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Carnegie Mellon Resists FBI Tapping Requirement
roach2002 writes "Carnegie Mellon University is fighting back against a requirement that taps on campus internet access must be quickly obtainable. The technology that would allow the FBI to monitor internet access, after a court order, "at the flip of a switch" would cost at least $450 per student. MIT is also covering the story." From the article: "'The Department of Justice wants 24/7 access, whenever they need it, and they want remote access. We find that too extremely burdensome in terms of money, staff, and technology,' said Maureen McFalls, Director of Government Relations for Carnegie Mellon and the coordinator of Carnegie Mellon's response to this issue. According to an ACE press release, the cost to universities could be upwards of $7 billion, or at least $450 extra on each student's tuition bill."
The technology that would allow the FBI to monitor internet access, after a court order, "at the flip of a switch" would cost at least $450 per student.
I think I speak for all of us when I say...
"Flip THIS."
Can I have wire tap access to the Department of Justice's systems, 24/7 with remote access? You know, I just want to make sure that they're not doing anything that they shouldn't be.
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Washington University in St. Louis isn't either. It made the front page of our school's newspaper - though, admittedly, that's not entirely hard... "Student gets hit by pie" was a front page headline too.
Terrorism seems to be any act against the U.S. Government, half the population already disagrees with the policy of that government.
Why should they be allowed to tap into the intellectual centres of their country?
Universities are the places where revolution has historically started, curtailing student influence merely stops one of the free checks and balances on the system.
450$ per student? Is the DOD still using 5000$ hammers as well? This is just as simple as putting in a DSL line for the FBI and a VPN box.
You're dreamin' pal. There is no way it would be that simple to enable the FBI to monitor the activity of any user on schools network. Maybe that's all you need to VNC into YOUR home machine, but they're talking about a fairly complex system, because they must be 100% positive they are monitoring the right people and the system would also need to be very flexible in order for it to be widely deployed into the diverse permutations of networking environments found in institutions of higher learning throughout the united states.
nuff' said'
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Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
I've said this before and probably on slashdot. Privacy is dead. People are just now starting to smell the rotting corpse. This is further proof of that statement.
The trick with the $450 per student is the cost to design, implement, deploy and maintain a system that will allow the FBI to have what it wants without Joe Hacker having the same access. It's not as easy as it sounds until you deal with a highly mobile and high-turnover student population. I work for a major university. We have approximately 18,000 students. At any given semester (Spring, Summer, or Fall), 4000-5000 of them are leaving and being replaced with 4000-5000 new ones. That doesn't even count the ones that change dorms, move off campus, etc. Now, in addition to a campus ID, network accounts, dorm internet access, email accounts, etc., we're supposed to manage the FBI's wiretaps?????
ROFL. Item one, we don't have enough staff to really manage what we have. Now you want to throw an additional burden at us. Let's not forget that we're also subject to federal legisation that controls to who as well as how information on students can be released.
Wait until the subpoena for that comes across my desk. I can hear that conversation now..."Well, Your Honor, we don't have the equipment. We were told that it's not in the budget. We had to choose between having internet access or complying with the legisation." "No, Your Honor, we haven't deployed that. Perhaps if we let the entire email system for the campus die, we might have time for that." "Yes, Your Honor, we think that if the FBI wants the information, they should be willing to pay for it."
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
It seems reasonable for law enforcement to expect "cooperation" with investigations, I can get with that.
But it seems at this point they want everyone to cater to them, to make their jobs as easy as possible. "At the press of a button" - who do they think they are, George Jetson? Who's going to make MY job easier? And why do I have to pay to make THEIR job easier?
I seem to recall something in Britain a few hundred years ago, the Quartering Act I believe it was called. It said something to the effect that if asked, any citizen had to provide free room and board to soldiers of the British Army. Why? To keep the peace of course. What's different today? People being forced to spend time and money to make the police's jobs easier. It's just not a good enogh reason. The police have an important job, but it's not one that should have any special elevation above the rest and receive all this assistance and soforth.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I was referring to a previous article about UK police wanting to put people in jail for 90 days while they crack the suspects hard drive. No trial, just 3 months away from your friends and family. Granted, this particular article is about the United States' feds, but we don't need any new legislation to hold our citizens in jail without trial. We just need to call them a terrorist or emamy combatant or some other vile name and pack them off to Guantanamo for over 3 years (so far). This wiretap is just a way for the police state to get more power to abuse.
How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
The US is heading rapidly towards becoming a police state. It's as simple as that.
Other countries are no better --- for example the UK is a nanny state gone mad, and is rapidly turning into a police state too. New mandatory IDs, new CCTV everywhere, new 3-month detention without process, etc etc.
How we've allowed our politicians to do this to us I don't know. But something is going to have to change, or things will get very ugly.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra