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."

Comments

ECHELON

[the_mad_poster]

I would be more concerned about things like ECHELON anyway.

Speaking of ECHELON, maybe the reason people get so carried away with conspiracy theories is that our government is so bloody set against telling its own people what it does. AFAIK, even though a couple of European countries on the ECHELON project have admitted their membership, the U.S. government continues to deny such a thing even exists.

If this were a truly free country, we wouldn't have a government that's so hellbent on keeping things a secret. You can talk about the practical reasons behind keeping things secret to protect our interests and the people involved in the operations, but that doesn't change the fact that it makes the country non-free in the actual sense, and it gives people a very good reason to be jittery about snooping projects.

When the government is known to clam up and hide things, how can you ever be sure it's telling you the truth about its projects and that they really do what they're saying they do?

Re:ECHELON

[chris09876]

The problem is, if the government told people everything they did, everyone would revolt :) It's easy for governments to spend money, since it's other peoples money they're spending. Funding goes to all sorts of things that it shouldn't. It's too bad that countries are managed the way they are. You're right though, it is hilarious how governments continuously deny things that clearly exist. (Area 51?) It just makes people make up crazy stories try and have some idea of what they're hiding.

Re:ECHELON

[DaHat]

In some cases... albeit limited ones. Secrets must be kept in order to remain safe. Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them.

Same goes for the Russians of years past. Had they known everything we were doing and knew about them, their view and response to us over time would be radically different.

In short, for ANY government to function, it must have secrets and be able to keep them.

Re:ECHELON

[digitalchinky]

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 :-)

Re:ECHELON

[Antonymous Flower]

The government wants to survive too. It is by the people, for the people. Please consider this. They do.

Re:ECHELON

[mirko]

Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them.
Maybe they rebel because they don't like feeling they're being treaten like foes ?

BTW, I try to contribute to your masters' information indigestion : for example, when they said they'd monitor who'd take the kosher menu on the planes, I began taking it. Later, my boss told they'd monitor the proxy activity, I just began leaving my webmail window open with a 1 minute refresh so that he'd get 20x60 hits every hour (there are 19 images on my webmail window) even when I was in meeting.

Funny how he ended admiting this metric was just useless...

Now, believe me : if people believe in metrics and figure to assert how criminally you act, just give them enough for their money.

This police-state crap is just areason to off sucha system (insert Benjamin Franklin Gates quote here).

Re:ECHELON

[PrvtBurrito]

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.

Re:ECHELON

[DaHat]

It was a single example, of two. Nice to know you had no problem with the second one... would you prefer I give more examples?

Re:ECHELON

[Threni]

Most secrets are to do with Big Brother style control freakery and covering up mistakes to prevent embarrassment, which is why whenever you get documents released in the UK or US after 30 years they're always to do with spying on John Lennon, or attempting to kill Castro or whatever.

> Same goes for the Russians of years past. Had they known everything we were
> doing and knew about them, their view and response to us over time would be
> radically different.

But they did know what you were doing - they had spies all over the place, just like the West had spies in Russia, both in very high places. I'd be suprised if there were anything significant each side didn't know about the other.

Re:ECHELON

[crunk]

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?

Re:ECHELON

[I confirm I'm not a]

With the 'very limited' exception of Germany, no european country exists within 'Echelon'

The UK? I know, it doesn't really want to be European! ;)

Re:ECHELON

[lymond01]

Ahem...cough...cough...ahem. Now... "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

My father used to tell me that we shouldn't be so worried about the things we hear int he news our government does - what should concern us is what we don't hear.

Re:ECHELON

[shad0wspawn]

I set up allot of robots.txt deals that pointed to certain dirs, and within those dirs set up meta tags to discourage robots from following them. sorta an endless trail; in those docs i took snags of things like the communist manifesto, certain key words, and hid the links so noone sane could find them. even a big blatent warning explaining what those pages were for. i was learning how to do mod_rewrite for ISAPI, and decided to have some fun with a huge dictionary database.

each page access trips a logger that shoves everything about the computer, even tcp fingerprint, who hits these auto-generated pages in a database. once a day a job just blocks the ip addresses that have tripped more than 4 requests to those pages.

some really interesting stuff, like KBR's network is in there, lots of "interesting" original ip blocks. then... looking at access logs that other websites have open publically, you can see where these common crawlers go.

if you are looking where the spies are spying, you might not want to be seeing what's there.

Re:ECHELON

[SilverspurG]

Secrets must be kept in order to remain safe

Keeping secrets fosters suspicion, not safety.

Rightly so. If someone's keeping a secret from me, they're probably using it against me. Quite possibly they're using the secret to embezzle funds, like insider trading.

Re:ECHELON

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, mad_poster, since you're a trusted citizen of this country, here you go.

We have a listening device hidden in the chair rail of an auxiliary conference room in the foreign ministry office of Kreblakistan in Prague. Through this device, we find out that there will be a black market sale of sarin gas to a group with loose ties to Hezbollah. The Kreblakistani government is unwilling to prevent this because, directly or indirectly, their government will get a cut.

With this information in hand, a team of undercover CIA operatives (true names Mary Jones, John Robinson, and Bill Lucas, operating out of a small apartment at 14 Villa Piazza, Rome) are able to inflict a series of subtle logistical difficulties and are able to queer the deal, preventing terrorists from getting their hands on poison gas and making the Kreblakistani government squirm.

The guy that puts these listening devices in is a CIA operative by the name of Steve Mann, alias Dieter Glockenspiel, who usually passes himself off as an employee of Deutsch Telecom. If you look him up on anywho.com, you'll see he lives at 3328 Falling Leaf Lane in Springfield, Virginia.

Now, I'm sure you, as a resident of this country, understand how important it is that these details not reach the guys we're spying on. Sssssh....

Re:ECHELON

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Osama got away with his attack in spite of any spying we were doing on him because when the president was notified of the threat he did nothing. Bush ignoring the August 6, 2001 Daily Briefing (more than a month before the attack) is one of the most ghastly mistakes in American history.

Anyways, postulating that threats make secrets necessary is just fearmongering. It also doesn't explain why Dick Cheney still refuses to release the energy task force records. Nor does it account for the long list of information Bush is withholding from the American electorate.

Re:ECHELON

[phoenix321]

Can you please be a bit more precise on what your logs actually recorded? You surely did a reverse-DNS, so please give - or link - some information to answer the question you left burning: who (domains) searched what (topics, keywords)?

And what did you mean by the last sentence, why we might not want to be seeing? I'm not afraid, are you?

Re:ECHELON

[Ironsides]

So tell me what he could have done that clinton couldn't have done. I also see nothing on there that says there was a terror attack iminent or that they planned on doing a suicide crashing of a plane into the world trade center.

As for refusing to release records, EVERY administration has refused to release records.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Great, so you like tying up the governments resources (read: waste our money) by giving them false leads.

So while a government agent is checking you out, because you like to try and be suspicious, they cannot check out potential real criminals.

The gov't needs its secrets to help protect its people - because guess what - the bad guy has secrets and they are out there. If you think the system is so corrupt and that no politicians can be trusted - maybe you should become one and start setting things straight WITHIN the system.
Try working within the system to fix it, instead of hindering it. Your wannabe anarchist philosphy sucks.

Re:ECHELON

[david.given]

Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them. ... In short, for ANY government to function, it must have secrets and be able to keep them.

Not at all. This is the classic security-through-obscurity argument.

A much better approach is to come up with a strategy where you come out ahead even though the other players know what you know. In fact, it's possible to come up with strategies where you come out ahead because the other players know what you know.

Try playing a game of Warcraft or Command and Conquer some time with fog-of-war turned off. You can see exactly what your opponents are doing, but you can still win. Civilisation (with a lower case c) is, of course, immeasurably more complicated, but it's all the same thing.

As an (extremely simplistic) example that would have made it impossible for the WTC attack to have been performed in that form, put heavy-duty, lockable doors across the crew compartments of all jet liners, and make sure they can't be opened during flight. Annoying, yes, but now the worst case scenario is that a hijacker could kill all the passengers --- and not thousands of other people.

Re:ECHELON

[Sheepdot]

Echelon happens to be a pet-peeve of mine. The reason being that those who claim to have a word list for "jamming Echelon" include the following:

1) The word, "forcast" (SIC).
2) The word, "virus".
3) The word, "government".
4) The word, "rain".
5) The number, "69".
6) The letter, "O".

As a libertarian, I'm as anti-federal government on issues even aside from security and agree with you, but I'm not going to buy into a mythical system devised by those that write on a daily basis about the "illumninati" which, incidentally, is yet another word they scan for in Echelon word lists.

Re:ECHELON

[mirko]

Not false leads : I act normally but I just make the noise I am allowed to perform so that thbey finally understand that it's actually noise : useless junk that they thought could lead them to some "enemy of the state"...

Re:ECHELON

[geomon]

Touche.

I had a similar feeling as I read mad_poster's missive.

This is akin to the Parent's Dilemma: Would you teach your child to NEVER lie, even if that meant that your child could disclose your hiding spot to a person who means you harm?

Q. Do you know where your mommy is? Don't lie!
A. My mommy taught me to never lie. Yes, I know where she is.

You get the point.

Re:ECHELON

[Valar]

Seriously. Since when does taking the kosher option on a plane make you a potential terrorist? There must be such a large number of people who do that compared to the number of terrorists that going through that list really wouldn't reduce the complexity of the problem. Not to mention, it would eliminate terrorists of non-abrahamic traditions. Furthermore, it should be obvious by now that if you want to launch a surprise attack, you try to blend in. Abortion clinic bombers probably don't carry their bibles and picket signs when they plant the bombs.

Re:ECHELON

[GSloop]

I lean left, so I'm not exactly trying to bash Boxer, but my problem with it is this...

She isn't really interested in fixing anything, she (Boxes) would do the same if it went to furthering her interests. She's more interested in winning a political battle and scoring some points for "her side" than actually winning something for the people.

Fact is, most people think in terms of "us" and "them" so she'd be an idiot not to pay homage to that system. If she didn't she wouldn't get re-elected.

The fact that the people (us) are corrupt and morally bankrupt doesn't excuse her morally bankrupt behavior, though it does explain it.

And before anyone extends this, let me make clear that government can't make people better people, so the "moral values" that the right are push are just as useless. Govenment's and laws don't make better people - moral values from the "masses" don't make better people - only people making choices that transform their lives make better people. (I'll leave out the discussion of what choices and the venue for that transformation process...)

Until the people are "better" we'll pick politicians who "mirror" us. Those politicians will act no better than us, and though that's understandable, it's not honorable.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

whats with this overrated mod? To be overrated, doesn't the post have to have other people rate it first? How can you overrate something that has not been rated?

Re:ECHELON

[Cecil]

What does "politically motivated" mean anymore? It's supposed to imply a weak, unsubstantiated allegation, but you admit she had "excellent arguments and ample evidence".

You drew that implication. And it is an implication, not what the phrase means. What the phrase means is simply that the motivation was political -- gee, go figure. I believe the correct implication to draw is that it was not for an altruistic reason that these arguments were brought up. It was not for the good of the people, or because it was the "right thing to do". And if these facts had been discovered about someone who was in favour, then the facts would've been conveniently ignored.

So yes, politically motivated has meaning, though it's more of a comment on the arguer than the argument.

Re:ECHELON

[PrvtBurrito]

I disagree. Her arguments were excellent, but her making them was politically motivated because she knew that nothing she would say would change the voting on this matter -- yet she still said them. She was right, I would say.

Re:ECHELON

[Elwood P Dowd]

Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them.

Maybe they rebel because they don't like feeling they're being treaten like foes ?

Ok, that's some horseshit. There are many, many good and bad reasons that some people are terrorists. None of them are that after they become terrorists, we are secretive about the way we spy on them. What the fuck were you talking about? Is this just a nonsequitor?

Re:ECHELON

[buddhahat]

Seriously. Since when does taking the kosher option on a plane make you a potential terrorist? There must be such a large number of people who do that compared to the number of terrorists that going through that list really wouldn't reduce the complexity of the problem.

I seriously doubt there is/was a one-to-one correspondence between "ordered kosher meal" and being put directly on a presumed terrorist list. I imagine that there is an algorithm of sorts that says: kosher meal + one way ticket + no luggage + cash purchase + late booking + etc etc that drives the system. All or some of these things raise flags for humans to then check out.

Re:ECHELON

[elmegil]

Which is like an offshore tax haven. Nothing like violating the spirit while staying within the letter of the law.

