> > > 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.
First, I hope it's understood that I'm undecided whether I'm for carnivore
or against it. The more I read on this list, though, the more I agree with
you guys. Some of arguments against it are unfounded though, like this 3rd
amendment thing.
I didn't mean to quip went I asked about the electricity. I was responding
to Sunder, who likened the carnivore box to a hungry British infantryman.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, in my understanding a computer causes a
negligible burden in air-conditioning. And it doesn't use the UPS
batteries unless the power goes out. And since carnivore is a passive
system, it doesn't add to your network's traffic burden. Besides, you know
that it's not the rack space and heat that upsets ISP owners about the
box.
As an ISP owner, you have the responsibility that comes with providing
communication and information to people. It's the same responsibility that
the telcos have. So if it's in the interest of the people to stop a creep
that's using your service to commit crimes, it's your duty to help the law
enforcement guys out (for a moment, let's put away the omnipresent
assumption law enforcement is inherently evil, and assume that it is
actually interested in capturing bad guys).
administrated. It would be interesting if an ISP somehow detected and
reported activity coming from one of the things. As for back doors in the
commercial part of the software, I hadn't thought of that, and that's
definately a real concern.
Does anyone know if Carnivore is remotely administrated, and therefore
subject to hacking?
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