This information seems to justify all of EPIC's concerns and then some. It proves that the FBI lied when it said its software was the equivalent of a pen register; that's only true in a specific mode of operation.

I don't object to the FBI having a do-it-all surveillance tool, provided we can be sure it focuses on only one subject at a time and monitors no traffic from others on the same ISP. However I do object to them pretending they don't have such a tool, and only telling us half-truths about a lesser incarnation of their software.

Of course it has to be wondered what the FBI has to gain from this. I truly believe wiretapping as a concept is on its way out, and by fighting this battle they're only delaying the inevitable. Encryption will spread considerably over the next ten years, until I think we can reasonably expect to see it employed at both ends so that every Internet connection is a VPN. If you can get your Web pages encrypted and all your e-mail goes out in an unreadable form, interception goes out the window and law enforcement will have to look for another means of catching the bad guys. Personally, I think they should have started looking long before now; a wiretap is only effective if a person is casual about communication and has no clue they're being monitored, but the Internet has given us tremendous awareness about how many people are listening in--or could if they wanted to. A criminal stupid enough to trust plaintext e-mail these days deserves to be caught.

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