Re:ECHELON

[Atzanteol]

I think you need to step away from the game console for a little bit...

Try playing a game of Warcraft where only *you* have FOW turned on. This is what it would be like if a government keeps no secrets.

Some things do need to be secret. Determining what is keep secret is the difficult part, and unfortunately the part we have to trust our elected officials to make. ::shudder::

Also, stop using the old "security-through-obscurity" argument. It's out of place and you don't seem to know what it really means. The government and military have been keeping a *lot* of things secret with this method (at least as secret as they need). They're very good at it. Loose lips sink ships and all...

Re:ECHELON

[Dachannien]

How did this drivel end up modded insightful? It had practically nothing to do with the parent post.

Besides, people have been putting "bomb bomb bomb bomb" in their e-mail sigs and USENET posts for practically forever now. If you think the gubment hasn't figured out ways to separate the investigative wheat from the anarchist chaff, you're fooling yourself.

Re:ECHELON

[duffbeer703]

The only people who knew everything about US Intelligence during the cold war worked for the KGB. Three-letter agencies succeed at keeping information away from each other, but fail miserably at keeping information away from the enemy, whomever that is.

During Vietnam, secret agents (ie white guys in white seersucker suits and Panama jack hats) were spotted by the Vietcong about 5 minutes after their plane landed.

Today, secret agents (ie white guys with sunglasses and a bunch of equipment) prowl the streets of Iraq, a secret to nobody except the taxpayers footing the bill.

Re:ECHELON

[Dachannien]

It means that Boxer is attempting to kick the Bush administration in the political nadgers at every conceivable opportunity, from being the only Senator to vote against the acceptance of Ohio's electoral votes, to threatening to stonewall Bush's domestic policies, to grilling Condoleezza Rice during the confirmation hearings.

None of these are motivated by any perception of success - there was no way that Ohio's electoral votes wouldn't be accepted; the threat of stonewalling policy reform such as Social Security is irrefutably bad for the country, when working to find a compromise solution for a broken system means every American wins; and Boxer made a public announcement before the confirmation hearings that she intended to make an example of Rice (her fellow Democrats felt no need to make such an announcement, though their questions have been hard-hitting as well).

Her motivation is to increase the stature of the Democratic Party and her own stature within the Party, by playing the political game (which, in the case of Congress, is a "metagame" of sorts for the legislative process). Yes, there are important issues she is raising in the process, but those issues become clouded by her own motivations. People become too focused on political divisions and the political metagame, and are unable to address the issues themselves because of it.

Re:ECHELON

[theguywhosaid]

Thanks.

Re:ECHELON

[Dolly_Llama]

The major theme in the first part of the Bush presidency was the wholesale overturning of everything Clinton. Entire bodies of work were tossed aside because the Republicans saw them a priori to be incorrect. While it might be good to clean house, nothing was done in the counter-terrorism arena to set a better, or even new policy. How much effort was expended in the counter-terrorism effort between the inauguration and 9/11 even in the face of memos like the PDB. Not enough apparently.

As far as records go, some are more secretive than others. Bush pegs the meter. Everything is considered national security or otherwise privileged. Even more suspicious is the extending of secrecy in the Presidential Records Act of 2001 just as the juicy bits of the Reagan Administration would have come to light. At the same time, some of the more questionable members of the Reagan Administration were getting new jobs in the Bush Administration. Poindexter comes to mind immediately, but is not the only one.

Re:ECHELON

[teromajusa]

Imagine what would have happend if Saddam knew we were going to look for him in the area he got caught? He would have probably moved to a new hole in the ground.

Which would in turn have lead to continued instability in Iraq. There would still be roadside bombings, kidnappings, assasinations...uh...wait a minute!

In the comic book world where the world is troubled by a handful of evil men, doing everything you can to catch them makes sense. In the real world, where many bad things happen in pursuit of good causes, you need to proceed cautiously or you may create evils worse than those you try to solve.

Re:ECHELON

[gahzinia]

flamebait, but oh well. On your line of thinking, having a government at all makes us non-free. If we were totally free, then I should be able to say, "I don't like these ideas called "taxes" and "laws" so I'm not going to pay my taxes and I'm going to drive my car as fast as I want and park where I want. No more police then, no more fire department, no more road construction / repair, no order on the roads so you couldn't get anywhere. But we would be "free". Free to stay in our homes all day because the outside world would be too unsafe to venture out into without carrying a couple of guns, and then your neighbor would get a bigger gun to protect himself, and nothing could get accomplished.

But say the government does start trying to tell us everything. Are they? In the news, you always have the same story being reported on, but when you have different people reporting, it gets retold completely different. They may not try to spin a story, but might end up doing so anyways.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

oh your right, we should leave saddam and every other bad guy in power. Maybe attacking hitler was a bad thing to. What a mistake it was going to WWII. Man you got me there.

Re:ECHELON

[DrugCheese]

You teach your children right from wrong, good from evil.

If they're tought that properly the above question would be answered with a punch to the throat or something

Re:ECHELON

[ArghBlarg]

Straw man argument.

Original poster never mentioned the former leader of WWII Germany. Furthermore, said leader blatantly (through invasions) demonstrated his will to attack other countries in Europe, and eventually, to become a world power threatening nations on other continents; Saddam never presented such a threat, and probably never would have (no access to huge war machine such as Germany had).

If he had remained in power, and did somehow rise to become such a threat, then his removal would have been warranted, and likely supported by the rest of the world.

Nice try though.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Your right I presume a lot. Please tell me which of the presumptions you do not believe in? Do you not believe there are evil people out there trying to hurt us? Do you not believe we should stop them? Please help me out with this.

So far I have not felt that my liberties have been given up. My day to day life is all the same - and I am sure yours is also.

Do you belive that Terrorists live in our country, terrorists communicate with people in our country? - if so then the FBI needs to use a sniffing program to help them find these people. Don't worry I am pretty sure my porn collection is safe. And I am sure that the gov't could care less about me so I am sure I won't disappear in my lifetime by some spook.

Re:ECHELON

[Zemplar]

"AFAIK, even though a couple of European countries on the ECHELON project have admitted their membership, the U.S. government continues to deny such a thing even exist"

"What 'U.S. government'?"
"We cannot either confirm nor deny that this 'U.S. government' even exists."

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Not really a staw man argument.

Justb ecause the original poster did not mention WWII Germany does not mean I cannot to help make a point:
Nobody messed with Hitler at first because he was not a big threat. When he conquered one country he said he would stop and people believed him. He broke another treaty, but then said he would stop, and the cycle perpetuated until Hitler became a real threat. He never left Euripe/Asia as it was a bit harder to threaten other continents, not connected by land routes, at that point in time (no ICBM's). The US got involved when they realized that this guy was going to take over all of Europe and most of Asia.

So when Saddam decided to conquer his neighbor, the US decided to not allow him to continue. Amongst other things, by letting him conquer he would gain more power/money/resources.

The Hitler/WWII answer is a valid argument and is a model that we use ever since WWII, because we do not want another such situation to occur.

Re:ECHELON

[teromajusa]

oh your right, we should leave saddam and every other bad guy in power.

Better than setting out to rid the world of "bad guys". The US's notion of "bad guys" has more than once encompassed elected leaders who didn't have the proper respect for American corporate interests.

Maybe attacking hitler was a bad thing to. What a mistake it was going to WWII. Man you got me there

We didn't attack Hitler. Hitler declared war on us. That aside, I said proceed cautiously, I didn't say never proceed.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Hitler declared war on the US? I knew he attacked pretty much everyone in Europe, including his allies (Russia), but I thought the US entered the war when we landed on that nice beach-front on D-Day, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Nothing about Hitler declaring war on the US though.

Re:ECHELON

[arkanes]

It's important to note that the opposite applies as well - talk about this with a hardcore right-winger and all you'll get is rhetoric about Boxer, rather than direct addressing of the issues she raised. I don't think you can win in our current political system, really. Assume for a moment that Boxer isn't acting for her own political interest, but instead that she's genuinely concerned about Rice, and is making a stand based on those concerns and the moral beliefs behind them. How would her actions be different? People assume a political motive and dismiss the arguments because of it. The problem is that people who really care quickly become cynical and stop listening, and the people who are fantically politcal (both right and left wing here) are more intested in scoring points against each other. I don't know how to fix this problem.

Re:ECHELON

[schtum]

What the phrase means is simply that the motivation was political -- gee, go figure.

I am able to parse the literal meaning, thank you, but you also have to look at how it's actually used. More often than not, it's a way to make hard questions easy to ignore. In that regard, the accusation of political motivation is itself politically motivated.

Re:ECHELON

[lcsjk]

Maybe it's the ones that claim to be Jewish and don't order the Kosher meal that triggers the investigation.

Re:ECHELON

[cayenne8]

"BTW, I try to contribute to your masters' information indigestion : for example, when they said they'd monitor who'd take the kosher menu on the planes, I began taking it."

Ok...this just strikes me as weird...why would they monitor who orders the kosher meals on planes? Isn't this a jewish thing? If so, wouldn't this kind of be the last thing an arab terrorist would be ordering as his last meal on a plane before he tried to hijack it and take it for a ride to see allah?

Re:ECHELON

[0x0000]

Should Osama and crew learn all of the ways that we spy on them, they are liable to change their tactics and make it that much harder for us to try to foil them.

You know, a person might be fogiven for thinking that one way to foil a terrorist is to quit paying him to be a terrorist. I had imagined maybe the US had thought of that, or maybe could figure it out eventually, but perhaps it's time some one pointed it out.

The sumbitch (Osama) is training terrorists using training plans created by US federal govt employees, in camps (and cave complexes) paid for with CIA black-budget funding, using materiel bought with US tax-payer dollars - and yet a covert monitoring program is needed to keep an eye on this "business associate" of the current and former presidents of the United States.

Wow. I should have thought of that myself. Silly me.

Perhaps the reason carnivore has been retired is that it DIDN't F**KING WORK. It didn't exactly stop 9/11, did it?

The FBI probably used it enough to realize that all the really juicy stuff was going across NNTP or HTTP or THE PHONE (ob. nod to ECHELON) - and that not even CIA financed 3rd world thugs were stupid enough to put their battle plans into an email (well, SPAM, maybe, but that's another matter, since they were using 1-shot addresses and CARNIVORE only worked if you set it up at the ISP of known account).

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that CARNIVORE is just one peice of that $170-sum-odd-billion software package that the FBI just scrapped the other day because it was "obsolete" and "indadequate" to their needs....

Just a thought.

"You don't need proof if you have just the right .... inflection?"

Re:ECHELON

[teromajusa]

No, D-Day occured long after war had officially begun between the US and Germany. Germany declared war on the US on Dec 11, 1941 shortly after US declared war on Japan. D-Day was June 6, 1944.

Re:ECHELON

[lcsjk]

When your security system becomes such an issue in the media that you cannot get anything done due to all the protesting that is going on, you just tell everyone that the project was flawed and is being abandoned. Then you can continue without media scrutiny, and most of the world has no idea that you are still working on the project. People who learn what is really happening soon have an accident of some kind.

Re:ECHELON

[brasscount]

Actually Hitler never really made it to Asia (just a small part of Russia), the Japanese did. He did however take the majority of mainland Europe, and contested the majority of North Africa heavily. And for the record, Saddam invaded Kuwait in the early 90's, then we went in. As for leaving him in power, well, that was a poor choice on the part of a previous administration. The current administration did something about him, but he had so much warning that very few allegations could be proven. Think Enron after being served with a couple of subpoenas, then informed that the feds will be there in the morning. How much shredding and data destruction can happen in one night?

Re:ECHELON

[Hatta]

Your right I presume a lot. Please tell me which of the presumptions you do not believe in? Do you not believe there are evil people out there trying to hurt us?

Yes, I do.

Do you not believe we should stop them?

Yes, I do.

Please help me out with this

I believe the people in question are in charge of multinational corporations and the US government.

Re:ECHELON

[M1FCJ]

You have to understand why Osama bin Laden decided to fight America. It wasn't because they bombed his family into bits, it was such a small thing: American Army being in a Holy land.

Bush isn't that much different than Osama bin Laden, he fights because he believes he is right. Belief alone is not enough reason for many things, starting wars being one.

Crusades started because an other religion's army took over an other Holy land.

Re:ECHELON

[frankie]

Although I agree that the August briefing isn't as damning as some people like to claim, you're way off base. Bush withholds so very much MORE information than any other president in modern history.

