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FBI Sought Approval To Use Spyware Through FISC
An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the FBI sought approval to use its custom spyware program, CIPAV, from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in terrorism or spying investigations. Affidavits prepared for the court are among 3,000 pages of documents gathered, but not yet released, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wired. The FBI hasn't answered any questions about its use of the CIPAV since the program's existence became widely known in July. The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none."
Reading up a bit: "The FISA Court did not reject a single warrant application from its beginning in 1979 through 2002. In 2003 it rejected four applications. In 2004, the number was again zero."
I thought it was a good idea
I would just like to know, what could the FBI do to make it's spy ware different from anything else out there in the wild? It would seem to me they would limited to the same techniques anyone can use on a computer, so really wouldn't it be just one more obnoxious program out there?
However I am sure there methods of getting it installed are probably a little more sophisticated than most users are used to dealing with...
But I'm sure they should be using this very lightly, as once the right person figured out it was on their computer and released details to the curious masses, how much good would it do then? As most criminals are well aware they are doing something illegal. All it would take is a little extra effort on the part of the person who fears they could be under surveillance to discover it with proper information/tool, etc..
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Sheesh, I mean, I know IT reporting has gone down teh tubes, but really... maybe if Wired wants to get info from the FBI, they should actually respond to the invite and submit questions -- maybe then they'd hear back.
/Sorry, deliberately obtuse tonight.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You ain't paranoid unless you use AmigaOS for safe browsing.
I would just like to know, what could the FBI do to make it's spy ware different from anything else out there in the wild?
Features
It's not really funny.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
According to the /. post from StonyandCher, CIPAV stands for 'Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier'.
Yup...it's a computer....yup it's an IP address. Ok, it'sverified, now what?
What it should be called is CIGS..."Completely Illegal Government Spyware".
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Of more concern is the question of what the intelligence agencies may be doing off-the-books. It's been claimed that the Bush government has been carrying out surveillance without submitting applications to the FISC, and it's been suggested that the resignation of James Robertson from the FISC is related to revelation of this unauthorised surveillance.
One of the reasons for FISC is to ensure that the surveillance excesses of Nixon and his predecessors - often for political gain - couldn't happen again and provide some oversight to the process of spying on people in the United States. I don't consider myself to be a card-carrying tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist nutjob (in part because if we had cards it would make it easier for governments to crack our membership database and figure out who we are and decide to open our mail), but I don't for a minute believe that a single govenment since Nixon completely gave up ALL secret surveillance of US citizens on US soil. Governments are made up of people, and people are secretive beasts who often do things they're officially told not to for reasons of their own and who share information with other like-minded people they come across if they believe it will be to their benefit. The FISC was created for good and noble reasons, and are probably doing the right thing most of the time - the trouble is, I don't believe they're necessarily being told about everything that's happening and may well be given fabricated evidence in support of applications. If Bush and his advisors and/or puppeteers have no problem lying about weapons of mass destruction to start a war, then why should they or their underlings have a problem cooking up believable applications to support their agenda?
> The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in
> 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none.
This means nothing interesting, unless you can point to some requests that should have been rejected.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
...while they mine data that could be used for anything, if the right people got their hands on it. The minute the FBI breaks into my computer to get information, benign or not, whether or not I'm innocent of any crimes, is the minute I pick up and leave. If they're that hell bent on taking my privacy for your false sense of security, they've got problems bigger than a terrorist detonating a bomb in a crowded room.
Honestly, doesn't it seem like the terrorists got what they wanted? They hate us for our freedoms and our lifestyles, and they've managed to get our government to seize damned near all of it to "fight terrorism". They're not fighting terrorism, they're becoming the purveyors of it.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
...and open your mail, and tap your phone, and monitor your internet traffic, because you have different views and aren't afraid to state them. All quite legally. And in many others, they'd probably do it anyway if they felt it was "right" to do so.
Parent raises a fair and intersting point, that Bush considers the FISC to be an impediment to those who are simply trying to protect the American People. If the FISC was merely rubber-stamping whatever the U.S. Government wanted to do, then how could its oversight prevent government from protecting the American People? How come this deserves the "Troll" mod it got?
They say those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. Seems to me like a lot of Americans need to bone up on things like the Church Committee.
This is not news. The US intelligence community, including the fbi, has been a known user of key loggers and spyware for about a decade. My link is from 2001, but I have knowledge of a federal investigation in 1998 that used key loggers to track suspects' use of certain services.
I'm betting this is about the same time that people like Ted Kennedy were showing up on the No-Fly list.
They say it was a mistake, but I still doubt it. Might have saved his life though; I once maintained a list, on a now defunct site, that listed Senators killed in plane crashes. Oddest thing, almost all Democrats and the Republicans were pacifists or otherwise "left-leaning" (Paul Wellstone [D] and John Heinz [R] for example).
Sure, all just a coincidence, I'm sure of it. Well, pretty sure. Maybe we should be putting spyware on the FBI's machines?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Surely they have a mechanism to roll back code updates, it would be borderline insane if they didn't... so, you've got the code (wireshark, tcpdump), the key (embedded in CPU), and the mechanism (kernel support code) - are you implying that this isn't enough to reverse engineer any/or revert microcode changes? I don't know the first thing about it, but this should be reversible for the same reason that DRM doesn't work - they have to give you the ability and the key if they want to run it on your machine.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
"What are you waiting for man? Open it!"