FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software

[Synthaholic]

FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software

CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom "port reader" software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software.






The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.


FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.


Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as "port reader" software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the "harvesting program."


Carriers are "extra-cautious" and are resisting installation of the FBI's port reader software, an industry participant in the discussions said, in part because of the privacy and security risks of unknown surveillance technology operating on an sensitive internal network.


It's "an interception device by definition," said the industry participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court proceedings are sealed. "If magistrates knew more, they would approve less." It's unclear whether any carriers have installed port readers, and at least one is actively opposing the installation.


In a statement from a spokesman, the FBI said it has the legal authority to use alternate methods to collect Internet metadata, including source and destination IP addresses: "In circumstances where a provider is unable to comply with a court order utilizing its own technical solution(s), law enforcement may offer to provide technical assistance to meet the obligation of the court order."

 

[Missourian]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

 

[Pogo]

Fight fire with fire.

When your enemy develops a missile, you develop an anti-missile missile.
Of course, when they develop an anti-anti missile missle missile you'll need an anti-anit-anti missile missile missile missile...

 

[percysunshine]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Liar. Making it political is exactly what you want. And, this started long before Eric Holder.

Just once, you blind rw's should try to look beyond the end of your racism and idiotic hatred.

==============
==============

The Internet As We Know It Is On Its Deathbed | Alternet

Snowden's leaks show how the Internet can be turned against us.
July 30, 2013 |

The original vision of the Internet, where information and media is freely shared, without one’s computer strokes and searches being metered, tracked, traced, archived, dissected, marketed and warehoused in government data banks, is dead. And that’s what’s being lost by mainstream media in the ongoing Edward Snowden coverage.

The Snowden story is not about whether Snowden is a spy, or U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will seek the death penalty, or whether Russian President Vladamir Putin will let him stay, or what dark novels his Russian lawyer has given him, or what clean clothes he has. It is, as the U.K. Guardian notes, what Snowden has revealed about today’s Internet.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software

CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom "port reader" software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software.






The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.


FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.


Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as "port reader" software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the "harvesting program."


Carriers are "extra-cautious" and are resisting installation of the FBI's port reader software, an industry participant in the discussions said, in part because of the privacy and security risks of unknown surveillance technology operating on an sensitive internal network.


It's "an interception device by definition," said the industry participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court proceedings are sealed. "If magistrates knew more, they would approve less." It's unclear whether any carriers have installed port readers, and at least one is actively opposing the installation.


In a statement from a spokesman, the FBI said it has the legal authority to use alternate methods to collect Internet metadata, including source and destination IP addresses: "In circumstances where a provider is unable to comply with a court order utilizing its own technical solution(s), law enforcement may offer to provide technical assistance to meet the obligation of the court order."

If the FBI can get the data directly from the server so can criminals.

 

[Pogo]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

 

[Mad Scientist]

FCC Act of 1996 authorized all of that.

Not sayin' it's right, but the Government is at LEAST 20 years ahead of you in Surveilance Tech.

 

[Missourian]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Liar. Making it political is exactly what you want. And, this started long before Eric Holder.

Just once, you blind rw's should try to look beyond the end of your racism and idiotic hatred.

So let me get this straight...the BUSH administration still calls the shots at the justice department.

That's amazing.

Obama is weaker than anyone ever imagined.

Those are your two choices...

Obama isn't in control of his own administration...or Obama is no different than Bush.

Pick you poison...

FTR, I am trying to wake you and your fellow liberals up...cast off your blinders.

Obama is doing all the things you Crucified the Bush administration for doing...

And STILL you protect him...

 

[percysunshine]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

Frankly, I see the Republican Congress as responsible for letting Obama get away with the stuff he does. He is like a child testing what the boundaries are. 'No consequences? OK to do it...what can I try next?'

Congress have a responsibility to stop executive branch overreach, and are doing nothing. At least the Democrats stopped Nixon when he tried to use authority he did not have.

 

[beagle9]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Posted something, but not sure if it really applied, so I deleted it for now.... Reading more on the topic..

 

[Missourian]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

I think every gets the fact that Obama is either one of the puppet masters or one of the puppets.

Even if many are loath to admit it...

So, that said, I agree.

It took balls for Synth to post this article, and I don't want to be responsible for derailing it.

 

[percysunshine]

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

I think every gets the fact that Obama is either one of the puppet masters or one of the puppets.

Even if many are loath to admit it...

So, that said, I agree.

It took balls for Synth to post this article, and I don't want to be responsible for derailing it.

Indeed. This article kind of hit a cord with the theme of the thread....