Bush changed FOIA policy from Default Allow (unless dangerous) to Default Deny (unless safe and non-incriminating).

Bush retroactively vetoed the 1978 Presidential Records Act (enacted to prevent future Watergates) with Executive Order 13233.

Speaking of Watergate, Richard Nixon's former White House Counsel thinks the level of Bush secrecy is higher than he ever faced, and downright scary.

And so on, and so on, and so on. Saying "every President hides something" doesn't cut it.

Re:ECHELON

[pedrop357]

Abnsoluetely agreed.

Do not make these invasions profitable for these agencies.

I don't answer any questions at DUI roadblocks, nor would I consider talking to any officer manning one of those "information gathering" roadblocks.
Make these tactics so hard to use that they abandon them and go back to real police work.

Checking the Kosher meal is stupid, any terrorist wishing to avoid detection will order something else.

Send as much of your email as possible encrypted. Make them work hard to find out what you think of the new mustang.

In short, gum up the works.

If this hinders the fbi/police, Tough Shit!
Any investigative tactic so easily foiled is worthless and should be abandoned.

Re:ECHELON

[dgatwood]

I do, but not about this specifically. The courts have ruled repeatedly that information obtained through illegal means is tainted and cannot be used in a court of law, even if the illegal actions used to obtain it were not performed by agents of the government.

That's why if I were to break into a house (yeah, right) and find that someone had plans to bomb the White House (yeah, right), and then I were to give that evidence to the FBI, and they were to arrest the guy, he's going to walk. In this scenario, they had no legally-obtained evidence to cause them to suspect him, and the evidence they had is inadmissible because I obtained that evidence through an illegal act, even though the FBI did not in any way -ask- me to break into that person's house.

That's not stopping them from using that evidence to catch the person in the act (in the example above, catching the guy as he runs towards the White House screaming "I'm coming, God!") and using that evidence as a means to do so. However, in the absence of the person making an attempt to commit the action, whatever it might be, any illegally-obtained evidence isn't worth the paper it's written on.

In the case of ECHELON, if there is not a warrant granted to the appropriate agency to spy on someone, the evidence is -doubly- inadmissible, as the U.S. government ASKED them to do that intelligence gathering illegally.

If I were someone in the appropriate non-existent agency in charge of U.S. Goverment involvement with ECHELON, I would be very, very careful about how I used information obtained from it. Anything containing identifying information about an individual could ultimately cause serious harm to our national security by allowing someone who otherwise might have been caught to walk free. Just my $0.02.

Re:ECHELON

[crunk]

...or they could take the evidence and hold you as an enemy combatant, and never actually put you on trial. This is happening right now to Jose Padilla (an American citizen).

Re:ECHELON

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

If I wanted a secret communication, I'd embed it as a comment in slashdrivel, or better yet livejournal's vanity blogs. It could be tiny-url'd, and forwarded between throwaway web-mail accounts, perhaps distributed broadcast - like spam.

If someone wants to do this kind of thing, it takes about 5 minutes time to figure out - and most traffic analysis/ message interception is pretty useless.

There is little to no safety afforded by the massive intrusion into private business this kind of surveillance represents, but then again, the primary goal is SUPRESSION of domestic population, under the cover of security.

Who do Yvgeny Primakov and Markus Wolf work for now? Nine months ago, it was for Pointdexter. Who did they "secure" before that?

Before anybody claims that the "innocent" need not worry, I ask you to review the plot of Gilliam's Brazil.

Re:ECHELON

[geomon]

Parent's Dilemma? What a load of crap!

You don't have children, do you?

Re:ECHELON

[tenchiken]

By the way, this is a real and actual example. Turns out the sat phone Osama carried around broadcasted a locator when it was powered up. One way or another (the leading canidates are the Washington Post, a Senator and police chief in Pakistan) it got leaked that we were tracking him via the phone.

Re:ECHELON

[Moofie]

Right, because terrorists are too dumb to realize this and will be sure to trip all those flags you've listed.

Right.

Re:ECHELON

[the gnat]

So when Saddam decided to conquer his neighbor, the US decided to not allow him to continue.

Yes, and we beat his army back, and largely neutered his regime (even though he was still in power). This has nothing to do with the recent war, which is what the parent poster was complaining about. We had already contained his regime and stopped him from murdering the Kurds. You can argue the 2003 war on its own merits if you want, but the comparison to WWII is absurd. (In addition to being a sleazy historical device which "The Daily Show" has definitively deconstructed: "John, do you love Hitler?")

Re:ECHELON

[CrimsonAvenger]

Saddam never presented such a threat, and probably never would have (no access to huge war machine such as Germany had).

The largest tank battle in history happened during the Iran-Iraq War.

Before that War, the largest tank battle (the one still commonly believed to be the largest) was Kursk, in WW2.

Furthermore, said leader blatantly (through invasions) demonstrated his will to attack other countries in Europe,

Replace "Europe" with "the Middle East", and the statement is true of Iraq. Remember Iran and Kuwait?

Mind you, I don't think of Iraq as a parallel to WW2 Germany. More of a "wannabe" than a real player.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Because Saddam lacked the money to get back into power? Only this time do it without making so much noise. And because Saddam, after getting beaten the first time, suddenly became a nice guy. Right.

Re:ECHELON

[CrimsonAvenger]

Islam has similar dietary guidelines - not eating pork, that sort of thing. A kosher meal is more likely to fit the Islamic definition of "good food" than a non-Kosher meal is.

Re:ECHELON

[ssimontis]

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.

Re:ECHELON

[uncqual]

Saddam never presented such a threat, and probably never would have (no access to huge war machine such as Germany had).

It is instructive to note that in recent history, Saddam is one of the few (actually, right off hand, I can't think of another example, but they may exist) leaders of a substantial country to invade, without provocation, and completely conquer and occupy another substantial sovereign nation (Kuwait). This in spite of the fact that an objective outsider at the time would have found it extremely likely that (1) the U.S. and possibly many other nations would respond and that (2) Saddam's military really had no chance against a modern military response.

The degree of threat a leader poses is, in part, dependent on if they behave rationally (and hence predictably) - and Saddam has a dangerous history of behaving irrationally (even Kim Il Sung hasn't done anything as stupid as Saddam did in invading Kuwait - and Kim Il Sung doesn't seem to be the most centered human on the planet). Assuming (perhaps incorrectly - I'll leave that up the Freudians to debate) that Saddam's goal wasn't to fail, he appears to be a very bad judge of international politics and possibly has delusions of grandeur. Indeed, in the run-up to the Iraqi war, he again appeared to be irrational. I believe that well past the time that many, if not most, Americans would have bet that the U.S. was going to invade Iraq if Saddam didn't back down (after all, the U.S. had a Texas Cowboy wannabee in the White House) Saddam seemed to cling to the irrational notion that (1) the U.N. was relevant (note to Saddam - bribe people who are relevant, you're wasting your money bribing those that are not) and (2) he could play the current Administration like a violin just because he had been able to do so with the previous Administration (note to Saddam, if you plot to kill someone's daddy, it can create a bit of animosity).

Given Saddam's irrational and aggressive history, it was very difficult to predict what he might do. If, in fact, Saddam did have (or was able to fairly quickly acquire) WMDs (esp. nuclear fission weapons), there's little reason to believe based on his past history that he would not use them in an irrational manner and, by doing so, could cause a great deal of damage/loss of life without a "huge war machine".

It would have been nice if the U.S. intelligence agencies had not screwed up wrt WMDs. Intelligence is, however, a very problematic business which makes software development look pretty elementary (the CPU rarely fails to do exactly what it is asked, and it never intentionally does something wrong just to deceive the developer - still there are many unsolved bugs). Errors in intelligence are not only likely, they are to be expected and it's rare that intelligence can yield a 100% guaranteed answer so leaders must, by necessity, act on uncertain information or they would rarely act (and hence, would not respond to any threat - for example, even today I doubt that it is known to 100% probability that OBL was linked to the World Trade Center attack, but it seems to be almost universally agreed that OBL is "fair game").

I personally would prefer that the U.S. had not gone into Iraqi, but it was much more justified than many military actions the U.S. has engaged in previously so it's not at the top of my list of "missteps" by the U.S. Also, I'm quite convinced that the Iraqi people will be substantially better off in the ten-year timeframe because of the U.S.'s action (but, really, that was their problem to solve - it's called a revolution and hundreds of thousands might have died, but IMHO it's not the U.S.'s role to project military force for foreign humanitarian reasons).

Re:ECHELON

[Ayrehtek]

"The problem is, if the government told people everything they did, everyone would revolt :)"

May I quote a part of the Declaration of Independence?

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

Re:ECHELON

[Moofie]

The reason Roosevelt drew the foul in the Pacific was so that he could declare war on Japan, which (by virtue of the alliance between Japan and Germany) would obligate Germany to declare war on the US.

Re:ECHELON

[Clockwork Apple]

Did we attack Hitler? I was under the impression that HE declared war on the US AFTER we made our choice of sides in the late days of December 1941, and that wasnt until after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.

American business and the "free press" were in love with Hitler and his "Italian friend". But we were pretty hot on Saddam when we first met and started going out socially. Then it became clear that we dont choose our friends very well.

American bankers wanted to finance the Italian war debt. Thats how much we hated fascism. We wanted to support it with cold hard cash!

America doesnt hate fascism, they just hate fascism that isnt imposed by the president / political party / corporate monolith of their choosing.

Re:ECHELON

[Marvelicious]

It's OK! His head is buried so far in the sand that he won't even notice when the "come for him."

Just because you haven't noticed doesn't mean things haven't changed. Not only do you not have enough spine to stand up for your own rights, but you criticize other for standing up for theirs.

I hope for your sake that things don't get bad enough to spawn a revolution in your lifetime, because such events rarely suffer cowards!

Re:ECHELON

[cheekyboy]

I thought the whole russian commy scheme was faked by the british and usa.

I think the real enemy of any govt is its own people, taking over countries is so passe, its not a good tactik, money control ie banks and control of resources OIL are the key things, they are what runs society, without those we are back to the middle ages. So who controls that controls who prospers and who gets rich.

Re:ECHELON

[the gnat]

You're missing my point. There were reasonable justifications for ousting Saddam in 2003 (although many of them seem hopelessly naive in retrospect). None of these is comparable to the circumstances that led America to enter WWII. Furthermore, the only compelling justification given by the administration was that Saddam posed an immediate threat, which was of course false. Go read at least the first half of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" before showing off your ignorance of history.

There needs to be a ban on repeating phony historical parallels - this goes for both the pro-war crowd and the hysterical leftists who compare America to Germany circa 1933.

Re:ECHELON

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, please. The extent and nature of the Carnivore sniffing was, and is, such that it is far more suited to political message interception than any actual criminal or terrorist activity. Do any of you assume that this program is ending just because they've announced it? They announced it was ending 3 years ago at various security seminars. All that's ending is the name "Carnivore", which was an extremely poor choice and too easily construed as dangerous. There are still locked rooms in various co-location centers and major network hubs in which no one but federal authorities are allowed, the staff of the facility are not allowed to enter or to record visitors, and the visitors who enter there do not have to show a warrant or court order in order to monitor backbone traffic. It's allegedly for programs like Carnivore, but since no warrants are shown or records kept that are visible to the public, it can be used for arbitrary political purposes. If you rent co-location space at any of the major backbone facilities such as UUnet's Virginia facility, keep a very close eye on where cables lead to rooms that no one on staff is allowed to discuss or enter.

Re:ECHELON

[teromajusa]

As for leaving him in power, well, that was a poor choice on the part of a previous administration.

Current events show how wise a choice that was. A day or two ago Condi Rice said we had encountered unforseen difficulties in Iraq. Bush senior's administration left Saddam in power because they did foresee those difficulties.

The current administration did something about him, but he had so much warning that very few allegations could be proven.

The allegations could not be proven because they were not true. Not even the Bush administration still maintains that Saddam had WMDs at any point after the last gulf war.

Re:ECHELON

[mazarin5]

Osama Bin Laden is certaintly one of our biggest enemies of the state. We shouldn't tip him off to what we're doing to catch him.

The old Soviet Union cast a dark shadow over us, and we did as little as possible to give our competition an advantage.

However, this is not about the tactics our government takes against our enemies. This is about the tactics our government takes against us. This is not about the Taliban or the Kremlin. This is about you and me.

