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FCC Giving Veto Power to FBI Over VoIP?
An anonymous reader writes "In this article, the FCC reveals that if you're using VoIP products at your own behest then you may have personal legal requirements to provide the FBI with access to information they might want to intercept. Or to put it another way, using encryption with VoIP can prevent the FBI from implementing wire taps."
If its *with* a warrant, nothing new here..
If its *without* then we have a privacy/rights problem that needs to be taken to the supreme court.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wonder how long the rule will survive the courts, since you could probably argue that a built in backdoor to communications was a violation of the fourth amendment. It is a blanket warrantless search on everyone, whether they execute an actual search or not. Yet courts have allowed roadblocks to test for drunk driving ( which is the conceptually the same ) and they allow random bag searches it the Port Authority and the airports. All of these are really fourth amendment violations. Some day a court will probably swing the other way and forbid them ( would that make them liberal or conservative ? Bonus points for the correct answer! ), but for now the paranoids rule. I suppose the key question is what will they do to police the situation, If A sends B an encrypted packet, and A and B are using a well known port ( 22, say) and the packet crosses D's network, is D responsible for insuring that the packet is compliant? How is D to know? As long as A and B have access to an encryption software that has no backdoor I don't see how it matters whether Skype has a backdoor or not. Or is this a case where, as recently was reported, even owning encryption software of this type will be 'evidence of intent'?
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Maybe the Fed spying on you can call 911 for you, cuz you sure as hell can't!
As far as I know I can use any encryption methods I want for web pages, email, bit torrent etc...
Why is VOIP different than other kinds of data? It is sent over the same medium.
If the FBI can't spy on every single US resident 24/7, how can they be sure we're not all terrorists?
:o
Did they have the FBI PR guy give the "if you haven't done anything wrong, then you should have nothing to hide" defense yet?
To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network. SO can we get Windows banned from the internet based on this one paragraph.
The Navy Motto "IF it ain't broke Fix It" "A day is wasted if you don't learn something new"
What is it going to take to get people to be so pissed off they're motivated to make the changes necessary to get our rights back?
That's duckspeak for "citizens are not entitled to run the applications and services of their choice."
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
FTA: ...spokesman on Monday, who asked not to be identified by name...
We have the right to know everything... We have the obligation to reveal Nothing.
It's for your own good!
(Your name is being added to a List)
Don't worry about it....
Depends on the way you are using liberal and conservative. People throw the terms around a lot and generally aren't using them in a well defined way.
If you are using them to describe a situation of social permissivness, then it would be liberal. Liberal social laws would be ones where people have the most freedoms possible, whereas conservative ones would be the least freedoms possible.
If you are suing them to describe legal changes, then conservative. A liberal view would be a progressive one, that laws should be changed from their current form, a conservative one would be a neutral or regressive one that laws should be left alone, or reverted to an earlier state.
So for political labels, who knows? What a "liberal" is and what a "conservative" is seems to vary with whoever says it.
I think that many of the laws that are put in place because of this are really overreaching, but on the other hand, if you were doing something illegal and found out that, starting the next day your phone was going to be tapped, you were going to be followed, and your every move was going to be scrutinized because law enforcement *thought* that you were doing someting illegal, you would most likely, overnight, come up with a game plan to make it look like you were just an ordinary law abiding citizen.
Sure there are people who abuse their power, and that is where the problem lies - it isn't necessarily with the law itself, its with the people who enforce the law thats the problem.
We in the US battle over whether its constitutional to have "under god" in the pledge of allegiance and whether "free speach" really means free speach.
Another analogy - corporations will (well, okay, they should) put a lot of time and effort into network security because it only takes one person on the inside, who has inside knowledge, to steal company data (whether it be customer data such as SSNs and credit card info or other confidential data). If everyone were trustworthy, there would be no need for network monitoring for threats. Likewise, if everyone were trustworthy and always obeyed the law and never did anything illegal, we wouldn't have all of these laws that dictate basically that we have no privacy anymore.
The problem is, how do you know before something bad happens who the bad people are?
yes the race to 1984.
the only downside is, is that the US and UK passed 1984 about 50 years ago.
to assume we're approaching it is to assume that MS will one day soon use their monopoly power to do illegal things.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
There are a few things not covered in this ruling. The main one is end-to-end VOIP w/encryption. For example, how about VOIP via something like H.323 over an IPSec tunnel (point to point). So to say we have no right to privacy is misguided.
