Comments on: NSA granted Net location-tracking patent

Government agency patents a way to learn the geographical location of Internet users. How will the technique be used?

[Razzl]

Why tip their hand?

I thought the mission of the NSA was to use these technologies to accomplish their information-gathering misssion, not to apply for patents. Why tip off the bad guys that you know how to do this, or that it's even possible? Knowing how to do this and keeping that capability secret may have allowed them to gather intelligence with it for a decade before someone else developed the concept. Now everyone knows they can do it and the bad guys will take measures to stay off the net (or go back to dialup). It's another example of the careless approach to intelligence that's characterized our government from about the day after Bush indicated he wouldn't tolerate government leaks in the war on terror. Nobody in this government seems to appreciate the value of witholding information from the enemy...

NSA

What the NSA say in public, and what they really do is quite different.

[Steven N]

No news there for the bad guys

Everybody with a little bit of knowledge of the Internet knows that you are not anonymous on it without proper precautions.

So they will only catch small crooks with this...

[Razzl]

Why tip their hand?

I thought the mission of the NSA was to use these technologies to accomplish their information-gathering misssion, not to apply for patents. Why tip off the bad guys that you know how to do this, or that it's even possible? Knowing how to do this and keeping that capability secret may have allowed them to gather intelligence with it for a decade before someone else developed the concept. Now everyone knows they can do it and the bad guys will take measures to stay off the net (or go back to dialup). It's another example of the careless approach to intelligence that's characterized our government from about the day after Bush indicated he wouldn't tolerate government leaks in the war on terror. Nobody in this government seems to appreciate the value of witholding information from the enemy...

NSA

What the NSA say in public, and what they really do is quite different.

[Steven N]

No news there for the bad guys

Everybody with a little bit of knowledge of the Internet knows that you are not anonymous on it without proper precautions.

So they will only catch small crooks with this...

[Razzl]

Why tip their hand?

I thought the mission of the NSA was to use these technologies to accomplish their information-gathering misssion, not to apply for patents. Why tip off the bad guys that you know how to do this, or that it's even possible? Knowing how to do this and keeping that capability secret may have allowed them to gather intelligence with it for a decade before someone else developed the concept. Now everyone knows they can do it and the bad guys will take measures to stay off the net (or go back to dialup). It's another example of the careless approach to intelligence that's characterized our government from about the day after Bush indicated he wouldn't tolerate government leaks in the war on terror. Nobody in this government seems to appreciate the value of witholding information from the enemy...

NSA

What the NSA say in public, and what they really do is quite different.

[Steven N]

No news there for the bad guys

Everybody with a little bit of knowledge of the Internet knows that you are not anonymous on it without proper precautions.

So they will only catch small crooks with this...

[Razzl]

Why tip their hand?

I thought the mission of the NSA was to use these technologies to accomplish their information-gathering misssion, not to apply for patents. Why tip off the bad guys that you know how to do this, or that it's even possible? Knowing how to do this and keeping that capability secret may have allowed them to gather intelligence with it for a decade before someone else developed the concept. Now everyone knows they can do it and the bad guys will take measures to stay off the net (or go back to dialup). It's another example of the careless approach to intelligence that's characterized our government from about the day after Bush indicated he wouldn't tolerate government leaks in the war on terror. Nobody in this government seems to appreciate the value of witholding information from the enemy...

NSA

What the NSA say in public, and what they really do is quite different.

[Steven N]

No news there for the bad guys

Everybody with a little bit of knowledge of the Internet knows that you are not anonymous on it without proper precautions.

So they will only catch small crooks with this...

[Marcus Westrup]

They patented this?

This is like patenting the numbers you find in a phone book! There is no new technique involved here.

Perhaps these people should hire someone with network experience, then they would realize how silly this is.

[Andrew J Glina]

Very true

It is done on CNET. I am from Australia and I recieve ads releated to Australian companies. It isn't that hard to do.

I am trying to write a small program to do the same, but the problem is that the databases are 10MB plus. What I have to do is summarise these to sub 100KB which I have not got around to doing. But there is nothing new in what they are doing.

[Marcus Westrup]

They patented this?

This is like patenting the numbers you find in a phone book! There is no new technique involved here.

Perhaps these people should hire someone with network experience, then they would realize how silly this is.

[Andrew J Glina]

Very true

It is done on CNET. I am from Australia and I recieve ads releated to Australian companies. It isn't that hard to do.

I am trying to write a small program to do the same, but the problem is that the databases are 10MB plus. What I have to do is summarise these to sub 100KB which I have not got around to doing. But there is nothing new in what they are doing.

[Marcus Westrup]

They patented this?

This is like patenting the numbers you find in a phone book! There is no new technique involved here.