Re:ECHELON

[redsolo]

Your're kidding right? Osama and his possy is probably already technical adept, and will stay away from the cellphones, open emails, etc.. What these new systems are good for, is to keep the control of the masses, keep the masses alert that at all times you can get hit by a terrorist, keep them scared so they dont care that the deficit has doubled during last Bushies term. And BTW, the russians probably already knew most of the stuff the US did, and the US probably knew all actions done by the russians. THe only people that are out in the dark, and doesnt know any of the secrets are us. We, the masses, are the last one to be informed, and when we are informed it is probably some cleaned up version of the brute truth. Remember WMDs? What happened to them?

Re:ECHELON

[redsolo]

UUUHHHH. Now you are smoking crack. First of, saddam is/was a bad guy.

But really who is the person to make such judgment? Who has the knowledge to say "this guy is evil" or "this guy is not evil".

Please dont forget, that the US has meddled too many times in other countries internal affairs. Anyone remember Pinochet? A nice dictator that was helped by the US gov to seize power over Chile. (The man in charge that was removed, was choosen by the public in an election) So the US installed a dictator, that cant be right? Did they really remove a public elected president/statesman?

Yes, evil is really in the eye of the beholder.

About using goverment resources, everytime you write osama/plo/etc in a comment, it is probably going to be checked by some FBI. So you are wasting resources as well.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Thats a very loose interpretation, at best. Not to mention, how many of the alliances/treaties did Germany keep with its allies?

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

Hitler didn't attack Pearl Harbor, Japan did. We did attack Hitler first. Hitler declared war on most of Europe - we are not a part of Europe today, and were even LESS a part of it 63 years ago.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

I apparantly did miss your point. I agree there were valid reasons to kick his butt out.

I've read plenty of books on Nazi Germany - don't need to add a new one to the list to satisfy your notion of what is knowledgable, and what is ignorance of history.

I can easily make a comparison between Saddam and Hitler - others - experts in the field- did.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

I just assumed that the end of Carnivore meant the emergence of some new program. Though it would be great if crimes via the net would stop.
I didn't realize the gov't had secret rooms that only authorized personnel could enter. Now I definitly do not trust this gov't....down with it already.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

You've never seen some of the video tapes of Saddams inner circle have you? The suicides they do to appease him. Or maybe a person who decides to conquer his neighboring ally is a good person after all. Or how about launching chemical bombs at another country (Israel). Do you need another example or do you still think our view of "evil" is wrong? Here is another just for kicks - a person who funded terrorists. I guess that makes him a saint.

While the US has made mistakes, and will continue to do so - since nobody is perfect, we generally do a decent job.

There is a difference between writing about something for informational purposes and just mentioning these key words to raise a red flag.

Re:ECHELON

[Moofie]

Excuse me? Would you care to provide a historical counterpoint, or are you just casting aspersions on people who've actually read on the subject?

Germany and Japan had a profitable (for Germany) technology sharing pact that they didn't want to lose. Germany thought Japan could tie up Russia's Eastern front. It was in Hitler's interest to keep his treaty with Japan.

Re:ECHELON

[redsolo]

All I said is that "evil is in the eye of the beholder", just think back to the crusader days. When the "good" christians were down in middle east bashing muslims because they have a different religion. (yes, that was us europeans)

I DID NOT STATE THAT OSAMA IS A GOOD GUY. But you will have to remeber that the US DID help him and his possy during the Afghanistan-Soviet war, and supplied him with knowledge, bombs and other weapons. At that point Osama was a good guy, but if you have asked the soviet, then they would have said that he was evil/terrorist. So who was right?

"generally do a decent job" ? How many innocent killed are acceptable? How many invaded countries are accepteable? "Duh, every 2 out of 3 countries we meddle in come out ok". I would not like to live in the country where you fail, ie kill or indeirectly kill innocent people.

If a company says that another country is evil, is it ok to invade it? (Remember the banan/fruit war in central america)

It is ok to state that "Im a good guy, and I dont have any thing to hide". But what if someone decides that using the work computer for personal things (like writting slashdot) is evil and must be punished. Its all down to the people with the information, they cant choose whats evil and wants not. Fine, they can have the info now, but you dont know what will happen in the future and who is going to missuse it?

Re:ECHELON

[the gnat]

I've read plenty of books on Nazi Germany

Your faulty historicism sounds like it came out of Cliff Notes. Not every political situation can be or needs to be explicitly compared to past events. If you think there's a justification for the Iraq war, then argue that: don't cite WWII as a justification.

I can easily make a comparison between Saddam and Hitler - others - experts in the field- did.

You can easily make a comparison between anyone and Hitler - I see the loony left (sometimes including supposed "experts") compare Bush to Hitler all the time. Doesn't make it any less obnoxious or less bullshit. I have read convincing arguments that Baathism was the moral heir of Naziism, but that still doesn't mean that the situation in 2002 was at all comparable to that in 1939.

Again, my overall point is that we cannot and should not rely on cyclic theories of history to dictate our course of action in every circumstance. (This is not my original idea; Karl Popper used it against Marx.) Especially not the way you're using them here: to imply that anyone who opposed the Iraq war would have favored leaving Hitler in power.

Re:ECHELON

[AviLazar]

It was in Hitlers interest to keep his treaty with Russia. In fact, if he didn't attack Russia he would have won the war. Why you ask? Because he tied up his resources fighting the Russians AND in the process lost an ally. Hitler was very close to winning - attacking Russia was his biggest mistake.

Re:ECHELON

[Moofie]

Uh...what does that have to do with my contention?

You know what? Never mind. Until I am satisfied that you're not a troll, I'm not going to spend any more time on this discussion. I'm not learning anything, and I'm sure you aren't either.

Re:ECHELON

[Jason Ford]

Except that, even among the orthodox Jews I know, few keep Kosher outside of the home, if at all. Along with my Muslim alcohol-drinking, pork-eating friends, my Buddhist and Hindu meat-eating and cow-eating friends, and my Catholic contraception-using friends, it seems that very few people are dedicated to their belief systems.

Should a Jew be open to investigation because he's not observant? I think pretty much everyone will be suspect then.

Re:ECHELON

[Clockwork Apple]

I never said Hitler did attack Pearl Harbor, feel free to read my comment again though.

The only error I see is the misleading part about the late days of December. I meant it to make a point that we were pretty late to the war considering when it all actually started. The attack on Pearl Harbor happened early in December, of course.

Re:ECHELON

[Valar]

My whole point is that the kosher meal part probably wouldn't led to a much different list than one that just considered the other factors. Of course, I'm sure now the terrorists will be sure to carry lugagge, pay with credit cards, etc. because they know these things are being watched.

Because

[digitalchinky]

Because existing intercept systems were in place long before this crud known as carnivore surfaced. Why go to the ISP's when you can sit back and 'dictate' to the telco's that they 'WILL' run a cable from all their major exchanges, straight on in to the 'spy' agencies.

Either that, or their license to do whatever is revoked on 'technical' grounds.

The old boys club in action ;-)

Re:Because

[LifesABeach]

I like Tom Clancy's work also.

I think the CIA should also study the 5,10, and 15 year effects of the Western Nations shifting over to the hydrogen dollar. I went to school with the children of the OPEC team. Nobody at OPEC thinks the well will ever run dry.

Re:Because

[Ironsides]

Please explain this "Hydrogen Dollar". Also, "Nobody at OPEC thinks the well will ever run dry." Does this mean that they think they will never run out of oil?

Re:Because

[quarkscat]

Ever wonder why so many of the telcos that were
encouraged to lay fiber optic cable went tits-up?
Or why there is so much more "dark" fiber than
"lit" fiber? Or if just maybe there was a secret
deal between MS and the DoJ (anti-monopoly
settlement) to make||leave holes in their OS for
the Feds? Or where all that cash from the 2004
election really went (like into propaganda to
push thru the US public media outlets?)

The FBI's "CARNIVORE" project was dropped because
they don't need it anymore. Between all the
security holes in MS OS / IE, the major spyware
"vendors", an dnew technology like Google's
"Desktop Search", the FBI (under the aegis of the
DHS & USA Patriot Act (I)) can reach right thru
the internet onto your desktop.

Business interests dictate total compliance
with whatever the Bush administration wants,
and the Bush administration does what is best
for their corporate contributors. The USA today
is little more that a hollow shell of the robust
democracy that it used to be. Eisenhower's
dark warning about the military-industrial
complex didn't go nearly far enough. The USA
may now properly be considered a government of
"Corporate National Socialism". No more.

Re:Because

[LifesABeach]

Urban legend uses the following definitions.

The "Hydrogen Dollar" is where the value of the U.S. Dollar is based losely on the economy of extracting hydrogen for energy purposes. Currently the value of the U.S. Dollar is based losely on the extracting oil for energy purposes.

Granted there is a finite quanity of oil that OPEC has control over, that quanity to all intents and purposes is 'very huge'. It's a classic case of, "I won't repair the roof because its raining. When it stops raining; why worry, the roof is not leaking."

The reason why Carnivore failed...

[Vexler]

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?

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[hcdejong]

And how many developers would a. work on surveillance tools in their spare time, b. admit to doing a.?

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[The Angry Mick]

Oh. I thought it may have been:

A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C001539A The current application will be terminated.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[mr. methane]

The main reason is exactly that; lack of money, people, and resources. FBI agents that I've met are all bright, hard-working people, who work for wages that are higher than local police departments, but lower than corporate jobs.

Despite the hollywood image, there is no war room full of MIT and CalTech graduates in T-shirts controlling a massive array of satellites, communications gear, and directing an endless supply of sunglass-wearing thugs.

It takes a long time to get approval, get funds, and get PO's cut - often, years. Technology can change a lot, and few people would argue that networking applications and products have developed even faster than the CPU marketplace. Ethereal and a $9 NIC now have more capability and a better user interface than the Network General Sniffer I coughed up $20 grand for a few years ago. If I kept the reciept, can I get a refund? ;-)

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[superpulpsicle]

There is this myth that the people who work in the FBI agencies are really really smart.

With the exception of forensics, I honestly don't know if the techies in the organization are even as ahead as the techies in the corporate/opensource sector.

They say you can tell how stupid or smart someone is when they open their mouths. FBI built an intelligent reputation by not saying much.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[Sc00ter]

That would only be true if they released it. If they kept the changes in house you do not have to release the code.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[Gyorg_Lavode]

This makes completed sense to anyone in the government. The government is heavily in favor of not building anything they can buy. They built Carnivore because, at the time, they couldn't buy a system that fit the requirements. Now, such systems exist so they retire their proprietary system an guy the COTS (commercial off the shelf). This is text book government procedure

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[plover]

Well, they could have just downloaded "Altivore", an open-source version of Carnivore. Of course, Altivore didn't come out until after Carnivore was released (causing the big controversy) but it was written to answer the questions of "what is the FBI snooping" and "what kinds of privacy do the other ISP customers have"? It also provided people a chance to see that it was secure, that "evil hackers" couldn't take over the Altivore box and subvert it for their own nefarious purposes.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[AviLazar]

Why the gov't doesn't want their security software- designed to sniff out criminals - as open source. Lets see. If it is open source then the criminals can get access to it. If the criminals have access to it they can try and figure a way around it. Yea that pretty much is a good enough reason why the gov't would want it to remain closed source/top secret.

So to other posters who say the FBI agents aren't the brightest - you would be surprised who works in the FBI and the level of intelligence/knowledge they hold. The tests to get in are not easy, the process is long, and if you check out some of the pay scales for FBI computer agents - its pretty damn good (especially in this day and age). Also, you just can't beat a gov't benefits program.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[MegaFur]

It depends on what the intended function is. nmap, tcpdump, and various other network scanning and monitoring programs could be used to keep track of what users are doing, but they're considered to be good, friendly programs by techies because their intended funciton is to help the techie get a sense for how the network is peroforming rather than to invade a person's privacy.

Re:The reason why Carnivore failed...

[gstoddart]

And how many developers would a. work on surveillance tools in their spare time, b. admit to doing a.?

Or c. know about it?

If the grandparent post was suggesting they just simply build it out of existing open source stuff, you could write a network utility and never know it had been rolled into this hypothetical OSS-based Carnivore.

Why Did The FBI make you think

[Anonymous Coward]

who said they have retired anything ?, you might think its been retired hence its public knowledge, of course the truth is they havent retired anything

the US gov is like a crack smoker when it comes to surveillance info, a few hits and they cant put the pipe down

Re:Why Did The FBI make you think

[mr. methane]

I don't get it. If they have a better product that's more reliable, simpler to use, and cheaper, why would they still use the old one?

Re:Why Did The FBI make you think

[Richard_at_work]

The company I work for recently retired Windows98. Does this mean we have a bunch of PCs sitting around with no OS on? No, we upgraded to newer operating systems. Retiring doesnt mean they dont have a current system inplace and doing the job Carnivore did.

Re:Why Did The FBI make you think

[Torontoman]

I was wondering when a conspiracy theorist would surface. Really - it's all run by The Smoking Man and Deep Throat.

Ok, since we're breaking out the tinfoil hats...

[Weaselmancer]

They say they've retired Carnivore.

Why tell us? And how do we know they actually did?

my guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The usual reason....

[old_skul]

....the next version came out. A new Linux kernel comes out, and you upgrade, right? I guess Carnivore 98(TM) is going off support.

Carnivore 2.0 would be my guess.

[glrotate]

I doubt the FBI doesn't scan emails during an investigation anymore.

Ingriiiiiid!

[robocrop]

Because they went vegan.

I blame PETA.

Re:Big Brother Is Watching....

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

But the point is, at least he's not watching my e-mail.

Not that I have anything to hide in the first place... no, really...!

Don't hurt me.

Re:Ok, since we're breaking out the tinfoil hats..

[wild_pointer]

Maybe they figured out that the terrorists used encryption.

But your tinfoil-hat-army probably thinks they have backdoors for them ;)

That can't be right!!

[goldspider]

"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."

No, no, NO!!

I read it on SLASHDOT!! The Gubmint wants to read my e-mail! It's part of their Total Information Awareness plot to put me in JAIL! They want to label me a TERRORIST and send me to GITMO!!

Don't tell me it's not true! It's on the INTERNET for crying out loud!

Re:That can't be right!!

[SmokeHalo]

Don't tell me it's not true! It's on the INTERNET for crying out loud!

It's not true unless you see it on TV.

ffs

[JPelorat]

How do we know it even existed in the first place? How do we know that there's no audio-based Carnivore? They could have the microphones trained on us RIGHT NOW!!

The solution is obvious - you must barricade yourself in your own house, destroy the phones and televisions, and sit quietly on the couch so the thermal pickups dont register your presence. It's the only way you'll have privacy!

I'm not sure about the rest of you but...

[b00st]

When I stop using a system it is usually because I have something better.

Re:I'm not sure about the rest of you but...

[crazy_pikachu]

That is what I was thinking I would not doubt that in a few months we will hear about the FBI having another program that is even worse then carnivore

Re:I'm not sure about the rest of you but...

[Bios_Hakr]

I second this vote.

Re:I'm not sure about the rest of you but...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Lately, better for the FBI generally meaning worse for ordinary citizens.

Re:I'm not sure about the rest of you but...

[drew]

you know, if you READ the link, it would tell you that IS precisely the reason why they retired it...

yeah, i know... i must be new here.

Little do we know...

[Garyman_2000]

The government has actually contracted with the makers of such programs as:
-Gator
-CoolWebSearch
-ISTbar
-and Internet Optimizer ........

Re:Little do we know...

[vena]

i coulda sworn you wrote "Internet Explorer" there

Re:Ok, since we're breaking out the tinfoil hats..

[Altima(BoB)]

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.

RTFA...this is not a good thing

[Slightly Askew]

You're rejoicing that the FBI retired Carnivore. What Carnivore allowed was the collection of information, then the decryption and analysis of that data with a court order. They retired it because USA PATRIOT allows them to just collect it the good old fashioned way...no encryption, no court order. Whomever, whenever they want. The difference is that now they can look for suspicious activity via eavesdropping instead of first having a suspicion and confirming it via eavesdropping. You are celebrating that the FBI has thrown away their lock picks and not realizing that Congress has removed all your doors.

Re:RTFA...this is not a good thing

[deadlinegrunt]

...
You are celebrating that the FBI has thrown away their lock picks and not realizing that Congress has removed all your doors.

Apologies for a "Me too post" but well put.

Re:RTFA...this is not a good thing

[John Pliskin]

Funny thing this 4th amendment is.

Of course that stopped working the day it was written.
$

Re:RTFA...this is not a good thing

[SuperBanana]

They retired it because USA PATRIOT allows them to just collect it the good old fashioned way...no encryption, no court order.

I believe the phrase for this is, "When all else fails, lower your standards".

Re:RTFA...this is not a good thing

[MoneyT]

Yay for FUD!

It's not that simple

[paranode]

And even the headline blurb points it out. Carnivore was not just a sniffing tool, it had to be able to extract massive amounts of data and then filter it to protect the privacy of people's communications. Tcpdump is not even a ballpark comparison.

Re:It's not that simple

[SilverspurG]

Tcpdump is not even a ballpark comparison

Sure it is, once you turn the code into a solid state device and build it into a router. I've heard that 80% of network traffic gets routed through Virginia at one point or another. This is not technically impossible.

Scary

[A beautiful mind]

"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.

Re:Scary

[anonicon]

"I hope i'm not correct with this interpetation."

You are correct, but don't worry, it won't be abused since Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (a rubber-stamp court) have complete oversight over everything the FBI does under Patriot. Honest.

Chuck

Re:Scary

[Cyryathorn]

"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?"

Um, no. From the article, we learn that Carnivore was originally created because commercially-availble solutions at the time did not have the privacy protections the FBI needed. FBI needed these privacy protections so that evidence gathered in this manner would not be thrown out by judges -- so they built Carnivore in-house to make sure that it would only record information covered by warrant.

Now, there are commercially-available tools that have the requisite privacy protections, so the FBI will just use those instead of maintaining their own in-house program.

In short, the FBI are now doing with commerical software what they used to do with in-house software. (The ultimate point being that they needed some software one-way-or-another to gather information they were entitled to gather because they got a warrant).

So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).

Re:Scary

[thparker]

Um, no. From the article, we learn that Carnivore was originally created because commercially-availble solutions at the time did not have the privacy protections the FBI needed. FBI needed these privacy protections so that evidence gathered in this manner would not be thrown out by judges -- so they built Carnivore in-house to make sure that it would only record information covered by warrant.

...

So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).

Actually, it's not off-topic. It's extremely relevant. If you RTFA, you'll see that he links to his PATRIOT Act article - in which he picks 3 provisions related to Internet surveillance and uses them as proof that the PATRIOT Act really isn't so bad. He seems to think that it's kinda warm and fuzzy and all those civil libertarians are just cranks.

I'm not a tin-foil hat type, but I do believe that the PATRIOT Act guts many of our civil liberties. This guy seems to be a quack (granted, a quack who appears to be at a reasonably prestigious university) who doesn't seem particularly worried about the current state of affairs. That's fine if that's his opinion, but you'd be wise to consider his opinions on Carnivore in the context of his overall view.

Re:Scary

[STrinity]

He seems to think that it's kinda warm and fuzzy and all those civil libertarians are just cranks.

Considering that Orin Kerr, like the rest of the Volokh Conspiracy, is a libertarian, I think it'd be more accurate to say that he thinks his fellow libertarians are over-reacting.

Re:Scary

[STrinity]

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?

No, it doesn't mean that. He refers to an article he wrote on the PATRIOT Act three years ago, which briefly touched on the subject, but nowhere does he say that thE PATRIOT Act lowered the standards. His point is that publically available software has finally caught up to those standards.

My theory

[spike2131]

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.

Re:My theory

[dknight]

actually, that's not really an issue

they can get you an "interim" clearance

an interim secret clearance, assuming you dont have any major red-flags on your record, takes like 9 days. That lets you access 'secret' level stuff until your full investigation finishes.

The downside is, it costs the company a ridiculous amount of money to get you put in for a clearance (thousands of dollars - I've heard 10's of thousands even), so they REALLY prefer to get people who already have a clearance.

I guess you could join the military if you REALLY want a clearance that bad ;) Otherwise, it pays to know people in the biz.

Re:My theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's also not forget that because these programmers (and sysadmins and helpdesk people and their managers) are in such demand that their salaries are easily six figures. This greatly contributes to the overall cost of the project.

Got an active DoD top secret clearance? Ever used MS Office? There's a great $96k/yr HELPDESK job in Dulles waiting for you!

College grads: if you can't find work, go through OTS, join the USAF and get into communications, get a top secret clearance, force shape your way out after you pin on 1st Lt (its the army that has stop loss, USAF is pushing people out), then get a consulting gig in Northern VA and make gobs of cash. Takes about 2 years.

Re:My theory

[MegaFur]

So is there some way I can apply for a security clearence that's not too expensive if I don't mind having to wait two years?

Re:My theory

[Tim C]

The result, I'm convinced, is that they hire a lot of sub-standard programmers

Actually, all other things being equal, you'd expect the proportion of sub-standard programmers with security clearance to be roughly the same as the proportion without. That's ignoring any time or cost to actually get them security cleared, which would presumably skew it towards better programmers being cleared, not worse ones.

These outfits need to either figure out a way to use better programmers who don't have security clearances

I am security cleared (in the UK), and work on "List X" projects (ie ones that you need to be security cleared for). It varies from project to project, but generally, I can't even give you the spec if you're not cleared. For the projects I've worked on at least, there is *no* way to use a non-security cleared programmer; even the source code is restricted.

Re:Ok, since we're breaking out the tinfoil hats..

[crunk]

Why tell us?

To get more money for the new and improved system

You miss the conspiracy potential.

[raygundan]

You're clearly not paranoid enough to post on slashdot.

The implication here is that Carnivore was only being used because they had to respect your rights. Post-PATRIOT act, they don't have to bother with that, and are now just happily reading *everything*. Of COURSE the government wants to know how many questions you asked that guy selling Star Wars Action Figures on ebay. It's important in the fight against terrorism.

The gist of his argument is that...

[gillbates]

If you don't encrypt your email and web traffic, you have no "reasonable expectation" of privacy. Apparently, "addressing information" - that is, packet headers - are not a part of confidential communications, and as such, it does not represent an invasion of privacy to read them.

While I understand his argument that PATRIOT merely made pre-existing wiretap laws apply to the internet, this fact alone doesn't make the existing laws right. For example, just knowing who called who when, even without revealing the details of content, does significantly invade one's privacy. In these times when someone can be detained simply because they "may have knowledge of a criminal act", divulging the websites a person visits is still too dangerous. Someone concerned about the rise of radical Islam could easily be detained as a "potential terrorist" simply because they did some independent research on Islam using the internet. Even scanning addressing information alone is too much power for a government in which the mere declaration that one is an "enemy combatant" can be used to arbitrarily deny one's civil liberties.

Re:The gist of his argument is that...

[PPGMD]

There is one problem with your argument, that simply visiting the sites makes you someone that they instantly label as an enemy combatant. It doesn't. As much as researching money laundering, doesn't makes you a drug dealer.

Even under the PATRIOT act, there are still checks and balances, some cases the government wins, others it loses. The PATRIOT act allowing the government to streamline the process when dealing with terrorists, which scatter alot more quickly than other criminals.

Re:The gist of his argument is that...

[gillbates]

Even under the PATRIOT act, there are still checks and balances...

Um, not enough checks, I fear. Just ask a certain Senator (*cough* Ted Kennedy *cough*) who was detained at airports because some terrorist with an apparent sense of humor decided to use his name as an alias. While in theory you're correct, you'd have to be blind to recent events to believe that the government wouldn't detain the innocent on the rare chance that they might be guilty. Guilt by association has become the rule, not the exception.

I find it rather troubling that, of all those arrested and detained for "connections to terrorism," our government has yet to gain a single conviction for terrorism - i.e. conspiracy to commit murder, etc... The best they've done so far is charge a handful of people with falsifying documents and various immigration violations. It makes you wonder if they really are "fighting a war against terrorism" or merely using the pretext of war as an excuse to stifle the expression of Islam in America.

Re:The gist of his argument is that...

[PPGMD]

Thats different departments. Certain departments are filled with idiots, like the TSA, who will take the multi-tool from pilots in the cockpit firearm program, because they may use the multi-tool to "gain control of the aircraft."

Regardless it still requires a warrant to arrest someone, unless they have positive proof that they are an enemy combatant.

And getting convictions are tough, particularly against groups that are so well segmented like terrorist groups, often the best way to get them are on the little things, like how they got Martha.

It makes you wonder if they really are "fighting a war against terrorism" or merely using the pretext of war as an excuse to stifle the expression of Islam in America.

Now that is the stupidest thing I have seen all day. If anything Islam is more protected now than it was before 9-11, law enforcement is not allowed to profile period, or else they are sued by the ACLU.

