DNA - Mumbai - Government to sniff your emails - Daily News & Analysis
For the latest Mumbai news on mobile sms MUM to 54567 Government to sniff your emails Mayank Tewari Monday, September 22, 2008 04:32 IST MUMBAI: Here's how the Indian government plans to track suspected terror emails in real time: It's going to sniff or read your messages. Sniffing, in technical terms, means capturing data being transmitted on a network to identify its origin and destination and, if needed, see its contents. Sniffer programmes are commonly used by internet service providers (ISPs) to detect bottlenecks and problems for regulating internet traffic. Senior officials in New Delhi who are acquainted with the government's response to internet-based terrorism told DNA that effective mechanisms have been put in place to sniff and monitor the domestic internet traffic at various points for suspected terror emails and other communication. Email tracking is the buzz word in cyber intelligence circles. "We have unofficial estimates that everyday nearly 25,000 new email IDs are created by users accessing only one of the major e-mail networks. We also suspect that terror IDs are created specifically for sending out an email. In this context, sniffing mail servers can help us track down these suspected IDs even as they are being created," said an official familiar with the government's policy on cyber terrorism. The intelligence agencies have been monitoring the international internet traffic emanating and ending in India for the last two years. "The security agencies have installed hardware at three major international gateways that sniff the internet traffic leaving India and coming into the country," the senior official said. However, with more and more evidence of home-grown terrorists using domestic networks for communication, the intelligence community has been making noises about deploying the sniffing technology at the local ISP level. Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit: http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm September 21 &22!! To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
