ISPs to add wiretap backdoors
p2pnet.net News:- ISPs and some VoIP providers will be forced to build backdoors into their networks that make it easier for law enforcement to run wiretaps .
This follows a new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that expands the reach of the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Under CALEA, passed in the early 1990s, all telephone providers must build "tappability" into their networks, but it expressly ruled out information services such as broadband, says the EFF, stressing that it’s argued against the expansion to the FCC.
Now, this tappability extends to broadband providers, says the foundation.
“Practically, what this means is that the government will be asking broadband providers – as well as companies that manufacture devices used for broadband communications – to build insecure backdoors into their networks, imperiling the privacy and security of citizens on the Internet. It also hobbles technical innovation by forcing companies involved in broadband to redesign their products to meet government requirements.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is also asking airlines to build similar backdoors into phone and data networks on airplanes, says the EFF, adding:
“EFF and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) submitted joint comments to the FCC arguing against the DOJ’s unprecedented and sweeping new technology design mandates and anticipatory wiretapping system.
“The FCC’s new proposal to expand CALEA to airline broadband illustrates the fallacy of law enforcement’s rationale for its CALEA request. The DOJ takes the position that broadband has ‘substantially replaced’ the local telephone exchange, but this claim is reduced to the point of absurdity aboard an airplane and opens the door for CALEA to cover just about anything.”
According to the FCC, this is the first "critical step" to apply CALEA obligations to new technologies and services that are increasingly used as a substitute for conventional services.
"The Order strikes an appropriate balance beteen fostering competitive broadband and advanced services deployment and technological innovation onone hand, and meeting the needs of the law enforcement community on the other," it states.
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See:-
EFF – FCC Issues Rule Allowing FBI to Dictate Wiretap-Friendly Design for Internet Services, August 5, 2005
August 6th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
All things can be built and can be destroyed. It won’t be long till hackers start using this, and until other hackers block it up. It will come crashing down soon.
August 6th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
Ah, the sweet joy of a worthwhile challenge against our rights, privacy, and our lives. Hopefully the people of the world will recognize and realize there is an onimous trend occuring — a trend for the worse not the better.
For any situation or problem, ask yourself the following questions (don’t get lost in the phony excuses given to you):
(1) Who has the most to GAIN (or in relative terms, who loses the least)?
(2) Who has the ABILITY and ACCESS to carry the act(s)?
(3) How exactly is the act being CARRIED OUT?
Doing so will illuminate many, many misunderstandings!
August 7th, 2005 at 2:39 am
Boycott any ISP that does this! Let them know that you do not approve of these wiretaps!
For one, its got to screw up bandwidth… and its a complete invasion of privacy!
Boycott!
I’m boycotting this, and I boycott any ISP that doesn’t put up a fight to keep their users annoymous!
August 7th, 2005 at 4:41 am
Oh that’s just lovely. Now the big spam czars will get their wagehaxxors to start cracking these backdoors to harvest everybody’s email addresses, and probably use the same backdoors to bypass the isp’s spam filters too. Just hope they can’t take control of the isp’s systems and use them to make DDOS attacks against their own customers. To say nothing of stealing their account info including CC numbers.
So in an attempt to *allegedly* “fight the net nasties” they’re going to make everybody a lot *MORE* vulnerable to the net nasties…
Yay team. Way to go.
This is of course typical of how bureacracy’s function. In futile attempts to “improve things” they always make them a bucketload worse. Just wait until the US follows the UK lead and implements an id card. Then watch identity theft go up faster than the shuttle.
August 7th, 2005 at 10:51 am
http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=2469
I’m fascinated to know how this will work in relation to (mainly) p2p programs such as Skype which also have encryption. I can understand a wiretap on POTS end points such as Skype-IN and Skype-Out. But tapping a pc-to-pc call is going to be hard without a backdoor and it will involve mirroring the call to a 3rd party which is going to be hard to hide. And then, Skype has encryption with all the right buzzwords but without peer review of the code, we have no way of knowing if the implementation is any good.
If backdoors are required, then this is another nail in the coffin of general purpose computing. It’s going to be very hard to enforce the back door without the support of MS, Apple, and Intel backed up with DMCA-style legislation in exactly the same way as with DRM.
Then there’s the jurisdiction problem. You have an American calling a Brit using a bit of software written in Estonia and distributed by a company with a shell owner in Luxembourg. All this sort of legislation will ensure is that Skype’s VCs will have to give up on a NASDAQ or a US buyout exit route. Great, create legislation to reject foreign capital. Good plan!
All in all it’s the usual crock of shit except it’s being justified by “the war on Terraaah” as well as propping up dinosaur business models. The dinosaurs this time being the incumbent telcos.
August 7th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
This will not just affect the people in the P.S.A. It will eventually affect everyone in the world who uses the Internet. The governments and cartels of the world are unifying to enslave the entire population for the “elite.” A rule passed in one state that benefits the cartels eventually gets passed in all 50 states. When the cartels like the rule, it gets exported to most of the other countries.
Since the cartels and governments control the current infrastructure, we need to build our own. Even though we can encrypt information, we cannot hipe the source and destination ip addressses on the networks. Knowing who a person talks to by tracing their ip address gives the Gestapo very valuable information. I don’t want the Gestapo to posses it. So, anything I have to shield from the Gestapo does not get transmitted over the Internet.
If you want to send virtually untraceable info, (at the moment) encrypt it on a CD and mail it from a public mailbox.