I know!! I know!!

[jamesdood]

They retired it because it ran on NT4.0 ....

Re:I know!! I know!!

[xystren]

No! No! No!

NT4.0 had nothing to do with it. It's all the SPAM that has been growing so much. They probably realized that the spamfilters were toasting any "criminal" message before they could "carnivore" them.

The whole project seemed like a lot of wasted money from the begining...

Re:Ownership?

[wondafucka]

I totally agree on being outraged that our government does things we don't want it to, and then keeps it a secret.

I think the key to the problem is in that we say things like "our government is set against telling its own people what it does"(Sic) instead of "our governement is set against telling the people it represents what it does". It is our government, we are not it's people. And no, we are not free. We are extremely well off, but are not capital "F" free.

That's just the 1/5th libertarian in me talking. The other 1/5th wants my government enforcers to protect the status quo and give tax breaks to those that are more successful, and the other 3/5ths wants the man to stop trying to bring me down and just past the douchie to the left hand side.

Conspiracy Theorists?

[DuBey79]

Please tell me that the owners of this site are not only hosting the site as a place for conspiracy theory... It disturbes me that one of the first article on the site references The Onion. -M@

Re:Conspiracy Theorists?

[dannytaggart]

Not at all. They're a bunch of lawyers and academics, mostly discussing legal issues.

Re:Conspiracy Theorists?

[STrinity]

Please tell me that the owners of this site are not only hosting the site as a place for conspiracy theory... It disturbes me that one of the first article on the site references The Onion.

Eugene Volokh is a libertarian law professor.

He runs a blog with other libertarian law professors.

The name for the blog is the Volokh Conspiracy.

The first article you saw was a link to an Onion story that's amusing to lawyers and legal academics.

Re:Conspiracy Theorists?

[tmika]

Please tell me that the owners of this site are not only hosting the site as a place for conspiracy theory... It disturbes me that one of the first article on the site references The Onion. -M@

The Onion is a satyrical news site, not a conspiracy site.

Volokh Conspiracy is a vaguely libertarian / accuracy of information / freedom of information / legal issues site that is anything but a conspiracy buff site. (If you read a few of their articles, they are more prone to debunk or attempt to debunk wild theories than espouse them).

The onion article was funny, and I presume presenting it as news was intended to be humorous to the legal and polical mined audience of the site. (It sure cracked me up in that context).

Disclaimer: I'm not trashing you. Its easy to get so sick of half-truths, crazy accusations, and misrepresentations on the net that you start looking for it without checking into the matter (sort of becoming part of the problem by being so drowned in it), but if you check your "facts", Volokh is more or less opposite to what you are proposing.

Would it be more like...

[macdaddy]

...saying "We're not going to use it anymore so you can stop worrying about it. *wink, wink*"?

Re:Big Brother Is Watching....

[hey]

Just remember the different between "you're" (you are) and "your" (you own something).

We've got bigger problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear they just put the Aquinas router online. Better get some ambrosia.

Hi! I'm from the FBI.

[dteichman2]

We retired Carnivore so we could bring in Omnivore. Never would we use the Patriot Act for frivolously putting airplane-taggers in prison, or anything else that could be considered stupid and a waste of government funds/money or abusive to the general population.

We just came out with Omnivore, essentially Carnivore II. It's made-up of a massive Xbox cluster (that's what we get when we contract it to Microsoft) and has every major exchange hooked into it. It's also the reason people seem to be fascinated with Area 51. Please note that all those old Russion MIGs and freaky green, glowing lights were just cover (the green lights were Das Blinkinlights while we were experimenting with BeOS).

Please note that Carnivore II is currently intercepting the nude photos that your GF is sending you and FBI agents are probably posting them up in the office right now. Also, it is more than capable of intercepting every e-mail with the word terrorist, seeing as how the Bush Administration would rather that you use the words "Men Of Extreme Evil" so as not to let them win by even acknowleging their presence on Earth. So if you even use the word "terror," we will come after you in your sleep and put you in GITO forever, then you will need to put up with endlessly being forced to dance in front of the other "Men Of Extreme Evil." Thank you for your understanding in this matter. We apologize for any confusion. Remember, Uncle Sam is just trying to decide what's best for YOU!

Wasn't used very much

[rufey]

According to MSNBC, the FBI wouldn't have used Carnivor all that much if they were still using it.

he FBI performed only eight Internet wiretaps in fiscal 2003 and five in fiscal 2002; none used the software initially called Carnivore and later renamed the DCS-1000, according to FBI documents submitted to Senate and House oversight committees. The FBI, which once said Carnivore was "far better" than commercial products, said previously it had used the technology about 25 times between 1998 and 2000.

Carnivor was not a system designed to watch Internet traffic 24/7/365 and flag stuff that looked like potential usefull data on random people. It was used to monitor people who were already under investigation.

I don't hear many people cry foul over a regular telephone wiretap, which is done for the same reasons under the same circumstances - they wiretap telephones of people who are already under investigation (I realize that Eschelon is different, but Eschelon is not a telephone wiretap on a suspect's phone. Its a wiretap on all communications, or so some people claim).

And the Patriot Act does require a court order to do most things. Its just that its not the courts that we think about. Its a secret court. There have been articles on the very subject.

I don't believe that the FBI simply randomly picks people to monitor and do searches of houses at random, etc. There is some "oversight", although to most of us, that "oversight" is secret (yes, that can lead to abuse).

Or perhaps it has served its purpose.

[porpnorber]

...Or perhaps it has served its purpose. By now an entire generation of mathematical and computational linguists have been diverted, through government control of funding and its indirect global effects, from looking at language structure and semantics (using verifiable models, unlike, I am sad to say, many 'theoretical' linguists) that might eventually lead to plausible natural language understanding, into surfacy statistical methods useful for scanning vast amounts of text efficiently. Call me paranoid, but in my mind this serves a number of potential purposes:

• it tightens government control of research in general
• it shifts focus away from 'obscure' languages and promotes isolationism and (ironically) thereby supports cultural imperialism
• likewise, it diverts effort away from tools that might be useful in translation
• it diverts from work that could in principle radically improve text compression ratios (which is mathematically more important for secrecy than improved crypto algorithms, though this is rarely pointed out)
• it helps refocus academia on providing short term benefits to military, intelligence and industrial applications and away from its own programme of building abstract and enabling knowledge.

(At the risk of antagonising the community here I should also point out that Carnivore and its successors probably share with slashdot a huge problem that is widely perceived as a feature: that it actively reinforces its user community's notions of relevance. Surfacy, automated filtering is of course even more likely than human moderation to classify material by its rhetorical style than its actual content. In politics, indeed in support of any culture or subculture, this is perhaps a wonderful thing; in intelligence, a two edged sword of the worst kind - one that may explain how a number of things manage to slip under the radar.) But I can only leave you to judge.

Why, exactly, should we believe this?

[dpbsmith]

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.

Re:Why, exactly, should we believe this?

[gad_zuki!]

Not to mention that blog is famous for leaning on the right side of politics, so its no surprise they would praise the Carnivore system and call the complaints of civil libertarians trivial.

Its just some mostly Republican law junkies posting their opinions in a very fast and loose style. No citations, very little to oversight, no comments, etc. Its how not to run a political blog, but right wing blogs tend to have that kind of format (just tell us what to think!) as open commenting tends to hurt their carefully crafted strawmen and absurd ideological positions.

Re:Why, exactly, should we believe this?

[STrinity]

Not to mention that blog is famous for leaning on the right side of politics, so its no surprise they would praise the Carnivore system and call the complaints of civil libertarians trivial.

Its just some mostly Republican law junkies posting their opinions in a very fast and loose style.

Yes, they're so right wing that several members admitted to voting for Kerry and Badnarik.

Here's a clue-by-four for ya' -- not everyone who disagrees with you politically is a right-wing Republican.

No citations,

Are you reading the same Volokh Conspiracy as I am? They routinely cite legal opinions and academic papers, with a link if one's available to the general public. Hell, the most annoying thing about the site is the number of PDFs of court decisions they link to.

very little to oversight,Apart from guys like Mickey Kaus who are paid to blog by a professional media organization, no blogger has any oversight, right-wing, left-wing, anarchist, or fascist.

Maybe.

[jd]

Part of the problem with that line of reasoning is that it becomes much harder to recognise when a problem has arisen. When problems ARE detected, it also becomes much harder to correct them, because you can't admit what it is you are correcting.

The whole thing eventually comes down to security through obscurity - a somewhat dangerous philosophy.

The British followed such a philosophy for years, not even admitting that MI5 and MI6 existed. Eventually, they realised that this offered zero additional protection. Those who were a threat already knew they existed and had probably infiltrated both, so the only ones being kept in the dark were the voters/taxpayers. They abandoned the cloak of secrecy and even published the name of the head of MI6. The world didn't explode, civilization didn't collapse, and people carried on pretty much as normal.

In the case of Echelon, stating whether or not it exists wouldn't seriously hurt US national security. Those with secrets to hide are likely to already use a wide range of evasion and encryption techniques. Knowing that Echelon is out there, without knowing the details of how it works, wouldn't provide any information they wouldn't already be assuming to be true.

What it does do is make it possible to correct any flaws in the system, as it currently exists. it wouldn't require anyone to say what those flaws were, or how the system works, but it would allow them to bill for fixing things.

Carnivore, by all accounts, was superceded by commercial tools. Why? Did the FBI sack all of its software engineers, the day after the product went into service? Probably not. The official figures suggest that the product saw a steady decline in usefulness, which suggests that there was little or no maintenance or development. This likely started when the project was classified, as the available data suggests it had reached terminal decline by the time it was admitted to.

There was absolutely nothing preventing the FBI from keeping Carnivore up-to-date. If they started ahead of everyone else, they should have remained ahead of everyone else. In fact, if they had programmers so good that they COULD start ahead of those who'd been working on the problem for some time, they should have INCREASED the gap between themselves and commercial vendors.

They didn't. Well, you can hardly hire a contractor to fix an unacknowledged bug in a system you won't admit exists. The more secret you make these things, the harder it gets to get the bug reports from the users to the programmers.

The problem with GOTS software (or hardware) is that there is an unstated assumption that problems will fix themselves if you bury them deep enough. That is why Carnivore became outdated, not some magical advancement by the commercial sector.

Re:Big Brother Is Watching....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember the different(sic) between "different" and "difference".

If you're going to criticise someone's post for spelling, you need to do a better job making sure yours is up to snuff.

Did the FBI retire Carnivore?

[Neuroelectronic]

That's funny, because that's how I read it. I kinda believe it though since they admit to using comercial spyware instead. which is probably alot more rapant then something the goverment made. (Unless its GenMod)

Most net traffic is P2P

[digitalgimpus]

Most net traffic is P2P these days.

So they can safely watch most of it pretty easily...

and for minimal cash be able to say they watch the majority of web traffic.

If that's effective or not... that's another story.

But the FBI is just a government organization. It's goal is to keep the public calm and stay within budget. That's it's only goal.

Re:Most net traffic is P2P

[angryelephant]

as long as we are arguing semantics I have to make the point that P2P traffic != web traffic

What? What!

[Blitzenn]

You mean.. everything they say isn't true? Really?! You mean.. they are never going to find WMD in Iraq? You mean they really didn't have a Nuclear program? That's a gastly thing to say! You HAVE to believe everything they tell you! It's not American to believe otherwise!

We have been lied to so much by our own government, I don't see how anyone can put an ounce of credibility in anything that comes out of their mouth anymore, even from this professor so-in-so.

It’s all about the doublespeak

[joey_knisch]

We've seen this before and we'll see it again.
I for one will be keeping my eye out for herbivore.

Not provable

[siskbc]

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 would you go about proving that you're *not* using something? Any "citation" would just be the assertion of someone else, necessarily failing your test.

Yes.

[abulafia]

It's a waste of resources.

Which is exactly the point.

Sometimes people need practical demonstrations of that.

I think where you and i disagree is not about the "shades of gray" issue. Where we disagree is about inerlocking shades of intent. If, by way of example, a complete loss of privacy (strip searches upon exiting the home, "your papers, please!" at every corner, etc. for one week would eliminate a very serious threat (and I don't think bin Laden actually qualifies for something this intrusive, but for a theoretical, let's use him), and then everything would be back to a relatively free society, many might be OK with that. However, what actually happens is a ratchet effect - increased scrutiny is also useful for other things, and so it tends not to go away. Look at the cameras going up everywhere, or the increasing scrutiny of financial transactions.

