[NEWS] FBI To Require ISPs To Reconfigure E-mail Systems (fwd)

Sat Oct 20 13:17:58 UTC 2001

* uurtamo at ofc-204.arttoday.com (steve uurtamo) [Fri 19 Oct 2001, 22:31 CEST]:
> (a good isp would have anonymous/encrypted email, browsing, etc., services
> available to their customers.  if they all did, the feds wouldn't be able
> to get access to the data they want without disrupting service to customers.
> i'm pretty sure people wouldn't be too keen on that.)

Not keen at all.  In some countries in Europe it's already almost
impossible for ISPs to provide Secure Shell to their customers, as they
are required by law to be able to hand over all data in unencrypted form
if possible.  Given that the decryption is done at some point they'd
have to backdoor their sshd's to log all session keys or even all
sessions in plaintext in order to comply...

Remember that the feds can bend reality (or, put less wildly, adapt new
laws) to suit their needs.

	-- Niels.