FBI: We Need Wiretap-Ready Web Sites — Now

TheGift73 writes with news that the FBI is pushing a proposal to update old wiretap legislation so that modern web firms would be forced to build in backdoors to facilitate government surveillance. Quoting CNET: "In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned. The FBI general counsel's office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly. ... The FBI's proposal would amend a 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, that currently applies only to telecommunications providers, not Web companies. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband networks."

Comments

Time to move.

[characterZer0]

Time to move my mail/chat server out of the US.

Re:Time to move.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to move my mail/chat server out of the US.

No, if this passes, it's time to move out of the US.

When posession of a Linux distro with smptd becomes a crime, it's not time to move your mail server out of the US, it's time to move yourself out of the US.

Re:Time to move.

[Anonymous Coward]

To where? There isn't a country out there that isn't corrupt to the whims of the US that isn't ruled by someone just as bad.

Re:Time to move.

[characterZer0]

I have lots to hide. Just because it is not illegal, unethical, or immoral does not mean I do not want to hide it.

  I am also do not want to spend my time complying with this kind of regulation.

Re:Time to move.

[CharlyFoxtrot]

To where? There isn't a country out there that isn't corrupt to the whims of the US that isn't ruled by someone just as bad.

Sure, but we do have a better health plan ;-)

Re:Time to move.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive had reasons to dislike this government since I started thiking for myself. You think I am going to let them threaten me away from my familial homeland? Fuck them....stay here and be the resistance!

Fuck that. If the populace keeps electing people who pass these laws, then representative democracy is working as it should. You don't withdraw your support from a government by "resisting". You lawfully withdraw your support from a government by expatriating (paying any required exit taxes on your way out the door), and denying it the revenue stream from your future taxes.

Re:Time to move.

[betterunixthanunix]

Let us be clear about the distinction between telephone wiretaps and the provisions of CALEA. Traditionally, to wiretap a telephone line you literally connected equipment to the line, which involves sending an officer into the field and can potentially tip off the target of the tap. CALEA requires phone companies to make automated tapping of some fraction of their lines possible, so that a line can be tapped invisibly and without anyone having to leave their desk.

No, I have no problem with traditional wiretapping; you can bet that I have a problem with CALEA. What the FBI is complaining about is that traditional wiretapping techniques are difficult to apply to the Internet, and thus they want CALEA-style tapping to be available. No thank you -- we do not need to expand the already vast surveillance infrastructure in this country, nor do we need to turn the Internet into a clone of Cable TV (i.e. a network where only large organizations can run servers legally).

Re:Time to move.

[Anthony Mouse]

The problem is not who is getting wiretapped, the problem is who and what is being obligated to support it. The original CALEA applied to AT&T. AT&T can figure out how to navigate a federal statute.

But now they're wanting to impose it on software. The last thing this country needs is laws that end up throwing J. Random Hacker at some university graduate program or tech startup in federal prison for publishing a new VOIP protocol without consulting a team of attorneys.

On top of that, the traditional phone network has crap for security. Any jackass with a lineman's handset can stand in front of your building and listen to your POTS telephone calls. Implementing wiretaps for that is easy because the phone company already has the cleartext, and it doesn't really make the security any worse than its current level of non-existence. By contrast, the way VOIP should be implemented is with end-to-end encryption -- but then the VOIP provider can't wiretap you, because they don't (by design) have access to the cleartext. Which is the only way to make it so that if the VOIP provider gets hacked, the infiltrators can't intercept your phone conversations.

Enshrining insecure designs into the law that allow foreign governments to conduct industrial espionage against U.S. companies is a bad idea.

Re:Time to move.

[Githaron]

There are plenty of good reason to treat them different. For one, back in the day, most criminals could not start their own telephone network. It would have been pretty much impossible to run a telephone system for any real distance without getting caught. The internet; however, has lowered the barrier significantly. It is fairly easy to run your own services. It would not even take that much capital. If you start wiretapping websites, emails, VOIP, etc., you will have a system that only has the ability to wiretap innocents and criminals that would probably been caught anyway through other means since they are idiots. The smart criminals would have no trouble at all avoiding such a system. Since almost nothing is gained, why risk the abuse of such a system? The internet is designed to be open and resilient not tappable. The only way to keep the criminals from starting their own services is to complete change the structure of the internet. Such a thought I am completely against.

Re:Time to move.

[causality]

If only we had a representative democracy, I bet this wouldn't be a problem.

Actually I believe we do. What we are experiencing is the emotionally governed (mostly fear-based) decision-making by a majority of people who have become too fat, intellectually lazy*, naive, complacent, and unable to look beyond the immediate moment. If not for that, most of our politicians would be fearful for their careers. If not for that, we'd probably see third parties and/or write-in candidates win major federal elections at least once in a while.

These are the people who fear dying in a terrorist attack more than an ever-growing government that is hell-bent on reducing freedom. They do this even though they are more likely to die from being struck by lightning. They do this even though every or nearly every other out-of-control government in all of history has deteriorated into a hellishly oppressive state.

These are the people who buy into the "for the children" rhetoric without taking one moment to consider the kind of nation those children will grow up to inherit. If you care so much about children, then you also want them to know and love prosperity and freedom, not fear and restriction.

These are the people who will vote for the candidate with the best marketing campaign and the most catchy sound bites, rather than the candidate who expouses principles they know to be sound.

These are the people who actually admire petty, infantile figures like Kim Kardashian and care more about American Idol and professional athletes than they do about the future of their nation.

