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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."
10 Read aticle9 30221&tid=158&tid=215 // previous /. links the same Cnet article
20 Read the existing slashdot comments here
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/28/1
30 Repost Comments here
_JS
Encryption is bad for people who want to spy on you
When Encryption is outlawed, only outlaws #$%TYHNFBGNHGFDCVFBGHFHkjhskjdghs346df/
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
You see, our FBI and federal government has the right to tap all our phones, wiretap everything, spy on us, use satelites to watch our every move, and to control our thoughts and remove our freedom of speech. The FBI owns you, you do not own the FBI.
So just let them search your house and tap your phone, its not like you can stop them and its not like anyone cares about the constitution anymore or privacy. For all the talk I hear on slashdot, none of you actually care about privacy or the constitution. If you do, then prove it and defend the constitution.
See for yourself how you can defend the constitution if you actually care about it. Save the constitution
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?
1) Is FBI over VOIP a new protocol?
2) Very apropos quote at bottom of the page:
"Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged."
3) I have trouble with limits.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
OpenH323 (for private VOIP systems)
IPSec Howto (for transparently encrypted VPNs to secure your private VOIP system)
let's hear it for broad, sweeping generalizations! yay!
please. i know or have known lots of cops, and not one fits your mold. most cops would rather lock up criminals and leave the innocents alone. they've got a genuinely difficult job to do, and are competing with ever-increasingly advanced criminals. i think the wiretapping laws in the states are significantly more onerous than they should be, but painting cops as a bunch of fascists does absolutely nothing to help that problem, and in fact makes having an intelligent conversation about the issues more difficult. this certainly doesn't qualify as "Insightful".
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
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?
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
(Scene: A cave in Pakistan.)
(Al Zawahri walks briskly into the cave where Osama Bin Laden is playing solitaire. Al is holding a printout from a CNet web page.)
Al: Osama! Look what the infidels have done! We cannot encrypt the holy warrior communication as planned. We must allow the cursed FBI to listen to our blessed instructions. What shall we do??
Osama: You make me sad this day. Allah has chosen to test us. Since we cannot possibly violate FCC regulation, we have no choice but to resort to manual couriers to communicate jihad instructions to our soldiers of freedom. Praise Allah, we will get our messages through.
Al: But do you not remember our cost estimates? We can't find enough holy warriors to handle all of our communication. We used the money to install air conditioning in the cave. We are doomed.
Osama: (After thinking). We have no choice but to shut down our operations once and for all. Curse the FBI and their unholy ways! Our jihad is over. (Raises fist in the air). Curse you George Bush! Curse you!
(Osama and Al pull off their robes and fake beards and put on business suits. Osama holds up a stuffed elephant and holds it up.)
Osama: They may have won the War On Terror with their infernal FCC regulations, but they will lose the War on Cheap Toy Imports! In America, big business is never regulated!
Al: Allah has shown us the way!
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AT&ROFLMAO
Well its a subject for heated debate whether the constitution does assure you a right to privacy and what the bounds of that right are. When telephones came in to common use in the early twentieth century it was routine for the police to listen in on suspected criminals or maybe anyone they wanted to find some dirt on.
... wait for it ... the police were not entering the persons home so they were not invading the privacy of their home. Here is a good link on the history of the right to privacy.
.vs. Connecticut it laid the foundation for much of our modern right to privacy, in this case it was an individuals right to practice birth control without state intervention. This evolved in to the right to an abortion in Roe v Wade.
The first Supreme Court case tested wire taps in 1928 in fact found in favor of wire tapping, because
Here is a particularly important part on wire tapping. Justice Louis D. Brandeis was writing in the dissent in Olmstead v. United States (1928). His view would ultimately prevail years later and is now in grievous danger of being overturned again by a rising tide of Fascism in the U.S. :
"Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of the persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them on any subject, and although proper, confidential, and privileged, may be overheard. . . .
