Big Brother's Last Mile

Big Brother's Last Mile
Mark Rasch, 2004-08-16

The FCC's new ruling on broadband wiretaps will force customers to pay for the privilege of making the Internet less secure.

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-16
Todd Knarr (5 replies)

What's even more ridiculous is that their taps won't work. If I'm running over an SSH or IPSec tunnel to someone way off across the Internet with 128-bit encryption going, exactly how are these new access abilities going to help anyone decrypt my data stream?...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-17
Anonymous

That's kinda what I'm wondering. ...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-17
LonghairSteve (1 replies)

Good simplified explanation of the laws. Also,very encourging to see someone report a better technology perspective beyond the post-1995 dot com experts. Yes, Big Brother in their zeal to snoop can stifle US internet development...but, duh, that only allows another country like China to dominate d...

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Big Brother&#39;s Last Mile 2004-08-18
Reality check

>, that only allows another country like China to dominate development

> we watch our people so much that we limit the international ability to compete

Um, I agree with the sentiments you expressed but your logic is faulty at best. Unless you are actually of the belief that China isn't mon...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-17
Anonymous (3 replies)

so , what if SSH, IP Tunneling or 128+ encryption were designed especifaly for being 'tapable'?
I think thats what Todd Knarr said in his article. The government may force a redesign in protocols and other technologies to make all online communications passive of being watched and understood. ...

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And why would I use a tapable 'secure' system? 2004-08-17
nosebreaker.com

If it can be tapped, I am not going to use it! If SSH is redesigned so that 'authority' can watch what I do, then hackers/crackers will find a way to tap it as well. I'm not going to knowingly use a insecure security product!...

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Big Brother&#39;s Last Mile 2004-08-17
Anonymous (2 replies)

I compile my SSH and IPSec stuff from source. How exactly are they going to keep me from commenting out the access hooks before I compile, or replacing them with code that fakes the hooks? Eg., if they require the actual key to be included encrypted with their master key, I just change the code to ...

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Big Brother&amp;#39;s Last Mile 2004-08-18
Anonymous (1 replies)

"Simply put, the only way these laws can actually work is if the government takes over total control of the endpoint hardware and software and prohibits people from running their own programs, and that's not going to be feasible."

Unfortunately, it's completely feasable, and already very under...

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Big Brother&amp;amp;#39;s Last Mile 2004-08-26
A LAN Administrator Who Calls Himself A Christian

Sorry, folks. I'll have to agree with the World War X concept. The handwriting has been on the walls for years (for those who would take the time to read it).

I work for a Fortune 500 company whose control of information technology has reached what many would call "the point of absurdity", but ...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-23
Anonymous

You're right. There goes the 'free' world......

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Ya can't stop open source 2004-08-17
Andy (1 replies)

...and they are going to get all the open source, free software developers to comply, or even care? HA!...

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Ya can't stop open source 2004-08-18
Anonymous

Sorry, but TC(Trusted Computing) can. Courtesy of Microsoft & Intel. They know all this. Bill Gates, has himself acknowledged, that the economy is "quietly being rewired"....

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-20
UNY

It's called "Magic Lantern." They're going to be able to smash that apart eventually....

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-23
Saark

The ISPs will be the "man in the middle". Decomposing and recomposing your "secure" stream....

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

But obviously, this can be worked around. So they require ISPs and others to provide wiretap capability. How long before the shelves are full of new software that uses non-standard encryption techniques to safeguard information and defeat the wiretaps? 5 minutes maybe? "Uncrackable P2P VPN tunnellin...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-24
Anonymous

Sure, the folks are out there giving you better and secure connection protocol. The only trouble is that you won't have a wire for transmission ... cause ISP's have to follow the rules set by government and they'll disconnect anyone who's traffic will not pass basic decoding test. Simple.

Meaning...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-17
Anonymous (1 replies)

The US government have been trying to do this for ages, back as far as 1994 there was talk about the 'clipper' chip (a chip they proposed to use for secure encryption but would let the government snoop securely), but it never happened. Now, It seems they finally found their excuse... anti-terrorism....

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-26
rainer_d

> I wouldn't trust these people with my data
> further than I could throw them.

Fancy a war-games quote ?

"Gentlemen, I wouldn't trust this overgrown pile of microchips any further than I can throw it."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/quotes

Rainer
...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-18
Anonymous

Research folk somewhere in Scandinavia crack Windows passwords in less than 2 minutes. The government surely has supercomputers and the works of private citizens as well as research corporations to aid them in decryption of information. How secure IS what we have now, anyway?...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-18
Anonymous

Sorry to tell you this: but you are all crazy.

Why? Simply because you trust a protocol which you do not understand (ssh is allready tapable 'by design'). You have to use a 9600+ key to be relatively secure (and that's almost impossible).

2nd, those cheap VPN solutions might not be secure at a...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-18
Anonymous

The issue is no just the current steps that have been taken, for the wiretaps. As other said there will be/are products that can make the communications secure. Part of the issue is what would have to be the next logical step. And that is that all uses of products that add the security back are outl...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-18
Anonymous

Obviously, if you've got something to hide, it must be illegal. There was a DOJ employee commenting on the FreeNET support e-mail list arguing that since (A) participation in freenet was voluntary (B) kiddie porn people were using FreeNET (C) FreeNET users could be assumed to know that they were pa...

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So what's the difference... 2004-08-19
Anonymous

if they put the charges on the bill? The phone companies are just doing themselves a favor by letting you know why they're charging you more; otherwise why bother itemizing it all?

Of course, it's doing you a favor too, by pointing out where the money's going. If the government's doing it, you'...

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Big Brother's Last Mile--the root 2004-08-19
Anonymous

I would like to agree with what was said earlier.. the world has changed and maybe there isn't a damn thing the FED can do about it!
I think this is totally true, the fed can no longer afford to watch over us like children.. it is time to teach.. just like every child.. at a certain age you can no ...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-20
Anonymous

If you take a look at the FCC document Section 10
It states that a telecommuncations carrier is not responsible for decrypting, or ensuring LEAS ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer....

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-23
Anonymous (1 replies)

The application developers are not part of an ISP or telecoms provider and as such would not be under the ruling of the act, so there is no fear of them being forced to make their protocols weak ( at least not from this particular act). There is other restrictions on encryption in the US that do a...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-25
Anonymous

If your nation does that, then that's your problem. Not to be crass, but that's the reality of it.

I don't agree with this type of law, and criticism of it is valid, but the comments that are associated with it are totally hypocritical.

Judging from your phrasing, I'd say you're from GB. And...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2004-08-23
Anonymous

All they would be doing is making the internet more vulnerable to abuse and restricting the capabilities and security of regular law abiding users at the users expense. The people that they would be wanting to monitor would be able to use additional encryption ( unless they were careless or stupid...

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outside the borders? 2004-08-26
somewhere else

what's so funny is that the US thinks it can dictate the standards on a WORLDWIDE internet. even if they manage to force their "tap" for users within US jurisdiction what isn't going to mean a thing to people using the net outside the US. when will they get it?...

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Big Brother's Last Mile 2007-03-02
Crying

I am sick of listening to these ISP's wine about how this is going to be such a large burden and they are running on slim amrgin all ready. If you can't compete then go away. Also this is not the same as a landlord getting paid to help. Cops know how to get into the house, they bust the door down. Y...

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