The idea seems to be that the courts should be able to authorize wiretapping of any media regardless of whether it is a traditional phone system or a VOIP connection over a public network.
Or how about someone using VOIP on a corporate intranet via a VPN? I would assume that these are explitly not covered? Especially if we are talking IPSec/GRE tunnels with traffic running through them. All law enforcement would know by tapping your broadband provider is that you are logged into the corporate VPN and that there is traffic going back and forth. You would not even know where the call was going or even that it was a call.
The second question is far more tricky.... Imagine that someone sets up some VOIP termination servers in a non-extradition country like Belize. These require IPSec/GRE tunnels and have a client that will set things up for you. The goal is to have a free worldwide and secure system. It seems to me that this would be well beyond the FCC's juristiction. But this might well be the way that things develop.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'll say it again, there already exists a backdoor, its called a warrant. Issue me one, and I'll be happy to let them listen. Until then you aint getting my keys. What happened to my presumed innocence?
"trusted computing" will put a keystroke logger in every BIOS!
Really, they can go in your house when you are not at home and leave no sign they were there, without any reason or warrant ("Patriot" Act)
Do you really think they will not leave a key stroke logger?
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I heard from some anonymous person claiming to be an insider, that people have more power than they believe that they do. I submit the idea that you are not as weak and at the mercy of the system as you may think. Just because they decided that they can, doesn't mean that they can. Everyone has to roll over and give their power away freely. They can say anything they want, but you are still free to direct your will and take appropriate action. I think if the tools are out in the wild, that people will use them.
Is the current Bush government taking China as a role model of spying on its citizens? Shame on them. Besides, the FCC does not even have the regulatory powers claimed in that insane proposal. Sorry, but I won't pay a cent more for my VoIP phone because of the hundreds of millions it costs to implement backdoors for the government to spy on its citizens. Where is all the "freedom" and "democracy"? How disgusting!
If you have followed him, you'll see that to Declan McCullagh, anything the government does is wrong; that's just his view of the world.
So far, there is not even the slightest indication that the FCC either has the authority or the ability of regulating what you do on your PC. So, while the FCC may really intend something stupid with this rule, it probably doesn't matter; they might as well try to make and enforce FCC regulations against radio emissions from the sun.
> please. i know or have known lots of cops, and not one fits your mold.
I don't believe anyone here is saying that most or even many cops would abuse this. The problem is that we're also enabling those few who _will_ be abusing this power.
Remember when they teach you that "we hold these truths to be self-evident" and that "endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."? They often seem to neglect the part about dissolving political bonds in favor of new ones or the fact that the ruler derives his or her power from the consent of the governed. I'm all against "terrorists", but how about we take some real action against them instead of stupid shit, like keeping VoIP from using encryption. Us law-abiding citizens will have to and terrorists will go on encrypting it. Who the hell would ever know? They would likely use an encryption scheme above the NSA threshold, so it would look more like garbage data than a meaningful phone conversation. Obviously DC has taken the name "Washington" and tarnished it by throwing it in the mud. It was a mistake to name the capital city after him; almost everything the government does is in direct opposition to what George Washington personally and politically believed in. Balance of powers has become blurred (the FCC and other executive bureaus can arbitrarily impose jurisdiction without Congressional consent.) I think everything that America stands for is being torn down and propaganda is making it happen. The government is engaging in terror just as much as radical islamists and other terrorists. All of this shit about "protecting America" is ineffective and futile. You can't preemptively stop terror. You can only deter it or freeze it. Foreignly the US has done an excellent job at this: Saudi is cooperating with us, Libya is growing balls, Iran now knows we have a backbone, Lebanon and Syria are finally coming to some resolution. What the government is doing internally is destroying America. These acts such as PATRIOT Act and the Wire Tap act are tantamount to the Alien and Sedition acts.
I believe the problem is the minority of cops who are willing to exercise their power for their own ends, not to "lock up the criminals" (by the way, isn't it the court's job to decide who's a criminal, not the cops?)
The minority I'm thinking of, and I'm sure there is at least one cop who fits this description (Oh, I donno, J Edgar Hoover comes to mind for some reason) will take any action they wish to. If the action is illegal, at least we can kick them in the ass when we find out. If there's no limit on what can be snooped, then there's nothing to do when abuses occur.
The whole point of our system of government is that the people are superior to the government. Not that the police have whatever power they want to have, and everyone they come in contact with must bow down to them.