The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure, and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the one most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment."
Its important to read this stuff these days. The right to privacy was the cornerstone of the confirmation hearing of our new Chief Justice Roberts, names like Olmstead and Griswold. There is a suspicion Judge Roberts appointment is designed to overturn all the cases affirming right to privacy, a right to not have your phone tapped, a right to abortions, a right to access birth control.
Religious fundamentalists banned birth control in Connecticut in the 19th century. When this law was challenged in 1965 in Griswold
J. Edgar Hoover used wire taps and his control of the FBI to accumulate vast amounts of dirt on anyone and everyone, and insured he held an iron grip on the helm of the FBI and in fact the U.S. in general for decades. No one would challenge him because he had dirt on everyone. He was the ultimate defiler of the right to privacy. With modern techology and the collapse of our right to privacy thanks to fear mongering politicians the potential is great for the rise of new J. Edgars who are even more powerful and more dangerous. A leading candidate is George W's new National Intelligen Director, John Negroponte. He doesn't control the FBI he controls the CIA, the NSA and every spying resource the U.S. has now. Negroponte was infamous for supporting right wing death squads in Central America that did Fascism proud.
@de_machina
> What is it going to take to get people to be so pissed off
Paying attention and recognizing bullshit/corruption. And they need to quit thinking the enemy is "the other party," instead of the people in their own party that are taking advantage of them.
No more tinfoil hats... Only paper hats, it is for national security!!!!!!!!!
Okay, so here's what I'm wondering.
Suppose I'm an evil person intent on doing evil things and I decide to communicate with my evil minions around the country using some sort of encrypted VOIP-type of thing that I had one of my evil minions put together.
Suppose further that the US Government gets wind of one of my nefarious schemes, goes to the appropriate judge, and gets a warrant to tap my Internet connection. They then discover that I'm using this encrypted VOIP thing.
What are they gonna do? Arrest me? On what charge? Using a service which is not "subject to the needs of law enforcement"? What's the penalty for that?
Are they going to drop me a note saying, "Hey, we can't understand what you're sending. Stop doing that."? Do they have the ISPs shut off the ports? What if I'm using port 80? Does the ISP drop me as a customer? Will there be some sort of federal "Do not let this guy use the Internet" list that ISPs have to check? What about "public" places, like Internet Cafes?
This is what I don't understand. What is "subject to the needs of law enforcement"? Can the Government decide that I don't need to use a service? If so, how do they block it? Again, if I assemble it myself, how will the government block it unless they stumble across it during an investigation? And if they block it afterwards, don't they think I'll suspect something?
This sounds like the FCC is trying to play both sides of the street. Yes, you can use whatever service you like, unless the cops don't like it. If they don't like it, something may or may not happen to you.
"There's only a debate if you don't know how to read."
How about this for a deal, I'll learn to read if you learn to write.
This statement is best described as ambiguous. You might be saying if I knew how to read I would understand that there is no right to privacy, or you might be saying if I could read I would know there is an indisputable right to privacy.
If you read the link I provided or you watched the confirmation hearing for Chief Justice Roberts on CSPAN, you would understand there is a huge debate over whether there is a right to privacy and what its bounds are. The Supreme Court has decided both ways on whether wire tapping violates our Constitution or our right to privacy, ergo there IS a debate.
Me personally I hope there is such a right and our courts will uphold it and slap down all the politicians, law enforcement officers and bureaucrats who want to usurp it using fear mongering. Unfortunately we live in a complex society. There are no inalienable rights that we can take as a given. The only rights we have are the ones we successfully fight to preserve. If we let a group of people seize control of the White House and Congress who have no regard for the rights of individuals and who are power mad, they can stack the courts to their liking and they can do whatever they feel like with our rights.
"Next overrated troll."
Next anonymous coward who can't make a coherent argument and who resorts to ad hominem attacks instead. Why don't you try making a coherent argument next time.
@de_machina
"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"
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