US Fears Loss of ICQ Honeypot

AHuxley writes "US law enforcement bodies view the sale of instant messaging service ICQ to a Russian company as a threat to homeland security. In spring 2010, Russia's largest Internet investment company, Digital Sky Technologies, agreed to purchase the service for $187 million from AOL. The US is sure that most criminals use ICQ and, therefore, constant access to the ICQ servers is needed to track them down. As the system is based in Israel, American security service have had access. The article concludes, 'Lawyers [of unspecified nationality] say that to block the deal the US Committee on Foreign Investment needed to cancel it no later than within 30 days after the deal has been announced — so unless the rules are broken, nothing can be changed.'"

Comments

National Security Act

[Brett Buck]

Nothing can be done?! Nonsense. The National Security Act could be used to simply seize the entire operation, if it's that important.

Re:National Security Act

[DigiShaman]

If it's "perfectly legal", than I'm quite disturbed. I mean, screw what the Russians think. I'm more afraid of my own government. I'm sure they feel the same way about us.

I'm all about protecting national security, but not to the level where it becomes more (if at all) authoritarian.

Re:National Security Act

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has that stopped them?

Re:National Security Act

[camperdave]

Perfectly legal for the US to intervene in a sale from an Israeli company to a Russian one? If that's truly the case, the US has far, far too much power.

Re:National Security Act

[King InuYasha]

What about the Arabs that live in the area that Israel was carved out of? And what about what is left of Palestine?

Making a Jewish state was not a good idea. In general, founding countries using religion always leads to insanity like this...

Re:National Security Act

[Post-O-Matron]

Israel is not "founded using religion". Period.

Israel is a liberal democracy with full freedom of worship. It was founded to serve as a home for Jewish people, which during the 1940s turned out to be a VERY GOOD idea.

In Israel you can be whatever you want: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, gay - even a Slashdot reader. The only implications of the fact that this is a Jewish state are that the official language is Hebrew, the symbols and holidays are based Jewish heritage, and Jews get an automatic citizenship if they apply for one. Nobody is forced to be Jewish. The laws are not based on the Jewish religion but on liberal western principles, with civil rights and protection for minorities.

Explain to me please how any of that is different to Germany, France, Spain or the UK?

If you want to see true Theocraties I suggest you look more to the east than Israel.

Surprise, surprise

[anti-NAT]

A peer-to-peer architecture would be better for IM - no single point of failure at a server that impacts all conversations, end-to-end security rather than client to server, server to client, and no man in the middle attacks by government agencies or anybody else who chooses to record the conversations going through the servers. I sometimes wonder whether all the public IM servers are run by the "Air America" airline. The only use of a server in IM should be as a directory and participant availability service, not to carry the conversations, unless both participants are behind NAT. If one of the participants have a public IP address the conversations could go direct between the end-points. SIMPLE

hmmm

[Charliemopps]

I dunno what's more shocking, that the government thinks ICQ has any relevance with anything anymore or that someone thought the network was worth $186 MILLION dollars. That's just insane.

Re:Criminals use ICQ...

[Lord Byron II]

Seriously, where did they get this claim:

"The US said it is sure that most criminals use ICQ"

Who actually said that? The article claims "US law enforcement bodies", but doesn't say which ones. It doesn't even say if they are federal, state, local, or private law enforcement bodies.

"Most" criminals is probably too broad. Maybe they meant terrorists. Maybe they meant spies. Who knows? But I doubt that every drug dealer and pimp out there is using ICQ.

And why would criminals all congregate to the same service? There are lots of great ways to disseminate information (text messages, email, phone calls, etc). Why would criminals use only one particular version (ICQ) of a particular method (IM)?

The US is SURE of WHAT??

[purpleraison]

First off, if the 'US' is 'sure' of something (for example weapons of mass destruction), then you can be 100% certain the US is up to no good.

Second, "The US is sure that most criminals use ICQ and..." ---- really?? I will happily plunk down a $1,000,000 bet and walk down to the nearest prison and ask a random sampling of 'criminals' what they know about ICQ. Rest assured, almost none of the criminals will have a clue about ICQ. Kids however, would be able to tell you all about it. ...maybe the US is referring to kids who download shitty music as 'criminals'? If keeping ICQ in order to track a bunch of pimply-faced kids downloading music is 'National Security', then America is truly fucked.

Re:Criminals use ICQ...

[icebike]

Actually developing their own probably calls more attention to themselves than just using something where they can hide in the herd.

But ICQ seems an odd choice. Usership is dwindling, twitter and facebook and any number of other im services are eating its lunch.

One wonders who these "criminals" are that use ICQ.

The whole thing sounds fishy to me.

Priorities

[Wowsers]

Let me get this right, the US authorities are worried about the ICQ* service going to the Russians.... has the US seen just how much their economic rivals China own of the US economy? Get your priorities in order.

* Does anyone actually use ICQ any more?