Tim May's quicker on the draw than I am :-)
You know you've tweaked the FBI when they drag out child pornographers,
terrorist bombers, hackers, and other usual suspects on a hearing
that they didn't initiate and didn't want to be dragged into.
To some extent, they always start speeches on wiretapping this way,
just like many politicians start off their speeches with a joke to get
the audience warmed up. But this time it's different,
because the Carnivore system, as described by the FBI officials,
can't tap anonymous encrypted mail - there's no From: or To: information.
So are they just grandstanding to make up for a weak position?
(Probably - they'd have had lots less controversy if they hadn't
picked a memorable name like "Carnivore".)
Or were they saying that the box is just the latest round of the
new wiretap capabilities they're looking for, just as they've been
trying for the entire time Louis Freeh's been FBI director?
Most of their speeches were spinning "No, this is just a new implementation
of the same policies we've had for several years", but Kerr's speech,
like most of Freeh's speeches, really says that the FBI wants to have
constantly increasing wiretap powers to make up for the improving
technology in the commercial world.
This also suggests that just because Carnivore does very few things now,
that doesn't mean it won't do more later, with or without explicit
notification to the ISP.
Some of the FBI testimony was very interesting - they conceded reluctantly
that there hadn't been any court tests of their power to require ISPs to
comply with Carnivore or other wiretaps - most ISPs simply obeyed,
except Earthlink had technical problems using the box and that court case
hasn't been finished yet.
Some technical information also leaked out, though it's not clear whether
it's accurate or not - that depends on the technical expertise of the
FBI speechwriters and speakers, which was quite varied.
The technical clues I noticed were that
- The ISP's systems have to forward them email messages that might be
relevant,
which implies that the ISP has some ability to pre-filter, though it's
not clear that any of them are.
- The Carnivore searches the From: and To: header lines, which says that it's
opening up the message itself, rather than just using the SMTP or POP3
protocol messages
(such as RCPT) which are used in sending, receiving, and picking up the
message.
That's not as much like a pen register as the FBI claims - it's more like
listening to the beginning of a phone call to see who the speakers are.
It also steps into the territory of whether the message is being tapped in
transit
(which is directly addressed by the ECPA) or tapped in a mailbox
(which is somewhat more open, given the Steve Jackson Games lawsuit.)
- They didn't say whether the ISP has an opportunity to review the
data kept by the Carnivore box, to validate that it's all that was collected.
The speaker from the CDT made a nice point about trunk-side taps,
which have been treated differently by courts and legislatures than
line-side taps - Carnivore looks much more like trunk-side.
Bill Stewart
>At 5:01 AM +0000 7/26/00, Anonymous wrote:
>>By John Schwartz
>>Washington Post Staff Writer
>>Tuesday , July 25, 2000 ; E01
>>
>>Federal law enforcement officials defended "Carnivore"--the FBI's
>>controversial Internet wiretap system--through more than two
>>acrimonious hours of grilling by Democratic and Republican lawmakers
>>yesterday, painting a chilling picture of an Internet that would
>>become a safe haven for crooks and terrorists without proper
>>surveillance.
>>
>>"Criminals use computers to send child pornography to each other
>>using anonymous, encrypted communications," FBI Assistant Director
>>Donald M. Kerr told the House Judiciary subcommittee on the
>>Constitution.
At 11:11 PM 7/25/00 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>The FBI has said that Carnivore will only be directed at specific
>targets of a wiretap order.
>
>How, then, does it do a damned thing with "anonymous, encrypted
>communications"?
>
>This is just one of many failures in logic.
(The longer version of Kerr's quote:)
"Criminals use computers to send child pornography to each other using
anonymous, encrypted communications," FBI Assistant Director Donald M. Kerr
told the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.
"Hackers break into financial service companies' systems and steal customers'
home addresses and credit-card numbers, criminals use the Internet's
inexpensive
and easy communications to commit large-scale fraud on victims all over the
world,
and terrorist bombers plan their strikes using the Internet."
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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