Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FBI: We Need Wiretap-Ready Web Sites — Now

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-climb-a-tree dept.

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."

11 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. Time to move. by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    1. Re:Time to move. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Time to move. by CodeHxr · · Score: 5, Funny

      Are you implying that you don't want to be snooped on because you have something to hide?

    3. Re:Time to move. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I worked on CALEA and even for that, smaller telecoms were able to get exempted from this in-theory. I say in theory because even in areas of Alaska that only served 4000 people we submitted estimates for over $400K to update them and the FBI paid for it (shhh - don't tell any one - I did sign a NDA)...that aside, smaller sites can't possible be forced to pay for this and if you do, take a note from the CALEA play book - estimate very high and make a lot of proift.

    4. Re:Time to move. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Coward! Stay and fight!

      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!

    5. Re:Time to move. by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Time to move. by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    7. Re:Time to move. by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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."

  2. Shameless by Compaqt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  3. Coming soon... by netwarerip · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Wired Elemental Routine Executable Federal Unlawful Collection Kernel Encryption Datagram

  4. Sorry but..... by Grayhand · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's nothing in the Constitution that says we have to make invading our privacy easier on them. Already we are facing all our car's movements being trackable and now they want to make sure every form of communication is easily accessible. At what point does unreasonable search and seizure kick in? This almost ties into the TSA story. The Supreme Court needs to define "Unreasonable search and seizure" since the government seems to think ALL search and seizure is reasonable. Need I bring up drug forfeiture? You can take a tourist on a day fishing trip and if he has a brick of cocaine with him they seize your boat and the government feels that's reasonable even when you had no way to know without illegally searching your customer.