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Flying the Wiretapped Skies
An anonymous reader writes "The FBI is lobbying the FCC for the power to to quickly wiretap in-flight broadband services under CALEA. The feds are afraid terrorists will use the services to coordinate hijackings or remotely activate bombs, and they want to be able to interrupt or redirect a airplane's Internet access during a crisis, or to start sniffing packets within 10 minutes of identifying a suspicious passenger and getting court approval. Here is the FCC filing."
Here's something I never understood about the liberals on this site. They're all for making technological advancements that improve productivity and make things faster and easier for everyone, but then they complain when the feds wants to use this technology to make THEIR jobs faster and easier.
Why is it such a bad thing that they should be able to go to a court and get wiretapping authorization, then be able to do the tap in less than 10 minutes? I'm sure there will be lots of "big brother is after me" comments in this story, but why? Is the FBI supposed to just sit back and chisel everything in stone?
Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it. It's better to be a live chump who's email was intercepted by the feds than a dead one who's viagra spam remained a secret.
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Some kind of crypto is in order. I'm sure the fasttracked wiretapping will be a massive help when faced with terrorists using a VPN or other means to obscure what they're doing.
OK, so aside from assigning away all of our freedoms and rights to privacy, I have to wonder just how the Dept of Homeland Security plans on assimilating all of the data that they are desperately trying to get legal access to. This is the basic problem behind much of the remote sensing communities ability to surveil targets of interest from airborne/space platforms. Automating much of this surveillance is one of the holy grails of the intelligence community. For instance, I knew a guy who at the peak of the cold war, specialized in runway lengths. All he did was look at remote sensing imagery and examined runway lengths to determine the capacity and capability of aircraft and logistics at differing airbases. It is fairly simple to automate that sort of thing now, but many other aspects of determination of what is important data from what is not important is very difficult to automate.
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Terrorists have found ways to hijack planes for the last 30 years without in-flight broadband. This proposal will fix nothing. The most effective defense against hijacking, and the reason why another one has not been attempted since 9/11, is vigilant passengers that will no longer cooperate with a hijacker.
Well, you know all that liberty and freedom stuff they keep talking about on TV. Originally it ment freedom and liberty from your own government. Most of us just don't remember that since we live in relatively free times.
I want a court looking after the FBI. They should answer to someone other than themselves. That's the idea of checks and balances. If a judge approves it, I'll accept it.
Would you support this if the FBI didn't require any authorization? If it was "we check everybody" or could be?
You can't send any bits over the internet without the possibility of them being watched in transit. They're carried over networks you can't trust.
If you value your privacy that highly, use SSL to an anonymizing proxy. Other than that, assume that the feds and anybody else is watching your packets, whether you're on an airplane or not.
Wasn't that about someone bragging about committing a crime on Indymedia and the police confiscated the servers because Indymedia wouldn't yield the identity of that one particular poster as requested? I fail to see any problem with that.
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Yes, because the ability to carry out a wiretap obtained legally via due process in the courts within a useful timeframe is definitely an awful, horrible infringement upon my liberty and freedom by the government /end sarcasm
If they had the ability to carry out a 10-minute tap on anyone whenever they pleased, we'd have issues; as it is now they need to walk it past a judge still, and should not be able to indiscriminately tap people for no reason.
Whether or not the judges are competent in their positions or pushovers who'll sign every wiretap order they're handed regardless of merits is an entirely different problem, of course, tangentially related to the conversation at hand.
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A wise and well-trained group will use the time-old technique of publicly accessed itinerary and flight plotting sites, combined with a local calculator on their permitted laptops to estimate location, and reading easily plotted alert info available to the general public.
...
Hacking inter-group messages won't detect or deter such a group and they'll still accomplish their mission objectives, provided they don't need to survive the mission - which by definition, they won't.
Sigh. Always assuming the enemy is stupid and ill-trained is half of why we have no effective defenses. They train, they adapt, and they are willing to go beyond the bounds of what acceptable risks are considered to be.
To defeat such an enemy first you have to understand how they think - and black and white Us Good They Bad And Stupid thinking won't work.
But, hey, what do I know from my counter-terrorism ops and training anyway, or my field combat engineer experiences
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Judges are a very serious concern related to the problem though. All the FBI has to do is say that the person they want a tap on is a strongly suspected terrorist. What judge wants to be the first one to deny such a request if it later turns out to be true and a wiretap could have prevented an attack?
This has nothing (or little) to do with tapping in-flight broadband and phones.
Read that middle part again: "to be able to interrupt or redirect a airplane's Internet access".
What they REALLY want is the ability to shut passengers up during a hijacking. Killing off all communications with the ground ensures that later on first-hand reports via blog posts or phone calls won't conflict with the governments statement of what 'really' happened.
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If the terrorists want to kill you at 30k feet... ... then you die. Seriously, do you really believe terrorists won't be using strong encryption, knowing their data packets are probably being sniffed by the feds. This isn't going to stop a single terrorist--all it will do is allow greater snooping with less oversight on regular civilians going about their lives, who happen to take a commercial flight and use the net at the same time.
