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Wikileaks Publishes FBI VoIP Surveillance Docs
An anonymous reader writes "The folks on wikileaks have published a new interesting and shocking report: FBI Electronic Surveillance Needs for Carrier-Grade Voice over Packet (CGVoP) Service.
The 88 paged document, which is part of the CALEA Implementation Plan was published in January 2003 and describes in detail all needs for surveillance of phone calls made via data services like the internet.
Wikileaks has not published any analysis yet, so maybe some of the techies hanging around this end of the internet are interested in taking that one on."
It's defiantly time to roll shit like this back. Which is why we really need a paradigm shift in Washington. Both McCain and Clinton are Washington "business as usual". That leave one obvious choice, and I'm not talking about Ralph.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
We desperately need a personal Internet telephony program that has full support for encryption. PGPfone was left unmaintained a decade ago, and Ekiga won't have encryption support until version 3.0. It's like there's a conspiracy to leave the public without such a basic tool.
I think its now time that one should start encrypting all voip traffic.. I understand we don't even have https everywhere right now..
use smartphones.. use encrypted voip to make all the phone calls, and use the regular service provider to make emergency calls like 911
I think this is the way to go..
I know some one will say there are attacks possible on encrypted connections... but the question is that its not feasible to attack every connection out there.. atleast make their job as difficult as possible.
I'm trying to figure out why the summary calls this document "shocking." Interesting yes, shocking no. It is well known that the law requires VOIP providers to maintain a capability for law enforcement agencies to wiretap. This requirement has been around for years, and is completely consistent with older "Plain Old Telephone Service." Its not like CALEA is hidden. You can find its website with a quick google. The author of the summary seems to be conflating CALEA with the dustup with the Bush administration and unlawful wiretaps. They are separate issues. Conflating them helps no one.
This was leaked at least 4 years ago.
You've managed to leak information about legal and non-controversial wire taps! This has nothing to do with the Bush adminsitrations controversial action on the subject, and was probably available legally via FOIA request. You, however, decided to be a rebel and leak this important document! Now it's time to bask in the rewards of your conquest:
- No notable policy change.
- Thousands of tax payer dollars probably spent on an internal investigation into who leaked the information
- Thousands of tax payer dollars used in possible legal action by the US government against wikileaks
- Millions spent on undoing any damage.
Thanks, Wikileaks! You're helpfullness never ceases to amaze me.
WTF did acts that could be considered borderline treason become cool?
The parent is insightful. I don't know why it's at -1. Video recording of interrogation keeps cops honest. GP is either stupid or trolling and *should* be modded down.
Yawn. This is the FBI's implementation plan, not some super-secret details of the specs. This is derived from J-STD-025A, J-STD-025B, and EWA 3.0 AMTA docs. Feel free to Google for those. The first and last you should be able to find. The "B" one they want money for, so it is harder to find freely online.
Those detail exactly WHAT and HOW monitoring is going to occur, on a technical level.
And don't get your knickers in a twist about the FBI document. I've already seen one instance where the FBI told a carrier "we want it done this way" and the carrier's lawyers said "no, that isn't legal and we won't do it". Of course, it was probably a result of the software not being implemented in that manner and it would have cost the carrier mucho $$ to do it the FBI's way...
Nothing like a few $$ to prompt the legal dept. to see it your way.
http://www.google.com/search?q=j-std-025&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The words "warrant" and "judge" do not appear in this document.
When used properly with *warrants*, wiretapping is an important law enforcement tool. Don't go confusing bad behavior by the Government with necessary law enforcement tools.
;)
The capability is needed, but so is proper oversight and protection of Consitutional rights. Then again all you wanted was to squeeze in your Obama ad
There's not much new here. If you're familiar with CALEA, the law that hooked the Government into the phone system big-time, this is basically the same set of requirements the FBI wanted for voice calls. There was a big disagreement in the voice world over in-band signalling. The question was whether a "pen register" warrant authorized access to signalling data that goes over the voice channel, like Touch-Tone tones sent to some non-carrier device. The FBI was bitching about that for years.
The trouble with all this stuff is that Congress didn't mandate proper auditing. Every surveillance event in CALEA ought to be logged by the Judicial Branch, at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. We don't have that.