I don't believe it is alarmist to say that we are moving towards being the most heavily surveiled society in history - the former East Germany (DDR), I think, holds that title now, but if things don't change, the US will take the lead in my lifetime.

And producing chafe along the road to that, I believe, is patriotic to the country I want to live in - if I can't vote to not become a panopticon, I can at least do my part to increase the cost of becoming one.

Re:Yes.

[AviLazar]

I am not arguing if we have too little or too much security. And trust me, our security is nothing compared to other countries (i.e. israel). In fact countries like Israel accept this increased intrusion and do not worry about it - because unless you are doing something wrong you don't need to worry about it. Most likely, nobody is even watching you because you are insignificant. It is when you decide to stand-out that people look at you - but again if you are not doing anything wrong - you have nothing to worry about.

What I disagree with you about is making yourself stand-out just so you distract our security organizations for a moment. While you think this is sending a message, I think it is just wasting resources. If you want to send a message - send one that is direct, not subversive. How is the FBI supposed to know you are just telling them they are wasting their time? If you want them to know that - write a letter to your politician of choice, or do something else that works within the system. Your present methods circumvent the system - and by purposely hindering the system you are honestly just comitting a crime (interfering with gov't sanctioned criminal investigations.)

Re:Yes.

[arkanes]

Right. You're an idiot. Go to Israel, and be an outspoken supporter of the PLO and Palestinian rights. Don't blow anything up. See just how much you "don't have anything to worry about".

Hell, look at the history of the US for even more examples. You've heard of McCarthyism? It's happened before. It's happened here. In fact, it's happened everywhere. It's not some slippery slope argument, it's facing reality. It is an absolute fact that law enforcment in the US abuses it's power. Not on a conspiracy theory institutional scale, mind you, but on small personal levels. All over the US, every day. How many cops do you know that get speeding tickets? There isn't anything special about people in law enforcement, or in government. They're just as much people as you and me and that guy down the street, and they're just as moral or immoral. Power will be abused, period. That's why we have checks and balances, to try to limit the potential for abuse. Except that there's a growing contingent of brainwashed cockmongers who think that the FBI are magical guardian angels with no personal feelings, and no political agenda who should have all the power they think they need without any sort of civilian oversight. Yeah, that worked out really well in Soviet Russia, right?

Re:Yes.

[AviLazar]

Yea me be a supporter of the PLO. You are on crack. I don't feel like responding to the rest of your rant because of your inane 2nd, 3rd and 4th sentences.

Re:Yes.

[arkanes]

There's nothing illegal about supporting the PLO. Not even in Israel. Like being a Communist in the USA circa 1947.

Re:Yes.

[abulafia]

if you are not doing anything wrong - you have nothing to worry about.

(a) This is demonstrably not true. To pick one extreme example that I think nobody sane will quibble about, look at the number of death row inmates who are released only after the tireless efforts of non-governmental advocates.

(b) Even if this were true, this is the mindset of an un-free society. It is *because* one is doing nothing wrong that one should not be under government scrutiny. Just some advice: ponder seriously the phrase "by the people, of the people, for the people".

Your present methods circumvent the system - and by purposely hindering the system you are honestly just comitting a crime

This is so close to "that which is not permitted is forbidden; that which is not forbidden is mandatory" that I doubt a substantive debate on the limits of government between us is possible. You don't appear to want to live in a free society.

One more suggestion: anytime someone starts talking about "the rights of the government", seek cover. The first step is to assume that the government is distinct from the citizenry, and the second it to assume that it somehow comes before people when deciding matters of confic

Re:Yes.

[hunterx11]

McCarthyism is a strange example. There were Communist spies, but it was kept so secret that even McCarthy didn't know. Which is pretty ironic.

WHITEWASH

[Doc Ruby]

This spin, that somehow "proves" that Carnivore is no more, comes from Kerr, the guy whose "Patriot" Act marketing is linked from this story's summary. It dates from the time the Act was being "debated" in Congress,; called "Internet Surveillance Law After the USA Patriot Act: The Big Brother That Isn't". We all know now that it is, and that Carnivore is part of it. So this is all just a sign of both the big budgets the FBI has for lifecycle spin control these days, and how important it is that we believe that this harmless program doesn't exist. Obviously, it does exist, and it's bad. The coverups of course make it much worse.

Re:WHITEWASH

[STrinity]

We all know now that it is, and that Carnivore is part of it.

So the FBI knew about the PATRIOT Act when they created Carnivore during the Clinton administration?

Re:WHITEWASH

[Doc Ruby]

Maybe, though I never claimed that. I claim that the Patriot Act operations are the "Big Brother" that Kerr claimed it would not be, and that Carnivore is part of the Patriot Act operations.

Website down?

[NeoSkandranon]

"The Volokh Conspiracy" Doesn't appear to be accepting incoming connections anymore. For something labeled as a conspiracy that's certainly interesting. Course its probably just a slashdotting, but it's not letting me in w/ a Slashdot referral or otherwise.

Wiretapping has been outsourced to Verisign

[Animats]

Verisign, the first name in wiretapping, offers their NetDiscovery service to law enforcement. In their words,

• Complete Lawful Intercept Service

  VeriSign's NetDiscovery service provides telecom network operators, cable operators, and Internet service providers with a streamlined service to help meet requirements for assisting government agencies with lawful interception and subpoena requests for subscriber records. Net Discovery is the premier turnkey service for provisioning, access, delivery, and collection of call information from operators to law enforcement agencies (LEAs).

Verisign does this for telephony by using (or abusing) their control of Signalling System 7., the routing network for telephony. When a wiretap request comes in, they change the SS7 routing data to route calls to/from the phone of interest to their call monitoring center, from which the call is then routed outward again. To the telephone network, this looks like call forwarding. This approach requires no additional hardware at the wireline carrier; it's done through the existing SS7 infrastructure. (Incidentally, this should increase latency, depending on how far you are from Northern Virginia. But they may have remote monitoring centers by now to cut that down.)

Verisign also offers wiretapping services for mobile phones, and cable-based VoIP.

Efforts are underway to integrate NetDiscovery capability into future Cisco routers.

Verisign takes the carrier or ISP completely out of the loop. "Authorized Government agencies" can submit their wiretapping request to Verisign, where they are "reviewed by a paralegal" and then implemented. There's no need for the carrier or ISP to even be aware of the wiretap.

So that's why there's no need for Carnivore any more.

Verisign - your full service wiretapping solution provider.

Ahhh, to be young!, and ignorant!

[sideshow]

Bush ignoring the August 6, 2001 Daily Briefing (more than a month before the attack) is one of the most ghastly mistakes in American history.

I remember my youth where I thought my president was the evilest thing that ever lived. Us old fogeys laugh at the kids who think Bush even breaks the halfway point on the evil scale.

I'm guessing you're about 19, because you sure as hell didn't live through Reagan.

Re:Ahhh, to be young!, and ignorant!

[M1FCJ]

Although I was born in early seventies when I was a kid I was scared of a nuclear exchange between Russia and America, this was around I was ten and I believed that Reagan wouldn't hesitate if the push came to the shove. At least this idiot will not use the A and H bombs against random targets (I hope).

Re:Ahhh, to be young!, and ignorant!

[mazarin5]

Ketchup is a vegetable, baby!

WRONG... dead wrong

[freedom_india]

Your basic assumption is WRONG. You assume the Government and its agents have your BEST interests at heart WHEN they investigate your suspicious behavior. In reality it is more like shoot-first and ask questions later with Govt. and its agents.

What's to prevent a troublesome guy like Micheal Moore from being locked and the key thrown away BECAUSE the Govt. has REASONABLE cause to assume to he was endangering the security of the State?

Your basic assumption is YOU are safe BECAUSE you are not doing anything illegal. DEAD WRONG.

Soviet Union was built on the assumption that the State is superior to the individuals. How long did it survive and how was the living standard of its people?

The more power you give to your Govt., the more you lose. You end up losing your freedom to think, to do, and to talk. You assume the Govt. will take good care of its people in a brotherly way if you sign away your powers...what's to present you from ending up in a Gulag because you spoke against some of its policies.

The constitution of the USA was built on the basic assumption that the rights and freedom of an individual CANNOT be taken away by Govt.

Freedom is NOT a Gift that can be snatched away when the Govt. feels like it. Freedom is OUR birthright if we want to live as Humans.

Stop talking about giving away your rights to Govt. in exchange for tax-benefits...

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[AviLazar]

Actually pretty dead right. I never said don't question your gov't, I never said ignore the bad things your gov't may do. What I said is - if you don't like it, fight within the system.
Go jump on someone elses case and write a valid post.
The constitution, btw, was built on the assumption that it can be changed to help better protect the rights of the individual. Again, with things like Carnivore, I never felt intruded upon. I never had someone knock on my door and haul me away; nor did I ever have the gov't question me in anyway.
so whats your point?

And where did i mention giving my rights away for tax-benefits? Stop putting words into my mouth.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[Hatta]

Actually pretty dead right. I never said don't question your gov't, I never said ignore the bad things your gov't may do. What I said is - if you don't like it, fight within the system.

As for adopting the ways of the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse the body.
-H.D. Thoreau

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[freedom_india]

Again, with things like Carnivore, I never felt intruded upon. I never had someone knock on my door and haul me away; nor did I ever have the gov't question me in anyway.

The fact that the some faceless Govt. offier reads and understands your mail WITHOUT sufficient cause means nothing to you i guess. Would you act the same if the same Govt. official started looking into your bedroom during your most "private" moments with your wife?

Freedom == Privacy.

Restrict Privacy and you restrict freedom.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[Moofie]

Let's play NAME THAT DOCUMENT.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"

I'm not arguing that we need to have another Revolutionary War. I am arguing that working within the system is not always the way to demand change for the better.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[Marvelicious]

THANK YOU!

Also potentially of interest: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/v1ch3 .html

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[AviLazar]

The first statement is non-intrusive and I wouldn't even know. So let them see my rauncy jokes, my sappy love letters, etc.

Your second statement is obstrusive.

If you want to live completely free of any restrictions find yourself a deserted island. You get a lot of benefits for being part of this gov't (roads, public schools, police, public services, etc.).

Now try not to assume that I mean let the gov't run free and wild, but also try not to assume that our gov't is evil. If you want to see an evil gov't pick up your history books and read about Hitler, or more recently Saddam.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[AviLazar]

Nice quote..whats your point? It's like reading the mission statement at a company. Ever read those statements? Ever see the company practices? Generally a far cry - especially the larger the company.

By not working within the system you are generally subverting it, and in some cases subversion is illegal. For example: hindering a criminal investigation.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[Moofie]

I'm an idealist. I think law enforcement should hew to the ideals of this country's social contract with me. You think they should put on the jackboots and do whatever they want. We disagree.

Illegal!=wrong.

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[AviLazar]

I do not think they should do whatever they want. That is a gross interpretation on my views. I think, though, that gov't - in the interest of security - does not need to do things that we do not want when it is warranted. For example - I do not want to pay taxes (especially social security which I may never see) but I understand the NEED for it so I do it.

Your statement, Illegal != wrong is semi correct. Illegal does not always equal wrong with a caveat - if you willfully/knowingly commit an illegal action (meaning you knew it was illegal) then chances are you are wrong (extreme exceptions obviously may negate the being wrong part).

Re:WRONG... dead wrong

[Moofie]

I'm not arguing about taxes. I'm arguing about suspending the writ of habeas corpus. I'm talking about secret courts. I'm talking about "justice" being dispensed under seal, not open for the public's inspection.

I'm talking about an attorney general who thinks torturing people is OK.

THAT is wrong. That is illegal, and unethical, and immoral, and mark one mod zero EVIL. And it's what passes for government in the United States today.

It is illegal to smoke pot. It is not wrong to smoke pot. I do not smoke pot, regardless.

For the same reason the CIA retired the Blackbird

[karlandtanya]

They have something better. (Sattelites in the case of the SR-71).

I have the REAL reason.

[Regul8or]

Because high protein(meat), low carb diets are just so hard to maintain.

Re:I have the REAL reason.

[cayenne8]

" Because high protein(meat), low carb diets are just so hard to maintain."

Actually, I've found it quite easy to stay on low carb...lost and maintained loss of about 25 lbs since last May. Also, starting to work the gym routine back in to drop even more...at that point, can work some carbs back in, but, not processed sugars and white bread...more like fruits, other natural sugars.

