. nothing has changed.
The FBI has announced that their universally criticized Carnivore system has been retired. Who wants to bet that it's just been renamed, and expanded with those "commercial" search tools? You are, since you're reading this. And if you're American, you're paying for the casino! Don't you feel safer, with the government lying to you for your own good, to protect you from the terror of $500M FBI projects that don't work?
--
make install -not war
It means that it's time to start encrypting your email. 4096 bit public key encryption should suffice. I can't believe this isn't more prevalent in today's world. We need WDIV Chopper News 4 to do an expose on how everyone is spying on your email. Maybe that would get the public's attention. What I'm surprised about is that AFAIK, none of the webmail providers support encrypting email. You could probably get the browser to encrypt it using Javascript or even with a Java applet. Anyway, having the option would be nice.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
Hmmmm. MS gets into the anti-spyware business, and the FBI suddenly decides it doesn't need its custom spyware anymore...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They budgeted quite a bit of hard cash to develop Carnivore...
so who is going to be held responsible for that wasted cash due to bad planning?
IMHO that's a ton of money that can be used for many useful things... it was taken from our taxes... and now just sits on some cvs server (assuming they save it).
That cash could have been used to pay for some armor for troops deployed in Iraq. Or perhaps fund development of improved airline security equipment... something that would be beneficial.
Why the hell did this get approved if commercial equivilants were in the works? What seriously ill planning went into that?
If the FBI were a company... heads would roll. This wouldn't be acceptable.
BTW: This page has a small image of the carnivore logo (for anyone interested).
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Carnivore relied heavily on a product called SilentRunner. SilentRunner was purchased by Computer Associates and given a new name, Network Forensics.
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=4856
It has the ability to decode email on the fly. I have the product and while it does have some "wow" factor, the usability and stability is atrocious. Another fine cobbled together product from CA.
Open Source it or give it abandonware status?
That would be fun!
yes, Carnivore was opensourced in 2001 by a group calling themselves RSG. it was covered on slashdot. of course tcpdump is still better if all you want is to packet sniff, but this other version is good for realtime data visualization.
So ... the trick is to use some form of plain-text encryption that doesn't appear to be anything but a somewhat long-winded normal message discussing the weather or the latest playoffs.
Something like text based steganography (demo 1, demo 2)? Slashdot has covered steganography before.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Your local NSA agent, c/o your local FBI agent.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
E-Mail is just as secure as a postcard. Don't send secret information via either one.
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.
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
>
> 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.
There's a big difference between John Q. Hacker, and perhaps some waywardly curious employee somewhere spying on what I do, and the government doing the same thing. Because the government makes and enforces the rules, it is held to a higher standard. That standard is elaborated in the 4th Amendment- there has to be a REASON for the the government to be looking at anyone's mail, and that reason must suggest that they have either broken the law, or there is good reason to believe that they are about to break the law. If neither exists, they have business looking at it, even if it's not "private".