Perhaps these people should hire someone with network experience, then they would realize how silly this is.

[Andrew J Glina]

Very true

It is done on CNET. I am from Australia and I recieve ads releated to Australian companies. It isn't that hard to do.

I am trying to write a small program to do the same, but the problem is that the databases are 10MB plus. What I have to do is summarise these to sub 100KB which I have not got around to doing. But there is nothing new in what they are doing.

[Marcus Westrup]

They patented this?

This is like patenting the numbers you find in a phone book! There is no new technique involved here.

Perhaps these people should hire someone with network experience, then they would realize how silly this is.

[Andrew J Glina]

Very true

It is done on CNET. I am from Australia and I recieve ads releated to Australian companies. It isn't that hard to do.

I am trying to write a small program to do the same, but the problem is that the databases are 10MB plus. What I have to do is summarise these to sub 100KB which I have not got around to doing. But there is nothing new in what they are doing.

[Gayle Edwards]

This was done years ago, ...for fun, ...by students...

UNIX-era Internet-students used to trace the physical-paths of packets, from end-point to end-point, years ago. Later, we discovered this really cool little free-program, which actually displayed a world-map, with the backbone-paths and server-IPs all the way from the students computers, to virtually any destination-host. And, it really wasnt rocket-science, if you knew how to "PING" and where to look-up basic "Internet" information.

So, I am also a little puzzled by this "patent" story.

[davearonson]

Problem: clueless PTO

Long story short, the main problem is the utter cluelessness of the Patent and Trademark Office, when it comes to anything dealing with computers. See also the recent articles re their new online patent application process.

Their job ads (at least as of summer 2004) specifically prohibit applying by email, or even fax, and there is no way to apply via a web form, even for IT positions. That explains a lot.

[John Kuzak]

UNIX-era

http://www.analogstereo.com/hyundai_santa_fe_owners_manual.htm

[Gayle Edwards]

This was done years ago, ...for fun, ...by students...

UNIX-era Internet-students used to trace the physical-paths of packets, from end-point to end-point, years ago. Later, we discovered this really cool little free-program, which actually displayed a world-map, with the backbone-paths and server-IPs all the way from the students computers, to virtually any destination-host. And, it really wasnt rocket-science, if you knew how to "PING" and where to look-up basic "Internet" information.

So, I am also a little puzzled by this "patent" story.

[davearonson]

Problem: clueless PTO

Long story short, the main problem is the utter cluelessness of the Patent and Trademark Office, when it comes to anything dealing with computers. See also the recent articles re their new online patent application process.

Their job ads (at least as of summer 2004) specifically prohibit applying by email, or even fax, and there is no way to apply via a web form, even for IT positions. That explains a lot.

[John Kuzak]

UNIX-era

http://www.analogstereo.com/hyundai_santa_fe_owners_manual.htm

[Gayle Edwards]

This was done years ago, ...for fun, ...by students...

UNIX-era Internet-students used to trace the physical-paths of packets, from end-point to end-point, years ago. Later, we discovered this really cool little free-program, which actually displayed a world-map, with the backbone-paths and server-IPs all the way from the students computers, to virtually any destination-host. And, it really wasnt rocket-science, if you knew how to "PING" and where to look-up basic "Internet" information.

So, I am also a little puzzled by this "patent" story.

[davearonson]

Problem: clueless PTO

Long story short, the main problem is the utter cluelessness of the Patent and Trademark Office, when it comes to anything dealing with computers. See also the recent articles re their new online patent application process.

Their job ads (at least as of summer 2004) specifically prohibit applying by email, or even fax, and there is no way to apply via a web form, even for IT positions. That explains a lot.

[John Kuzak]

UNIX-era

http://www.analogstereo.com/hyundai_santa_fe_owners_manual.htm

[Gayle Edwards]

This was done years ago, ...for fun, ...by students...

UNIX-era Internet-students used to trace the physical-paths of packets, from end-point to end-point, years ago. Later, we discovered this really cool little free-program, which actually displayed a world-map, with the backbone-paths and server-IPs all the way from the students computers, to virtually any destination-host. And, it really wasnt rocket-science, if you knew how to "PING" and where to look-up basic "Internet" information.

So, I am also a little puzzled by this "patent" story.

[davearonson]

Problem: clueless PTO

Long story short, the main problem is the utter cluelessness of the Patent and Trademark Office, when it comes to anything dealing with computers. See also the recent articles re their new online patent application process.

Their job ads (at least as of summer 2004) specifically prohibit applying by email, or even fax, and there is no way to apply via a web form, even for IT positions. That explains a lot.