It doesn't matter if 99% of the cops are good. The other 1% will spoil it for them.
I think it's the bad cops you should be pissed at, not the people who don't want to give the government power over us which can be so easily abused. I'm glad you know a lot of cops, but you don't know them all.
If my kids string two cans together do they have to provide a third for any FBI agents nearby?
:)
Perhaps i should get an extra baby monitor for the FBI office, he seems to be sending me coded messages
If they really need a tap can't they just break in and put a bug in the handset or something? It wouldn't seem to matter what protocol it uses then. Don't they have like a 99+% chance of approval for a warrent if they ask? Of course i guess it would be much easier to have someone else do the legwork and listen to the tape at their convenience.
Why would the REALLY bad guys care if their comm program is approved? Make this a capital offense maybe so they would rather be busted for bombmaking?
The boys in DC bored this week or what?
Can you say: Power Trip?
...that there is real legitimate problem here if the police after recieving the proper warrants, can't understand anything because it's all encrypted?
What can you do:
1) Completely prevent the police from listening in on communication, which would probably have severe consequences for law enforcement?
2) Demand that users hand over their own encryption keys, thus informing them that they are under surveilance?
3) Demand that software adds a backdoor for police, with all the problems of jurisdiction and possiblities of abuse?
4) Demand that software adds a backdoor for themselves, so they can hand it over to the police? Even bigger possibilities for abuse.
5) Some sort of two-part system where session keys are kept in escrow. For example the police has the decryption key, the company the encrypted keys. Requires some for for central server to hodl the keys.
6) Outlaw encryption. Read: Impossible.
3), 4) and 5) don't work with OSS solutions. 5) doesn't work with a completely decentralized structure, maybe something like Skype can use it negotiating keys but not with software connecting peers directly. Also, this isn't new to VoIP, they have just a big problem finding out if someone trades kiddie porn over SFTP as they do with someone talking to their drug dealer using VoIP.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You know I'll never understand the thing all slashdot readers have with dupes. Think of a normal newspaper for a minute, and think about how stories are posted. If a story is interesting it'll usually be discussed for days on end by multiple reporters, editors, etc. and there'll be tons of repeating of information. Now, I know slashdot isn't exactly like this, but there are some similarities that can be drawn. Also, I'm not sure as to the number of stories submitted that the editors have to go through, but I'm sure it's quite a large number, and did you ever think that maybe the reason the editors are posting it again is because they've been receiving it a couple times and so obviously not everyone saw it the first time? I dunno, I'm sure this has been discussed endlessly too, but that's just my opinion.
"The exercise by citizens ... of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state"
"consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement"
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I really don't see how a person owns the eletrons on a line once it leaves his or her property.
Do I stop owning the atoms in a piece of paper when the mail carrier picks it up? Does ownership have any bearing on the expected privacy of the content? Why should my message be any different whether I pay a mail carrier to pick it up and carry it to its destination, or a phone company, or an ISP?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
"[U]sing encryption with VoIP can prevent the FBI from implementing wire taps."
... what's the downside?
So
Oh, right: the elusive hope of catching the very stupidest of criminals. That's clearly worth subverting personal privacy and autonomy for -- especially since the world of communication possibilities has been successfully finished, and no more room for experimentation or change exists.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Who knows what 'Biblical common-law foundations' they've invented. Common law foundations came from the Roman Empire and England, with maybe a little Athens. There's not even such thing as a jury trial in the Bible.
It's the really screwed up thinking of 'Being a Christian is patriotic' and 'God wants you to support the US', the most convolted mixing of religion and politics you'll ever see. They are the party the Republicans are pretending to be to religious people.
They tend to attract the sort of people who think that if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the rest of the world, and who will press a Bible in your hand and tell you to read it, and can quote a hundred verses, but can't actually explain any of the context or any of the meaning. (Quick test: Ask them who a 'Samaritan' is in the Bible. See if they understand one of the most important stories.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
However, ownership of slaves is A-OK with Yaweh. Just don't go killin' 'em indiscriminately.
And, go look it up if you don't believe me, Yaweh is of such high moral character, he once sicced bears on 42 children, killing them, because they made fun of some bald guy's head
Nice, moral guy, this Yaweh. (Note: Every time you see THE LORD in tiny print in the Bible, that's refering to "YHWH" in the original text, said translators being afraid to translate the actual name of God, presumably because of some ancient superstitious notion about invoking someone's "true name" giving you some inappropriate power over them.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.