These are the people who can use something like a computer for five years or more without ever knowing more about how it works and how to maintain it than when they started out. If it's not strictly necessary in order to make money, they generally don't care to learn it.

The minority of us who have sense, principles, personal responsibility, love learning new things, celebrate wisdom, truly love freedom without confusing it with license, think critically, and have undone the damage that government schooling did (or tried to do) to their natural curiosity and joy of discovery, do not deserve the kind of government the majority wants.

I seriously do not blame anyone for wanting to expatriate. They are simply refusing to deny the direction in which things are moving. Many of them, like myself, have tried to provide a different message, tried to promote awareness, and found that it's generally not valued. If the majority wants to be fat, stupid, and emotionally immature, at some point you have to respect their wishes. What you don't necessarily have to do is reap what they have sown for themselves.


* "Stupid" if you like, because they do not love to learn new things though they are capable of it and have more access to knowledge now than ever before in all of history.

Re:Time to move.

[EdIII]

The problem with expatriation is there is almost literally no place to go that is not following in the foot steps of the progressively "hellishly oppressive states".

It's a like a friend of mine who is much older and believes we have a few years left till a worldwide collapse that will affect even the most basic functions of society. He says he will be going to a tropical island paradise....

Ummmm kay. What about the other 2 million old perverts who follow you? Me? I'll be going to middle of the most hostile parts of the planet that I can find with the most technology and resources that I can bring. Middle of Alaska, or the Four Corners. Someplace that is so ridiculously difficult to get to, that once you get there and can be self sufficient it practically guarantees that 2 million old perverts will not be following you, but maybe, maybe, less than a thousand die hard survivalists. I think the Four Corners has enough room for that.

So while expatriation sounds good, bloody, bloody revolution where you drag all the politicians and the senior FBI members out into the street, along with the 1% and Wall Street, and behead them French Revolution style will be more practical.

If anything, history demonstrates that is a repeating pattern. Like forest fires cleaning out the built up underbrush. Once in awhile, those that have attained power get fat, lazy, and forget about the "line" that can't be crossed. One day they look around and find themselves surrounded by pitchforks and torches and go, "Oh shit. We went too far dammit."

What an age we live in!

[Vancorps]

Security has gotten so good these days that all the holes in security we used to defend against are now be mandated by government to be put back in! In all the genius lets put all our data at risk again. Provide a backdoor for one party on the Internet and you provide a backdoor for everybody. We need more attack vectors!

I get wanting to be able to monitor data, there is zero reason this should be easy however.

FBI: We Need more Hack-Ready Web Sites

[DeWinterZero]

What could possibly go wrong...?

warrant

[Triv]

I don't care if websites are "wiretap-ready." Phones already are.

What I care about is if data can be collected (not used; COLLECTED) from these sites wiretap-ready sites without a warrant.

Shameless

[Compaqt]

And this, of course, is all "to protect our democratic way of life".

Coming up soon: Government-mandated Java and PHP methods that your website code will have to call.

If Syria or China were doing this, it would be called tyranny or dictatorship.

FBI Mad Their Job is Harder

[preaction]

So the FBI is now mimicking the *AA's: Their job is harder with the Internet, so they make laws to stop the Internet from ruining their old ways of doing things.

Unintended side effects

[smooth wombat]

If this goes through, does this mean that providers such as Comcast, Verizon, et al, who both provide the physical means of communications and who also offer the services described in the article, will now be treated as telecommunication companies, subject to all the rules and regulations therein?

If so, does that mean we can finally get competition for broadband without those companies wanting to charge exorbitant rates to competitors for line usage?

Re:Skype?

[Hatta]

What makes you think there isn't already a back door in Skype? It's not like we can check out the code and verify that it's clean.

If you don't support the war on drugs, piracy...

[elucido]

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

Do not accept any bill which contains overly broad or vague language. Be watchful of FBI objectives which claim to focus on "illegal activities" and "crime". Also be careful of emotional keywords like "kiddie porn" and "pedophiles".

When it comes to fighting terrorism I'm for the FBI. When it comes to fighting pedophiles I'm for the FBI. When it comes to fighting "illegal activities" and "crime" I'm not for the FBI because that isn't specific enough to give them broad powers. Since everyone is a criminal, if we empower them to fight "illegal activities" we are giving them the power to abuse entire communities in the name of combating "illegal activities" and "crime". The purpose of the FBI should be to protect communities, and we universally agree that terrorists and pedophiles are the bad guys regardless of our political stance on other issues.

We need bills which remove the political issues such as piracy, "illegal activities" and crime and focus more on terrorism and violence. If someone is a serial killer the FBI should be able to do a wiretap, but don't want to see the day when the FBI sees everything we do online and starts arresting people on piracy and other trivial offenses. Yes some people are going to say these offenses are economic crimes, but these offenses aren't good enough to put backdoors in every website.

Dear FBI

[anom]

Fuck you.

That is all.

Re:If you don't support the war on drugs, piracy..

[Hatta]

I'm not afraid of terrorists. The chances of me being hurt by a terrorist are infinitesimal compared to any other cause of death. The right thing to do is ignore them.

You might be a criminal..

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Said it before and I will say it again, the list keeps growing:

You might be a criminal if:
you use the internet.

You might be a criminal if:
you want to get on a plane

You might be a criminal if:
you post bird songs on you tube.

You might be a criminal if:
You build a better widget than a big corp and try to sell it.

You might be a criminal if:
You run an SMTPD server

You might be a criminal if:
You run Linux

You might be a criminal if:
you take photos of police officers.


Feel free to add your own.