Here's something I never understood about the liberals on this site. They're all for making technological advancements that improve productivity and make things faster and easier for everyone, but then they complain when the feds wants to use this technology to make THEIR jobs faster and easier.
Here's something I never understood about the humanitarians on this site. They're all for making technological advancements that improve health, safety, and quality of life, but then they complain when the feds want to use this technology to improve THEIR ability to kill en masse.
See the flaw in your reasoning?
People object because technology, like everything else, is a double edged sword. It can improve people's lives, add to our quality of living, and empower us. It can also be used as a tool for unprecidented oppression. Most of us support and are working hard for the former, and vehemently decry steps toward the latter.
That having been said, in this particular case, there is no expectation of privacy on board a public, commercial aircraft (private aircraft are another story, and should be treated like private automobiles or homes), so I don't really have a problem with the feds (or anyone else) tapping communications on board a commercial airliner. You don't conduct private business on a busy street corner with dozens of (probably evesdropping) bystanders, nor would any sensible person do so in a public aircraft. But one can make credible, even compelling, arguments that this sort of laxidasical attitude toward authority evesdropping on private conversations in any context, be it a public street, a commercial flight, or a private residence, amounts to the same level of inappropriate intrusion by government into private life, particularly when infrastructure makes such capabilities the default, and court oversight becomes more and more a rubber stamp for letting the feds do whatever they like, whenever they like, often with little or no real justification.
Finally, your characterization of people encouraging what they see as a good use of technology and decrying what they see as a bad use of the same technology is disingenuous. Most people (myself included) don't embrace technology for technology's sake--we embrace it insofar as it enhances our lives and our freedoms, and reject its use when we see it being exploited to do the opposite.
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The real problem with this is that once a secure connection with a trusted outside machine (for example, an SSH server) has been established, you cannot sniff it anymore. You *might* be able to conduct a man-in-the-middle attack if you start *before* the connection is established, but even then, you probably won't - the public key fingerprint you present to the hijacker (in the airplane) won't match the one in his key database, so unless he's stupid, he simply won't connect at all and the attack (or at least the coordination) won't happen.
Of course, that would be a success in itself (at least if the actual attack is stopped as opposed to the mere coordination of different attacks), but it requires something much stronger than a court warrant that allows you to target a specific suspect individual - you'd have to actively monitor (and route through your application-level gateway) *each and every* single packet that's being sent or received. For everyone in the plane. On every flight. Always.
Suddenly, things don't sound so good anymore, do they? You might still say that you'd rather be a live chump without a right to free speech [1] and so on than a dead one that still has the right, but not everyone'd prefer to live in a 1984-like world. Would you?
Of course, total surveillance of everyone 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, without any privacy at all, in a world where cryptography and private communication is outlawed, would probably make you safer from hijackings and the like, but is that the kind of world you'd want to live in?
Getting back to the original point, the problem with this is not so much that the FBI will or should be allowed to place a wiretap within ten minutes if they get a court warrant allowing them to. As far as I am concerned, they could start wiretapping one second after the OK - there's nothing wrong with that.
What *is* a problem is the fact that this is probably going to be sold as a security improvement, when in reality it is not. A false sense of security does not help anyone - just like blind and unjustified fear does not help, either.
So it's probably still a good idea to remain skeptical for now.
1. Note that the right to free speech includes not only the legal right, but also being able to actually use that right without fear of repression and/or repercussions.
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Twice now I've been approached by EU airport security that have looked over my shoulder, seen a collection of terminals open and asked me a plethora of silly questions.
Like many, I was, and still do run a minimal window manager: on one occassion I had to actually start up a browser (what that proves i don't know). The second incident was relaxed only by showing them that the email I was writing (in mutt) was to my mother. Another absurd situation had me spending 1.5 hours with security staff in Australia who weren't convinced that the kernel boot process wasn't actually some kind of evil hackery - they were routinely checking laptops and asked me to boot. A gigantic bloke came from upstairs, looked at the screen, gave a disturbing smile and said "it's fine."
Time to fly the friendly skies: install cheery ol' KDE with bootsplash.
...because there are already laws they can use against those who use the internet access to coordinate acts of terrorism.
It's 14CFR91.21 --All the FBI has to do is call the air traffic control centers (or approaches) and tell them that they have reason to think the Internet is being used for a coordinated attack against the country. Then each airline pilot would merely push the OFF switch on the internet access gear onboard the aircraft.
The bottom line is that 14CFR91.21 says that you're using whatever wireless gizmo on board the aircraft at the express permission of the Pilot-in-Command . The instant the Pilot thinks something might jeapordize the safety of others, they already have express permission to take whatever measures are neccesary to maintain safety of flight.
This is not about your rights, folks. You're a passenger onboard an international vessel and subject to the orders of the captain or pilot in command of that vessle. You can whine about the indignity once you're safely at port or on the ground. Until then, live with it or don't go.