"Democracy never lasts long,” Adams famously said. “It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” For liberal regimes, a very common starting point on the road to serfdom is the over-delegation of legislative powers to the executive. France very nearly ended up in a permanent dictatorship as a result of that error, and was spared that fate mostly by good luck and Charles de Gaulle’s patriotism. Long before she declared her infamous state of emergency, Indira Gandhi had been centralizing power in the prime minister’s office, and India was spared a permanent dictatorship only by her political miscalculation and her dynasty-minded son’s having gotten himself killed in a plane wreck. Salazar in Portugal, Austria under Dollfuss, similar stories. But the United States is not going to fall for a strongman government. Instead of delegating power to a would-be president-for-life, we delegate it to a bureaucracy-without-death."

https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/353797/front-man

 

[Synthaholic]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Sorry, but Holder has nothing to do with the FBI, which, while classified under the Justice Department, answers to the Director Of National Intelligence, who in turn answers to the President Of The United States.

That would be James Clapper, not Eric Holder.


Nice attempt at more Holder-Hate, though!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_the_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation

 

[Synthaholic]

FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software

CNET has learned the FBI has developed custom "port reader" software to intercept Internet metadata in real time. And, in some cases, it wants to force Internet providers to use the software.






The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts.


FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act.


Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as "port reader" software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the "harvesting program."


Carriers are "extra-cautious" and are resisting installation of the FBI's port reader software, an industry participant in the discussions said, in part because of the privacy and security risks of unknown surveillance technology operating on an sensitive internal network.


It's "an interception device by definition," said the industry participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because court proceedings are sealed. "If magistrates knew more, they would approve less." It's unclear whether any carriers have installed port readers, and at least one is actively opposing the installation.


In a statement from a spokesman, the FBI said it has the legal authority to use alternate methods to collect Internet metadata, including source and destination IP addresses: "In circumstances where a provider is unable to comply with a court order utilizing its own technical solution(s), law enforcement may offer to provide technical assistance to meet the obligation of the court order."

If the FBI can get the data directly from the server so can criminals.

I've read that XKeystore is a hacker's dream.

 

[Synthaholic]

Not so much to make this political, but this is Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Hope you are coming around to the realization that Obama/Bush are two sides of the same coin.

Liar. Making it political is exactly what you want. And, this started long before Eric Holder.

Just once, you blind rw's should try to look beyond the end of your racism and idiotic hatred.

So let me get this straight...the BUSH administration still calls the shots at the justice department.

That's amazing.

Obama is weaker than anyone ever imagined.

Those are your two choices...

Obama isn't in control of his own administration...or Obama is no different than Bush.

Pick you poison...

FTR, I am trying to wake you and your fellow liberals up...cast off your blinders.

Obama is doing all the things you Crucified the Bush administration for doing...

And STILL you protect him...

I don't know where you are getting that anyone is supporting Obama authorizing these things.

On the contrary, it's Progressives and Liberals who are the most upset at all this surveillance. Glenn Greenwald is certainly no conservative. Neither is Julian Assange. I would bet that Snowden didn't vote for Romney, either.

And do you really believe this wouldn't be happening under Mittens?

 

[Synthaholic]

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

Frankly, I see the Republican Congress as responsible for letting Obama get away with the stuff he does. He is like a child testing what the boundaries are. 'No consequences? OK to do it...what can I try next?'

Congress have a responsibility to stop executive branch overreach, and are doing nothing. At least the Democrats stopped Nixon when he tried to use authority he did not have.

It's not overreach if Congress authorized it in the first place, which they did, under Bush.

You're just butthurt that a Democrat gets that same authority.

 

[Katzndogz]

When the evidence mounted that obama considers all Americans his enemies, liberals never imagined that it meant them too. They are finding out that it does, especially white liberals.

 

[Synthaholic]

Bush would be in prison if he tried half of the things Obama gets away with.

Oh here's a good plan -- get all hung up on the red and blue puppets while the puppeteers get away with murder. That would never be exactly what they had in mind as a distraction...

I think every gets the fact that Obama is either one of the puppet masters or one of the puppets.

Even if many are loath to admit it...

So, that said, I agree.

It took balls for Synth to post this article, and I don't want to be responsible for derailing it.

I don't see this article as a jab against Obama or Bush.

I think that when one becomes President, one gets overly cautious about protecting American lives, and always defaults to more security.

I blame political partisanship. If Americans are attacked, Republicans will immediately blame Obama. Especially if it happens on American soil.

When there is a suicide bombing in Israel, you don't see finger-pointing by Likud, Labor, and Yesh Atid. They tend to blame the bomber, not their political opponents.

I also don't believe Presidents have the real power to dismantle these operations by themselves. That's Congress' job, through oversight and funding.

 

[Yurt]

of course the president has the power to dismantle this, the FBI is under the executive branch