Comments on: Fahrenheit FBI

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh says law enforcement's plan to extend wiretaps to the Internet raises a new set of questions that nobody has yet answered.

[trutkowski]

Inappropriate focus on U.S. and DOJ

Declan's well meaning article focuses on U.S. Federal action - fairly oblivious to the reality that the requirements exist worldwide to produce network forensic evidence for law enforcement authorities. Indeed, in most other countries, the current support controversies revolve around extensive data retention requirements, not real-time intercept capabilities which are rquired by all providers - Internet or otherwise in almost every country. The only exemption provided by the U.S. Congress pertains to narrowly defined "information services" - not the entire IP-enabled infrastructure. If there is any doubt, the CALEA supportive statements of essentially every congress person in recent hearings, makes that abundantly clear.

As is fairly evident in the comments filed in the CALEA proceeding, the primary benefactors are state and local authorities, rather than the large federal agencies.

Lastly, there are really no other viable solutions here other than to deploy the necessary capacity in the infrastructure - which is largely occurring anyhow for a plethora of network management and operations reasons - as well as the global LI requirements. The appropriate focus is on making LI implementations by government as trusted as possible through accountability and authentication mechanisms.

--tony

[Fray9]

But

Thats all well and good but I feel the main problem with the whole idea is that its severely outdated.

The only criminals going to get caught by this are the very few who are smart enough to use the technology but dumb enough not to use free and widely available encryption software with it to elude eavesdropping.

The only people who will be effectively watched by this program are the honest citizens.

Not to mention putting a backdoor in is just begging for trouble. The only reason unauthorized wiretapping isnt more common now is because the physical network makes it an expensive and complex endeavour.

Bring in the internet and suddenly youve got 14 year olds in china banging on the door. When one gets in then what? Suddenly we have recordings of the presidents private phone conversations with his wife posted on the internet?

Bet he'll be all for this idea then.

[fuzzyCWD]

Fahrenheit FBI

Not trying to sound like a conspiracy is going on, but isn't there?
I have been a regular reader of history and in all "ages", after the ruling parties have been ther long enough, the "people" need a guardian to protect them from thier "guardian".
I read in the paper and hear on the local news how this police officer committed these crimes or that governor did this, or, when the state was cutting public funding for services ot the elder, the same state was spending $1 Mill on a new office(not an office building, JUST ONE OFFICE).

[trutkowski]

conspiracies

Conspiracy theories are like religion. Believe what you will. However, a great many crimes are committed using communications media, and the collection of related forensic evicence when there is probable cause to obtain it, is a fundamental part of all legal systems worldwide. This is what the FCC action (and similar actions by counteless FCC equivalents in other countires) are dealing with.