The best way to make people realize that something is a bad idea, is to physically demonstrate it. One way of doing this, would be:
a) find out what particular strings/chunks of data the FBI servers are probing for
b) Send a large quantity of email/requests through these servers, containing ONLY these strings (i've noticed people with rather amusing.sig files on here like "fbi crack dealer munitions cuba")
The result would be two fold. Either:
1) This would grind down the cpu on the Carnivore boxes (NT based..it's easy!) resulting in a possible crash, which owuld in turn result in flow being restricted through the FBI 'blackbox' and hence through that particular node of the net itself. Do this to enough 'central' nodes, and the entire internet is significantly slowed down - demonstrating to ordinary users, and big business alike that carnivore is a really bad idea.
or
2) the amount of junk data that the FBI receive as a result of this would be far more than they could possibly process making them realize that the whole idea is stupid.
So get writing on those Auto-FBI spam programs.
A couple of years ago the Australian government had a similar plan to try and 'filter' out bad content (ie, not just snooping, but actual censoring). We kicked up a rather large fuss, signed a few petitions, and the whole thing passed over. I think often that non-tech people don't realize something is a bad idea simply because they've got no concept of what's actually going on in these type of situations.
Slashdot Mirror
...postings on the web, containing more than 650 million messages (over a terabyte of human conversation).
...postings on the web, containing more than 650 million messages (over a terabyte of pr0n, spam, and inane self obsessed rantings).
SHOULD read:
The best way to make people realize that something is a bad idea, is to physically demonstrate it. One way of doing this, would be:
.sig files on here like "fbi crack dealer munitions cuba")
a) find out what particular strings/chunks of data the FBI servers are probing for
b) Send a large quantity of email/requests through these servers, containing ONLY these strings (i've noticed people with rather amusing
The result would be two fold. Either:
1) This would grind down the cpu on the Carnivore boxes (NT based..it's easy!) resulting in a possible crash, which owuld in turn result in flow being restricted through the FBI 'blackbox' and hence through that particular node of the net itself. Do this to enough 'central' nodes, and the entire internet is significantly slowed down - demonstrating to ordinary users, and big business alike that carnivore is a really bad idea.
or
2) the amount of junk data that the FBI receive as a result of this would be far more than they could possibly process making them realize that the whole idea is stupid.
So get writing on those Auto-FBI spam programs.
A couple of years ago the Australian government had a similar plan to try and 'filter' out bad content (ie, not just snooping, but actual censoring). We kicked up a rather large fuss, signed a few petitions, and the whole thing passed over. I think often that non-tech people don't realize something is a bad idea simply because they've got no concept of what's actually going on in these type of situations.
We already have this in my city (Perth, Western Australia)
s pan.html
http://www.iinet.net.au/products/broadband/city
expensive though.