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Kira

FBI asking Microsoft and others to make products wiretap-friendly

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http://www.neowin.net/news/fbi-asking-microsoft-and-others-to-make-products-wiretap-friendly

In the name of better surveillance of suspected criminals, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to pursue a way that could force companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to make many of their Internet products more easily wiretapped by law enforcement officials.


So, basically, every Software as a Service and closed source softwares using VoIP should have backdoors tailored specifically for FBI's ease of use. It would be easier to apply it through an anecdotical law than with a biggie like CISPA/SOPA/PIPA.

Thoughts?

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K!r4 said:

Thoughts?


Well, this is common in dictatorships, and people lived happily with it...

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They're free to ask whatever they want. This thing is worth commenting on only if MS and others give their asses to FBI.

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All they have to do is share the keys to the backdoors that are already there.

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K!r4 said:

Thoughts?


another tool for a dictator, have enough of those.
and also - this would shrink FBI because of too easy work :F

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They already do all of the above (name it). They just want it on the books that says it's ok and legal. You will comply with their demands or else.

Hell, Ohio passed a law last week that says it is ok for the authorities to search and arrest you for merely standing there. They call it the "Loitering Law".

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I think it will precipitate users on tools using encryption, even if they become forbidden. The "too easy work" part will shape pretty bad IMHO.

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Dictatorial regimes have monitored communications and made even typewriters and press-printers traceable since forever (and it was almost always a design pre-requisite, kind of like most factories can be repurposed to build e.g. machine gun parts instead of sewing machines).

The only difference with, say, the Soviet Union, the Greek Junta of 1967 or the GDR was that back then each new phone tap required allocating one or more secret service agent 24/7 to keep tabs on every monitored subject, and that they had to enlist an army of external collaborators such as people who had contact with the public (e.g. grocers, newspaper salesmen, street peddlers, owners of bars & restaurants etc.) to report regularly to the police/internal security agencies of any "suspicious" activity they might have seen or overheard.

There was quite a bit of "analog effort" involved, and it was not unusual to have half of the population actively spying on the other half to some degree.

Today, this aspect can be greatly automated with keyword filtering, ontologies, lexical analysis, speech recognition etc. and of course the people voluntarily ratting themselves out on yourtube, faceshit and twatter.

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how ever, no one shouldnt ahve to be worried about having ones social networks being their doom. were is your human rights when you need them? do we have to shoot someone "important" to make these guys chill the fuck out and gtfo from our internets?

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His English is nowhere near as bad as my Swedish. :P


Back on topic - it looks like this has been going on for some time

Having apparently failed to acquire master keys to unlock encrypted communications, it looks like the FBI's attempting to sidestep that obstacle by intercepting messages when they're in plain text. If they're successful I expect online communications will become progressively less secure as third-parties gain access (authorized or not) to the backdoors.

I'd be a big step towards an Orwellian nightmare that I'm not looking forward to.

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D_GARG said:

do we have to shoot someone "important" to make these guys chill the fuck out and gtfo from our internets?


No, D_GARG, they are the internets.

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It'll be a Black Hat paradise if everything has a known backdoor. How can the FBI not know anything about computers?

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Mr. Freeze said:

How can the FBI not know anything about computers?


Fill in a "How can the FBI not know anything about computers?" question form in triple copy, validate it at the appropriate desk, open 9:00-12:00 am, attach $5 in revenue stamps to it and I'll tell you...

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Also beware of light bulbs:
http://www.ted.com/talks/harald_haas_wireless_data_from_every_light_bulb.html
and dish washers:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
spying on you, probably recording every time you masturbate to blackmail you somehow in the future. Also did you know that when you hit your couch cushion near a beam of light, those aren't dust particles; they're miniature cameras and recording devices.

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Like cops don't already have the right to stick a flashlight up your ass if they suspect you of a crime.

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Actually, you know when someone puts his fingers in your ass.

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The FBI doesn't surprise me. In fact, I'm shocked they don't already have the key to the backdoors of every computer. I expect regular cops to be blatantly demanding it to bust the "pedophiles" or "drug lords" or some other fear mongering buzzword.

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What about using this "already in" (as you're saying) technology to hunt down software piracy?

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printz said:

What about using this "already in" (as you're saying) technology to hunt down software piracy?

That's a given. Whenever you hear about new computer surveillance, it's all about tracking down little kids downloading GaGa. This has little to do with tracking down terrorists or pedophiles.

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According to the most recent reports I've seen, about 80% of all emails sent are spam. It's probably just a matter of time before a similar percentage of total Internet bandwidth is being used by Big Brother, direct marketers and other interested parties who feel they're entitled to know where we are, who we're with and what we're doing 24/7.

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http://www.securitronlinux.com/uncategorized/microsoft-putting-backdoors-in-skype/

Here is a posting I wrote last year about this, with Microsoft putting backdoors in Skype to allow monitoring of the calls for "national security purposes". It is all to keep you safe you know ;). That is what the Australian Pine gap facility is doing. And there was that Simpsons episode where they showed the room full of people listening to phone calls.

Make sure that you are not using certain keywords when you talk on the phone now.

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neubejiita said:

Make sure that you are not using certain keywords when you talk on the phone now.

Don't forget email, and webcrawler bots aren't necessarily benign either. Might as well give them something to work with...


Koran, Bomb, President, plans, arrangements,
C4, nuke, briefcase, jack bauer, 24, rifle,234634
,underwear,rdx,plane,11,24 AM, meeting

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neubejiita said:

Make sure that you are not using certain keywords when you talk on the phone now.


This story of sorting communications based on keywords is very old, at least as old as Echelon, and the "counter suggestion" of zerging the system by attaching a file full of "bad" keywords ("bad" words may even include "democrat", depending on who's operating the network at the time) with every e-mail you send.

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The funny thing is, all you have to do to thwart Echelon's keyword based filtering is speak in Not-English. For example, use some Arabic dialect...

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Gez said:

The funny thing is, all you have to do to thwart Echelon's keyword based filtering is speak in Not-English. For example, use some Arabic dialect...


Only if it's really obscure enough to thwart an academically educated Arab speaker.


I remember a 1998 article which stated that Echelon (and intelligence agencies in general) were the best employers for linguistical analysts and linguists specialized in oriental languages.

Just like during the Cold War they were the best employers for Russian language experts, and machine translation of Russian is amog the best today exactly thanks to those Cold War efforts. Similarly, Greek Intelligence has a high demand for Turkish language experts, Turks have a high demand for Greek language experts and so on.

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The problem with academically educated Arabic speakers is that, basically, they're taught Latin and then asked to translate conversations that may be in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, etc.

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That's why "cultural analysts" familiar with the actual street slang or coded vernacualr and "special translators" job openings abound in these regions...if you know where/when they recruit, of course.

Just like e.g. the police depts dealing with ethnic mafias or particular forms of crime will need informants and analysts familiar with the language and slangs/code words used, in order to infiltrate a gang and understand what they really mean/how they really work etc.

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Just make messages full of typos and you are safe right?

Krn, Bmb, Prsidnt, plns, rrngmnts,
C:D4, nk, brfcs, jck bur, 24, rfl,234:-)-\-<634
,ndrwr,rdx,pln,1x(1,2heh4 AMor, mtng

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That might actually warrant unwanted attention, as a message which fails statistical analysis for a specific language due to too many errors will likely be considered encrypted, slang, or go under human scrutiny (after all, spammers use this same tactic to go beyond filters but still be somewhat readable to their "recipients").

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