Slashdot Mirror
Why Did The FBI Retire Carnivore?
We posted earlier this week that the FBI has officially dropped Carnivore, its "privacy respecting" eavesdropping program. Now reader Throtex writes "Professor Orin Kerr at the George Washington University Law School, a member of the Volokh Conspiracy discusses why Carnivore came to be in the first place and why it really was terminated (about two years ago). Essentially, the media (as usual) got a bit carried away with a non-story: Carnivore was designed to protect your rights from being invaded while sniffing only suspect data. Carnivore was dropped because, as of two years ago, the available tools met the necessary privacy standards, as Prof. Kerr noted in his article about the PATRIOT Act published at the time."
Because of tcpdump?
Seriously, if the FBI had the resources and access to the right people, why couldn't they build Carnivore out of open-source material and not resort to "commercially available" products?
Put another way: With modern hardware being dirt cheap and OSS getting better and better, what would it take to build a system that comes close (or even surpasses) what Carnivore had to offer?
They say they've retired Carnivore.
Why tell us? And how do we know they actually did?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
My guess is that
1) too much bad publicity
2) Existing tech can do what they want now
3) the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act let's them do more anyway.
With the 'very limited' exception of Germany, no european country exists within 'Echelon' - Besides, that's a PHB word that is 'never' used by the troops. "Echelon" It's just a penis slinging managerial term that was tossed about 10 years ago.
:-)
Call it 5 eyes
Hmmm, a good question that opens up a lot of possibilities. If I remember right, Carnivore was ostensibly installed to snoop for terrorism leads in internet communication. Telling the world it was there may have acted to discourage terrorists from using an easy to access tool like the internet for their purposes, thus keeping the technology out of most of their operations. If that's the case, why say it's gone? Either they're trying to give the impression that they now have tools just as good or better than Carnivore, maintaining the same level of snooping, or perhaps they'll just eventually get in trouble if they don't tell us when they discontinue stuff like this. I'd imagine they need to make such announcements with possible Freedom of Information Act revelations in years to come in mind.
Yup...
"Carnivore was dropped because, as of two years ago, the available tools met the necessary privacy standards, as Prof. Kerr noted in his article about the PATRIOT Act published at the time."
Does this mean that instead of using a more privacy friendly tool (i never though i'll use this expression on carnivore) is NOT needed any more because of the patriot act? That's just plain scary. It's like saying "oh, instead of catching one guilty guy with good surveillance method, we just blanket-search 10'000 and we'll find our criminal that way". I hope i'm not correct with this interpetation.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
As someone currenly job hunting in the DC/Baltimore area, I am amazed by the number of programming jobs that require security clearances. If you have a security clearace and took a couple java classes in college, government contractors will shower you with job offers. The requisite for getting a job on these projects, therefor, is not being a talented programmer, it is having a clearance that says you aren't a spy.
The result, I'm convinced, is that they hire a lot of sub-standard programmers, who create poorly designed products at great expense. And if the product doesn't work, well, thats another $100 million of taxpayer money down the drain.
These outfits need to either figure out a way to use better programmers who don't have security clearances, or figure out how to get good programmers cleared without a 2 year delay. Until that happens, a lot of substandard coders will contiue to write failed applications on the taxpayer dollar.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Your points are good. A case in point is the grilling today of Condi Rice by Barbara Boxer. Although it was politically motivated, Boxer did give excellent arguments and ample evidence that Dr. Rice has evaded the truth from the beginning and misled Americans when arguing Iraq was a solution to 9/11. It was kind of scary that being so excellent a manipulator (whether she was aware she was doing it or not) could, in hindsight, get her into the position of secretary of state.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
My understanding of ECHELON (could be wrong) is that it is not located in the U.S. Therefore, it is not considered the U.S. spying on the U.S. It's considered the British spying on the U.S., and then sharing that information with the U.S. government (which wouldn't violate any U.S. privacy laws. Anyone else have any information on this?
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Because he's a professor?
Because it sounds credible (which it does?)
Because he says "I was in government at the time the story broke?"
Should I believe everything Theodore Postol says? He's a professor, too.
This story is nothing but a set of assertions. There's not so much as a single citation to back any of this up.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Holy shit! I come to this site for computer news, not to hear Bush bashing. Bush isn't completely to blame. The intelligence services didn't communicate all their information to each other either.
Scott Simontis