> >
> > Yes, the 3rd ammendment isn't really about the soldiers spying on you,
> > it's about them eating up your resources. But a box at an ISP sniffing
> > traffic IS eating up the ISP's resources. In the least it's eating up
> > electricity and bandwith to report back and be controlled.
>
> The 1st amendment explicitly grants freedom of press. Are you upset that
> the Carnivore box is using _electricity_?? The third amendment was about
> having some Infantryman sleeping in your bed, eating your food, and
> messing around with your daughter/wife/livestock. The Carnivore box is no
> more intrusive or expensive to the ISP than a wiretap is to a telco.
I think all of the reasons that others have posted relating why Carnivore
is a bad thing are more important than what follows, but I thought I'd
jump in here.
As an ISP owner, I'd be very uncomfortable with a Carnivore-style box on
my premises. Here's why:
Not only does it use electricity, but any such box adds to the load
on my air condtioning and my UPS batteries.
There's no way to be sure that it's not cataloging other email, as
others have mentioned.
There's no way to be sure that it's not storing clear text passwords
of things I do on my network for maintenance. This would allow the
feds to trivially hack their way back in at any time in the future,
if I'm foolish enough not to have my entire staff change all of their
passwords on all routers and servers after the Carnivore box is gone.
There's no way to determine that the Carnivore box is safe from being
hacked. So, once it has gatherered all the passwords, there's nothing
to prevent a clever-enough script kid from hacking their black box
and scooping the good stuff.
These last two remind me a lot of the Clipper debate.... Matt Blaze
was able to show that the NSA folks could blow it on security. Does
anyone think that the FBI will do better on their black box?
As I said, all of these are less important than the real reasons for
disliking Carnivore, but they're also valid. The Agent's quip about
"using _electricitry_" irks me.
-Bill
--
Bill O'Hanlon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Professional Network Services, Inc. 612-379-3958
