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

Wed Oct 24 19:10:48 UTC 2001

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Paul Wouters wrote:

> The NL has already answered this question last januari. When asked who
> needs to be tappable, the answer is "everyone who is offering a public
> internet service".

And they have a strange notion of the word "public" too. I got the
distinct impression (but nobody wanted to go on record for anything) they
feel the Web server that's under my desk at home provides a "public"
service too. So I should be prepared to aid the Dutch government in
intercepting my own traffic. Which to me would seem to defeat the purpose,
but what do I know?

> Tapped data needs to be sent through a special protocol, the Transport of
> Intercepted IP Traffic (TIIT).

TIIT only specifies the transport protocol, though. There are no
restrictions on network topology. As long as you can intercept the traffic
(not just email--everything) in your network and deliver it, it's ok. It
seems the FBI wants the traffic to flow over a number of centralized
locations for easy interception. (I would rather intercept a dozen Gigabit
Ethernet connections in different places than a single OC-192 POSIP, but
again:  what do I know?)

See:
http://www.interactiveweek.com/article/0,3658,s%3D605%26a%253D16678,00.asp

This worries me a great deal. If we as an industry learned anything from
September 11th, it is (or should be) that centralized facilities are
vulnerable.

Iljitsch van Beijnum