Interactive Week 18/10/2001: "Beyond Carnivore: FBI Eyes Packet Taps"

[David Hansen]

On 21 Oct 2001 at 14:35, Caspar Bowden wrote:

> http://www.interactiveweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D605%2526a%253D1667
> By  Max Smetannikov 

> "The goal might be to get companies that use packet data to have those
> packets go to one place for purposes of wiretap and other intercept
> capabilities," Baker said.

Thus cresting a fat juicy target for every insurance company, private detective agency and other 
groups of criminals.

This would need a total revision of how Internet works, given that it was designed in completely 
the opposite way.

Even if such a daft idea has been dreamt up and even if the communications industry was stupid 
enough to go along with such an idea, I wonder how long it would be before it was pinged to 
death (or other similar strategies to make it unworkable)?

> Whatever the new initiative ends up looking like, the Internet service
> provider community could be more likely to cooperate, shaken up by
> Sept. 11, said industry executives.

I would hope not. Those sad events proved what privacy advocates have been saying for years. 
Only someone as out of contact with reality as Jack Straw could believe that we are now 
"repentant" (I forget his exact words).

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