[John Kuzak]

UNIX-era

http://www.analogstereo.com/hyundai_santa_fe_owners_manual.htm

who you gonna call?

call 911.. boo

who you gonna call?

call 911.. boo

who you gonna call?

call 911.. boo

who you gonna call?

call 911.. boo

[screename0900]

Dunno

The news about this is *sensational* yet what they describe this to be- a 'latency' built map, yeah, that is part of ping, but what the point would be is to have a realtime map of machines online at any given time.

Since this would simply be a mass list of ip's as close to physical locations as they could be, I could see a purpose in having such a map that would identify machines 'on the network' but this hasn't identified the users.

Not sure what all this *news* is about, and each story seems to be missing a point. My guess is that the patent is probably happening so this can then be in an application to do what's suggested they want to do. They might not be able to get around it being public and the news agencies picked up the story.

So this is a visual traceroute that pings every network and subnet works but then keeps the info. How new is this really? Whatever, fact is if things are on the way to mapping out the inet to machines online, this would eventually happen anyway.

I can just see all the 'critics' coming up without actual knowledge of what this is/means debating this/that getting the public and everybody else in an uproar. Still- they have to request a user name from an isp from their logs to identify anyone at an ip. Dhcp people will always be changing for thier 'static' map, etc.

Dunno what all the news is about, there is so many ways to already identify a machine and then 'whom' is on it, I see no shortcuts with this news story.


sc

[screename0900]

Dunno

The news about this is *sensational* yet what they describe this to be- a 'latency' built map, yeah, that is part of ping, but what the point would be is to have a realtime map of machines online at any given time.

Since this would simply be a mass list of ip's as close to physical locations as they could be, I could see a purpose in having such a map that would identify machines 'on the network' but this hasn't identified the users.

Not sure what all this *news* is about, and each story seems to be missing a point. My guess is that the patent is probably happening so this can then be in an application to do what's suggested they want to do. They might not be able to get around it being public and the news agencies picked up the story.

So this is a visual traceroute that pings every network and subnet works but then keeps the info. How new is this really? Whatever, fact is if things are on the way to mapping out the inet to machines online, this would eventually happen anyway.

I can just see all the 'critics' coming up without actual knowledge of what this is/means debating this/that getting the public and everybody else in an uproar. Still- they have to request a user name from an isp from their logs to identify anyone at an ip. Dhcp people will always be changing for thier 'static' map, etc.

Dunno what all the news is about, there is so many ways to already identify a machine and then 'whom' is on it, I see no shortcuts with this news story.


sc

[screename0900]

Dunno

The news about this is *sensational* yet what they describe this to be- a 'latency' built map, yeah, that is part of ping, but what the point would be is to have a realtime map of machines online at any given time.

Since this would simply be a mass list of ip's as close to physical locations as they could be, I could see a purpose in having such a map that would identify machines 'on the network' but this hasn't identified the users.

Not sure what all this *news* is about, and each story seems to be missing a point. My guess is that the patent is probably happening so this can then be in an application to do what's suggested they want to do. They might not be able to get around it being public and the news agencies picked up the story.

So this is a visual traceroute that pings every network and subnet works but then keeps the info. How new is this really? Whatever, fact is if things are on the way to mapping out the inet to machines online, this would eventually happen anyway.

I can just see all the 'critics' coming up without actual knowledge of what this is/means debating this/that getting the public and everybody else in an uproar. Still- they have to request a user name from an isp from their logs to identify anyone at an ip. Dhcp people will always be changing for thier 'static' map, etc.

Dunno what all the news is about, there is so many ways to already identify a machine and then 'whom' is on it, I see no shortcuts with this news story.


sc

[screename0900]

Dunno

The news about this is *sensational* yet what they describe this to be- a 'latency' built map, yeah, that is part of ping, but what the point would be is to have a realtime map of machines online at any given time.

Since this would simply be a mass list of ip's as close to physical locations as they could be, I could see a purpose in having such a map that would identify machines 'on the network' but this hasn't identified the users.

Not sure what all this *news* is about, and each story seems to be missing a point. My guess is that the patent is probably happening so this can then be in an application to do what's suggested they want to do. They might not be able to get around it being public and the news agencies picked up the story.

So this is a visual traceroute that pings every network and subnet works but then keeps the info. How new is this really? Whatever, fact is if things are on the way to mapping out the inet to machines online, this would eventually happen anyway.

I can just see all the 'critics' coming up without actual knowledge of what this is/means debating this/that getting the public and everybody else in an uproar. Still- they have to request a user name from an isp from their logs to identify anyone at an ip. Dhcp people will always be changing for thier 'static' map, etc.

Dunno what all the news is about, there is so many ways to already identify a machine and then 'whom' is on it, I see no shortcuts with this news story.


sc