FBI is at it again

Mon Oct 29 19:42:25 UTC 2001

Looks to me like your  take is accurate Steve.

Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 11:30:13 -0500
To: ip-sub-1 at majordomo.pobox.com
From: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
Subject: IP: Fox News goes overboard
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>X-Server-Uuid: 47feacc6-2336-11d3-82c6-0008c7db26d1
>From: "Baker, Stewart" <SBaker at steptoe.com>
>To: "'farber at cis.upenn.edu'" <farber at cis.upenn.edu>
>cc: "Albertazzie, Sally" <SAlbertazzie at steptoe.com>
>
>
>Dave:
>
>I can't remember whether you carried the Fox News story.  If you did, you
>might be interested in this.
>
>Stewart
>
>
>
>Fox News recently reported that the FBI has a plan to change the
>architecture of the Internet, centralizing it and providing "a technical
>backdoor to the networks of Internet service providers."  Like many others,
>I thought this was big news, and rather surprising.  Until I realized that
>the reporter only cited one source and that it was, well, me.  Fox News's
>claims go beyond the facts I provided to her, and beyond any that I know
>about.
>
>To be clear, I believe that the FBI is at work on an initiative to make
>Internet communications, indeed any packet data communications, more
>susceptible to intercept and more productive of non-content data about
>communications -- the sort of "pen register" data that was expressly
>approved for Internet communications in the recent antiterrorism bill.  This
>initiative will have architectural implications for packet data
>communications systems.  The FBI is likely to press providers of those
>services to centralize communications in nodes where interception will be
>more convenient, and it is likely to call on packet data services to build
>systems that provide more information about the communications of their
>subscribers.
>
>The vehicle for this initiative is CALEA, the Communications Assistance for
>Law Enforcement Act, a 1994 enactment that actually requires telecom
>carriers to redesign their networks to provide better wiretap capabilities.
>The act is supposed to exempt information services, but the vagueness of
>that provision has encouraged the FBI to expand its mandate into packet-data
>communications.  The Bureau is now preparing a general CALEA proposal for
>all packet-data systems.  While I have not seen it, the Bureau's past
>interventions into packet-data and other communications architecture have
>had two characteristics -- they have sought more centralization in order to
>simplify interception and they have asked providers to generate new data
>messages about their subscribers' activities -- messages that are of value
>only to law enforcement.
>
>There are real legal and policy questions that should be raised about this
>effort.  In my view, it goes beyond what Congress intended in 1994.  And the
>implications for Internet users and technologies deserve to be debated.  But
>making these points, as I did with Fox News, is not the same as saying that
>the FBI has a firm plan to centralize the Internet and build back doors into
>all ISP networks.  If Fox News wants to break that story, it will need a
>source other than me.
>
>Stewart Baker
>Steptoe & Johnson LLP
>1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
>Washington, DC 20036

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>In message <GKEFKKIKGCMICPKBAEIMKENECDAA.dgolding at sockeye.com>, 
>"Daniel Golding
>" writes:
>>
>>
>>Are you kidding? The problems with this are numerous. First, the source is
>>Fox News, which is about a half step up from the Drudge Report.
>
>I tried posting this before, but I don't think my note got out. 
>Basically, from what I've heard this report is indeed inaccurate.  The
>FBI is holding a meeting on Thursday of this week where they will
>explain their new desires, and the legal justification for them; let's
>see what they say.  (Btw -- this is apparently work that's been going
>on for two years; it's not in reaction to September 11.)
>
>		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
>		Full text of "Firewalls" book now at http://www.wilyhacker.com

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