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As someone I'm sure you would consider "liberal", let me say I agree with you. As long as they have the court order I don't care if they begin the tap in 5 seconds or 5 days. What I don't like is some of the current efforts to not require court orders (just needing "administrativer approval"). This to me just seems like common sense. If they have court approval, than I see no problem.
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The judge that wants to uphold the constitution and bill of rights?
That's the idea of course but I have serious doubts about that though when the Supreme Court says it's okay for the government to take away your property and give it to whoever pleases them - for the public good, of course.
To catch someone before they do something, you need to violate their freedom before they do it.
Where do we draw the line though? At what point do these violations of rights become wrong? Currently, they can only violate your privacy completely. What's next, detainment? "Well we're pretty sure this guy is a terrorist so let's hold him indefinetly while we investigate his entire life and interrogate him." "Oops turns out we were wrong but we're going to keep a wiretap on all your communications forever and regularly checkup on you, just to be sure."
Well, if by liberal you mean someone who favors small government that stays out of my personal affairs...
/. liberal. And as far as I'm concerned, the feds are welcome to interrupt my internet access on a plane or sniff my packets that go across the internet (whilst coming from a plane). So long as they get a court order to do so (which the article indicates they will). Except for the fact that I think this is just something that makes people "feel better," not something that will actually save one single life.
Then I would be a
Now, a bit of insight into why other measures the government has taken in the past four years...
The bottom line is that none of them work. For example, the rainbow of terror. When is the last time you remember the threat level dropping to Low? For that matter, when's the last time you remember the threat level dropping to Guarded? And what's with the colors, anyways?
And what's with the government being able to sniff out what kind of books I read? Am I the only one who realizes that in order to have a free press, you have to have a populace with the freedom to read what the "free" press writes?
What about the increased "security" at airports? Am I the only one who realizes that the increase in security at airports is unnecessary because passengers are unwilling to be used as a giant bomb against their fellow citizens of the planet Earth? The reason that 9/11 was successful (from a terrorist point of view) was because people expected that the plane had been hijacked, they would sit complacent and would be taken to Abu Dabi, at which point they would deplane. But as the plane that went down in PA shows, people aren't idiots. And they're not willing to sit there and be used as cannon fodder against their fellow humans.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Why is the FBI even asking for this? The terrorists aren't going to use something like this. Let's look at what happened on 9/11. A group of Saudis hijacked some planes with fricken box-cutters. They didn't use any high-tech emailing or chat system or anything else to coordinate the attacks. It was as basic a plan that they could come up with...and the rehearsed it over and over and over until everything was right and nothing was left to chance. No technology...other than the guys learning how to pilot the airliner.
<sarcasm>So what is the FBI asking for? A "just in case" type deal? Well, they should then ask for all forms of communications then, have free reign on the postal system too in case the terrorists resort to writing a letter or two. Have microphones set up everywhere in every home just in case terrorists may want to gather in a house and coordinate an attack! OH MY GOD!</sarcasm>
It's because this country is in a state of fear still. I honestly don't think the FBI is out to get us all and wants to take away everyones freedom nor control people. Heck, I even have a friend that's in the FBI...he's a nice guy. But I think that they are as scared as everyone else is and they don't want to get caught with their pants down again. I believe they honestly want to try to prevent and protect the citizens of the US...it's just they're methods may be a bit zealous at times.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
First of all, there will NEVER be another passenger aircraft hijacking again. The age of "Be cool, do what they say, and everything will be fine" ended at about 8:50 or so on September 11, 2001. Now, as soon as some schmuck stands up in a plane and says, "Okay, everybody this is a hija--," everyone within reach of him will try to tear him apart. Hell, even guys who get drunk and rowdy on a flight are rather enthusiastically subdued by passengers these days.
Furthermore, the fact that the Fibbies even think this is necessary is IMHO a very public no-confidence vote in the TSA and all the crap they make us go through to even get near a plane, much less on it.
~Philly
The most common packets intercepted by the FBI:
[Bill has just logged in]
Bob: Hey d00d!
Bill: wassup?
Bob: guess where I am?
Bill: where, d00d?
Bob: I'm 30,000 feet above Colorado!
Bill: No WAYY!
Bob: TOTALLY!
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That's really the problem. It's how it's used. The Patriot Act "sneak an peak" provision have been used +1,600 times and not one of them has been turned down by a judge. (Come on, the government is not that perfect)
I have a friend who is an American Citizen, born here, white as can be. He's a private pilot in his late 20's. He bought a 1 way ticket in advance to get home after flying for work. He had an Air Marshal sitting next to him because he was one of the highest risk passangers for that day. (And it happens a lot) Folks, that's what we are spending money on.
What is tapping WiFi really going to give someone? Are they plannign to detonate a bomb in the cargo hold via Wifi? Why couldn't they just use a timer or Altemiter to detonate? What else, coordinate with other terrorists? Why can't they use raido and code words worked out beforehand. Or simply fly the plane low over a city and use random passanger's cell phones. (Yes they work)
I wish GOP backers would actually consider how these laws are actually put into practice, and how they are combined with other provisions to make them even worse.