If it were a hard diet...I'd never be able to stick with it...Totally OT (I did get the joke from the parent)...but, just rambling....

Logic is flawed

[SpammersAreScum]

I'm having real trouble seeing the logic of your argument. You seem to be saying that the government didn't want to admit Carnivore existed, which made it impossible for them to get it fixed/updated. How'd it get built in the first place, then? Answer: It got built by cleared contractors who knew not to reveal the name or details to anyone not appropriately cleared. Similar contractors -- probably the same ones -- would be (and probably were) used to maintain it.

Re:Logic is flawed

[jd]

It's unlikely to have been the same ones. We know that, at one point, it went through a University research department, and the turnover at those tends to be fairly high. It's also very unlikely to have started - or finished - there.

Documentation for Government projects tends to be poor to non-existant. I've worked on such projects before, and the common complaint has been the level of obscurity. Some of the fault has been the contractors. INRIA has been used by the US Navy for a number of projects, but can't document worth a damn.

However, a far bigger factor has been the mis-management, politics and attitude of the Government employees overseeing such projects. A lack of good documentation and good maintenance is actually seen as a Good Thing far too often.

There is absolutely no reason for any of this. The Government is big enough and rich enough to get the best of the best, if it so chooses, and is more than capable of making sure projects stay current. This simply doesn't happen. I have never seen such outdated, outmoded technology as when I've worked on Government projects. Sure, you don't want bleeding-edge on a jet fighter or a battleship, but you don't want medieval technology either.

In computing, if you don't move forwards, you move backwards. This is a high-speed, high-pressure industry. It's no place for the slow or the timid. It's also a highly logical industry. A computer will do exactly what it is programmed to do, whether it is what you want or not. You can't browbeat a CPU, and a disk drive doesn't respect the whims of authority.

I've seen projects that have failed to meet minimum standards for a decade or more, which were used anyway because it was politic to do so, but where getting those projects up to scratch was not even up for discussion for the same reason.

My belief that Carnivore is likely to have suffered from neglect is based on solid first-hand experience in the way these projects are handled. I know what I've seen, and I'm not impressed. I would need some fairly solid evidence to convince me that the FBI can do a better job of project maintenance than the DoD or NASA. Packets haven't evolved nearly as much, over the years, as other technologies, so why would Upper Management care until something broke?

Probably

[Elranzer]

Why Did The FBI Retire Carnivore? Because at the time, the FBI didn't think support would be dropped on its backbone OS, Windows NT 4.

Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts

[Aexia]

The last couple years of his administration, Clinton realized that terrorism, especially the threat from Bin Laden, was going to be the main problem for the US in the future. Meanwhile, at the time, Republicans claimed Clinton was just trying to "distract" from the Lewinsky scandal and that he was "paying too much attention" to Bin Laden.

There were several programs he put into place that Bush discontinued when he came into office. For example, Clinton stationed ships close to Afghanistan so that a missile strike could nail OBL within minutes. (the training camp strike in 1998 missed OBL by about 15 minutes, IIRC) Bush removed the ships. There was also a training program to have a Pakistani team go into Afghanistan to get OBL. Bush discontinued the program.

Clinton didn't do *enough* to combat terrorism but at least he realized it was a problem. Bush didn't do *anything*. Hell, he did worse than nothing because he dismantled existing efforts.

Mod parent down

[STrinity]

If you're going to tell people to RTFA, you should read the full article yourself. Orin's point is that the FBI is retiring Carnivore because it's no longer necessary from a technical point of view.

In the late '90s, the FBI was relying upon commercially available packet sniffers (dubbed Omnivore by the Bureau) for electronic surveillance. They found the products available at the time insufficient for the job -- the official explanation is they didn't allow fine enough filtration to protect privacy, but if you wish to read more nefarious reasons into it, it doesn't make much difference -- so the Bureau created their own system called Carnivore. But that was over half a decade ago, and the publically available programs have finally caught up to FBI specs.

The truth is, you can probably download a packet sniffer off Sourceforge that's more powerful than the dread Carnivore. And that's probably what the FBI's doing now.

ITs not gone just different....

[jzarling]

The govn't doesnt let something like Carnivore die. Its just obsolete. The new system is most likey more powerful, intrusive, and much less obvious.

McAfee & commercial vendors are the new Carniv

[glassesmonkey]

The FBI is just turning to contractors and newer technology than maintaining the old Carnivore.

McAfee Inc has sold its McAfee Research assets to US defense contractor Sparta Inc for an undisclosed sum, after post-9/11 politics made much of its research output classified.
13 Jan 2005, 09:39 GMT -
"In response to rapidly changing national directions, much of the content of McAfee Research's efforts has transitioned from historically unclassified research to classified R&D activities," the firm said.
The unit has previously worked with government agencies such as DARPA and the NSA on projects including technologies such as forensics, intrusion prevention and malicious code defense.

Also, the budget for FBI Carnivore is probably now under Homeland Security who is outsourcing such activites.

According to leading market analyst Input Inc., the federal government will increase its spending on information technology in 2005 for the eleventh consecutive year in a row.

Outsourcing, homeland security, and the nation's global war on terrorism are driving a significant increase in spending. For that reason, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security alone will be spending in excess of $32 billion this year on information technology,"
FOSE 2005 kicks off the buying season for the 25,000 government IT and acquisition professionals who plan their major buys for the year.

Also, you would think the FBI looks into child pornography, but...

Child pornography has become a huge problem for DoD investigators, accounting for as much as 50 percent of the criminal digital evidence processing work done by the DoD's Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3). The DoD blocked and traced 60,000 intrusion attempts on its unclassified networks in 2004, and wrestles with spam, illicit pornography and other common Internet threats.

Re:surveillance? why bother.

[jasonditz]

Its the Way of Slashdot (TM)

I can't recall an interesting truth I've ever posted on here that didn't get modded -1 Troll

I'm sure they got rid of it, yeah...

[Max Threshold]

I got nipped by it before they even admitted it existed. Two FBI agents showed up at my door with a copy of an email I'd sent to my father and cousin. A few weeks later, their director was testifying before Congress that CARNIVORE is only used to monitor known criminals. Well, I have never been charged with, much less convicted of, anything more severe than a minor traffic violation. So much for his integrity.

Don't believe anything the FBI says. Really, do you think they'd retire something like this without a much more capable and invasive replacement?

Re:I'm sure they got rid of it, yeah...

[Max Threshold]

I'm sure I just imagined it. That's why I have Special Agent Irwin K. Summerville's business card in my souvenir box.

Because they didn't need it?

[routergod]

I have to admit my first thought when I saw the title was that they dropped it because the atmosphere (with the PATRIOT act etc) meant that they didn't need to go to any real effort to protect privacy. Just call it a national security issue and get a warrant to do what they like - or don't bother with the warrant and justify it after the fact.

Maybe I'm just paranoid and pissed off about stuff.

And what the hell - I left the country anyway. Not that I think that Australia is a lot better, at least it's not so in your face. And as an expat, I at least have plausible deniability

Re:Tanks?!?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hitler's tanks never posed a threat to the USA either. Nor did his Navy or Air Force.

It was well known in German military circles in the '30s that the USA was the 800# gorilla in that day and age.

General Heinz Guderian made the point that while German industrial capacity was comparable to France, the UK, or the USSR, it was dwarfed by the USA. Subsequent events showed that he was exactly right.

Note, however, that we didn't go to war with Germany because it posed a threat to us. And we didn't do it because they declared war on us. We did it because we didn't want to let Hitler control Europe (if he had, his industrial capacity (including all the conquered industry) would have been almost 30% of our industrial capacity - still not a threat to us).

Saddam didn't invade "the Middle East". His forces may have been within Iranian territory at times during the Iran-Iraq war (but it should be noted that he was a friend of the West at the time; indeed he had backing and assistance from the US, both during the war and during the now infamous chemical attack at Halabja). That leaves Kuwait as the only "sovereign territory" that Saddam "invaded".

No, and Hitler didn't invade "Europe" - He invaded Poland and France and Belgium, and the Netherlands,and Greece and the USSR. Among others. He didn't invade the UK, or Spain or Italy or Portugal, or Bulgaria, or Romania. Among others.

Saddam having forces within Iranian territory sounds like an invasion to me. I can't see what else you call it when some other guy's Army is on your land. Same with Kuwait.

And Hitler had the (More than) tacit approval to invade Czechoslovakia - does that make such invasion "right"? I don't think so, in either Hitler's or Saddam's cases.

The fact that Saddam was a "friend of the West" doesn't make his invasion of Iran any better a thing. Any more than the fact that Hitler was fighting Communism (check the papers of the time - before Hitler invaded the USSR, the USSR was one of the West's bogeymen. Afterwards, they were our "courageous allies") excuses his invasion of the USSR.

Future Filtering Tools

[tmika]

Allegedly, the name "Carnivore" came because it was based upon a commercial filter called "Omnivore", but Carnivore filtered more effectively to only get the "meat", meaning relevant information. Given the fears that the FBI has products that arbitrarily sniff email looking for people to investigate, I propse the following filter packages:

Atkins: contains the relevant material found by Carnivore, but also chooses select material not relavant to the investigation that may be of interest.

Vegetarian: skips all of the material relevant to the investigation and returns everything else

Vegan: returns only material expressly irrelevant for investigation, especially emails including lot's of l33t text and rants about porn and warez sites.

Re:Want to buy a bridge?

[STrinity]

You have to be shitting me. Do you really believe the US Government would spend money because it was getting TOO MUCH information?

No, I believe the NSA has quantum computers that scan the raw Echelon feeds and aggregate any potentially subversive statements made on Earth.

Of course, even that wouldn't automatically negate Kerr's reasoning; it would just mean that the FBI switched to commercial products because they're better tools for Big Brother, and not because they're better at protecting privacy. Or do you seriously believe that the federal government can produce better software than private companies and the FOSS community?

I'm more than willing to entertain conspiracies involving corrupt government, but not ones that require an omnipotent and competent one.

Re:Tanks?!?

[CrimsonAvenger]

You're very keen to try and draw analogies with WWII, but like most analogies on slashdot, it's just pointless and silly. You seem to have missed out on the main point - that Saddam "invaded" Kuwait with what he believed to be the support of the US. Likewise, the US was actively supporting Iraq against the Iranians. It may well be that his "invasion" of Iraq was a "bad" thing, but it's far far worse for a country to encourage such an action, actively help such an action, then turn around and use that as an excuse to attack.

So, Hitler can be excused for his invasion of Czechoslovakia because he had the approval of the UK and France? Or do you not remember Neville Chamberlain and "peace in our time"? Must have been pretty evil of Britain - perhaps we should have been on the German side in WW2, to punish the Brits for their perfidy.

Unfortunately, there are a great many parallels between WW2 and other events - it wasn't anywhere near as unique as many people (you included, obviously) seem to think. Even the Concentration Camps weren't unique, though the scale of the German effort in that regard was certainly unsurpassed in recent history. I point out the Boer Wars as examples of the use of Concentration Camps. And, arguably, the American habit of putting the Amerinds on "Reservations" (the Reservations may have been a bit large to be properly considered "concentration camps" - one was the size of Oklahoma - in fact, one WAS Oklahoma)

Let's see, countries actively helping one another to do something, then attacking one another - Germany and the USSR comes to mind. They were allies, who, among other things, cooperated in development of tanks, and the invasion and dismemberment of Poland. Alas, both were planning on invading the other when the time was right - it happened to be "right" for the Germans before it was "right" for the Russians, so the Russians ended up as OUR allies.

And of course, one must remember the United Nations. Of which Iraq was a member. Surely you remember that part? Article One of the UN Charter (which Iraq had signed onto, if you'll remember) states, in part:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

Now, it can be argued that the USA is guilty of that same offence (which you are trying to assert, not very successfully). The guilt or absence of guilt of the USA is irrelevant to the question of Iraq's guilt. And vice versa, of course.

I tend to think that those UN Resolutions that the USA pushed through granted a pass to teh USA in terms of attacking Iraq (that would come under "take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace"), but it is certainly arguable, by those who like to argue.

Nope.

[lorcha]

Your employer has to do it. You cannot apply on your own. Only way to get one is to take a job that requires you to get one.

Also, it is extremely expensive.

Re:Tanks?!?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Richard Perle can say anything he likes. The fact that he is Richard Perle does NOT make what he says true or correct.

Did Richard Perle bother to explain just which laws the invasion violated? Or did he just assert the illegality without explanation?