I don't get why a site with "news for nerds" says in a summary
"techies hanging around this end of the internet".
Also the grandparent professes shock when this is already well known.
Can we walk out of preschool please? The subject matter is interesting and important but slashdot needs editors with a college degree.
the ability of the FBI, to intercept and change the conversation on both ends. In real time. Very handy feature that is being used by DOD and FBI.
DNC Puppet. Get over "hope" and "change." It's emo BS.
You have to fight for your rights, not elect a saviour.
Are the VOIP providers being stuck for the bill on this? Implementation of this would be/is a pain, especially for those "VOIP as a service" companies that target corporate customers.
Cisco, Nortel etc. must have a back door for these guys to make work easier for them, either that or somebody is getting rich off contracting voice engineers out to the Feds.
>It is said that Anarchy is the absence of rulers, not the absence of rule.
said by who? Let me guess, he was an "anarchist," by which I mean high school drop out living in his mom's basement, complaining that society would be "so much more awesome" if there weren't any rules, and he didn't have to keep his room clean.
Anarchy:
"Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."''
Any social endeavor has politics and power relationships and de facto governing processes by which collective decisions are made, they even exist within families and other tiny social units. Anarchy is just a society where those relationships are no longer functional and stable. You have groups competing for power without a mediator and chaos persists (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan).
Humans can't survive in anarchy because we are social animals, and require cooperation and certain kinds of power relationships to survive. People naturally form social structures with leaders and followers, it's part of basic human psychology.
Even the free software movement has leaders with specific powers that they can enforce. That you think otherwise just goes to show that you've never contributed. Linus doesn't let any patches into mainline Linux that he doesn't want to, and that effectively kills those patches. Other organizations have even more stringent policies. To commit to FSF, Mono, and many other projects and organizations you must turn over your copyright to them, so that they can relicense it under whatever terms they want (presumably, the next version of the GPL, but who knows?).
Often a company is responsible for all of the high level design of a product, and controls the repository, and open source developers are either hired by said company to do the work, or are on the periphery.
Even if a specific company isn't responsible for high level design, some people are de facto designers. This isn't that different than in a company, and these relationships naturally form even if they aren't dictated, otherwise the project falls apart.
Open source isn't really a "governing model," it's just the same old human behavior and practices, but with a new software license.
This has been bugging me for a bit, so I'm just going to get it off my chest, probably get modded flamebait or offtopic too
Everyone on the site seems concerned with privacy, doesn't it make you all incredible hipocrites to say that businesses and government aren't entitled to that too? It's not that I'm for govt spying or companies ravaging consumers, but just saying it's a bit hippocritical to have a wikileaks story frontpage every day after preaching about privacy.
Uh...why is this "shocking?" The telephone systems use VOIP and cell phones didn't exist 30 years ago. There were a few portable phones but nothing like today.
That's a serious question. I know, this is Slashdot, the home of foil hats and radial paranoia by broke students...
Although I have no major problems with Obama (or Clinton for that matter) I don't hear Obama talking about rolling-back the egregious constitutional violations of the Bush-Cheney era. He is promising a change of style but I have not seen or heard anything about any change of substance. Just a kinder, gentler, politician. Business more or less as usual.
Anyone who would want to be President (Senator...etc. etc.) should be automatically disqualified from running for office. All is ego and power.
Woosh!!
no surprises. you want a capture/decode device at the trunk, you want to see the management system real-time, and you want the billing setup records real-time. that covers the waterfront. listen in off your PC from the sniffer. three windows open on the screen.
that's the modern equivalent of a hybrid coil, a capacitor, and a 600-ohm headphone on clip leads.
the important thing is to convince a judge who is knowledgeable in the law that there is a criminal act in progress with other evidence, so you can get a court order to gather evidence.
otherwise YOU are the criminal, and the other guy is making a phone call which won't ever get considered in court.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
..not software or devices. The government is only insisting on the network being weak enough, that ciphertext is easily intercepted. It's up to you, to make sure that ciphertext if all they (or anyone else) is intercepting.
Long term, CALEA will be an impotent law, and intercepts will lose their utility. Sometimes it seems like it's going to take decades before people start securing their communications, though, so I guess the obsolete technique of intercepting plaintext, still has a few more years left in it.