The Internet Service Provider mentioned in the article is Earth
Link.  This article is scary.

kelly 


                               July 11, 2000
                                      
Tech Center

FBI's System to Covertly Search E-Mail
Raises Legal Issues, Privacy Concerns

   By NEIL KING JR. and TED BRIDIS 
   Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
   
   WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is using a
   superfast system called Carnivore to covertly search e-mails for
   messages from criminal suspects.
   
   Essentially a personal computer stuffed with specialized software,
   Carnivore represents a new twist in the federal government's fight to
   sustain its snooping powers in the Internet age. But in employing the
   system, which can scan millions of e-mails a second, the FBI has upset
   privacy advocates and some in the computer industry. Experts say the
   system opens a thicket of unresolved legal issues and privacy
   concerns.
   
   The FBI developed the Internet wiretapping system at a special agency
   lab at Quantico, Va., and dubbed it Carnivore for its ability to get
   to "the meat" of what would otherwise be an enormous quantity of data.
   FBI technicians unveiled the system to a roomful of astonished
   industry specialists here two weeks ago in order to steer efforts to
   develop standardized ways of complying with federal wiretaps. Federal
   investigators say they have used Carnivore in fewer than 100 criminal
   cases since its launch early last year.
   fbi
   
   Word of the Carnivore system has disturbed many in the Internet
   industry because, when deployed, it must be hooked directly into
   Internet service providers' computer networks. That would give the
   government, at least theoretically, the ability to eavesdrop on all
   customers' digital communications, from e-mail to online banking and
   Web surfing.
   
   The system also troubles some Internet service providers, who are
   loath to see outside software plugged into their systems. In many
   cases, the FBI keeps the secret Carnivore computer system in a locked
   cage on the provider's premises, with agents making daily visits to
   retrieve the data captured from the provider's network. But legal
   challenges to the use of Carnivore are few, and judges' rulings remain
   sealed because of the secretive nature of the investigations.
   
                                        [Go] 1Issue briefing: Net Privacy
                                                                         
                                   * * *
                                      
     [Go] 2Join the discussion: What do you think of the current state of
   privacy on the Net? Who should be the keeper of Web privacy standards?
                                                                         
   Internet wiretaps are conducted only under state or federal judicial
   order, and occur relatively infrequently. The huge majority of
   wiretaps continue to be the traditional telephone variety, though U.S.
   officials say the use of Internet eavesdropping is growing as everyone
   from drug dealers to potential terrorists begins to conduct business
   over the Web.
   
   The FBI defends Carnivore as more precise than Internet wiretap
   methods used in the past. The bureau says the system allows
   investigators to tailor an intercept operation so they can pluck only
   the digital traffic of one person from among the stream of millions of
   other messages. An earlier version, aptly code-named Omnivore, could
   suck in as much as to six gigabytes of data every hour, but in a less
   discriminating fashion.
   
   Still, critics contend that Carnivore is open to abuse.
   
   Mark Rasch, a former federal computer-crimes prosecutor, said the
   nature of the surveillance by Carnivore raises important privacy
   questions, since it analyzes part of every snippet of data traffic
   that flows past, if only to determine whether to record it for police.
   
   "It's the electronic equivalent of listening to everybody's phone
   calls to see if it's the phone call you should be monitoring," Mr.
   Rasch said. "You develop a tremendous amount of information."
   
   Others say the technology dramatizes how far the nation's laws are
   lagging behind the technological revolution. "This is a clever way to
   use old telephone-era statutes to meet new challenges, but clearly
   there is too much latitude in the current law," said Stewart Baker, a
   lawyer specializing in telecommunications and Internet regulatory
   matters.
   
   Robert Corn-Revere, of the Hogan & Hartson law firm here, represented
   an unidentified Internet service provider in one of the few legal
   fights against Carnivore. He said his client worried that the FBI
   would have access to all the e-mail traffic on its system, raising
   dire privacy and security concerns. A federal magistrate ruled against
   the company early this year, leaving it no option but to allow the FBI
   access to its system.
   
   "This is an area in desperate need of clarification from Congress,"
   said Mr. Corn-Revere.
   
   "Once the software is applied to the ISP, there's no check on the
   system," said Rep. Bob Barr (R., Ga.), who sits on a House judiciary
   subcommittee for constitutional affairs. "If there's one word I would
   use to describe this, it would be 'frightening."'
   
   Marcus Thomas, chief of the FBI's Cyber Technology Section at
   Quantico, said Carnivore represents the bureau's effort to keep
   abreast of rapid changes in Internet communications while still
   meeting the rigid demands of federal wiretapping statutes. "This is
   just a very specialized sniffer," he said.
   
   He also noted that criminal and civil penalties prohibit the bureau
   from placing unauthorized wiretaps, and any information gleaned in
   those types of criminal cases would be thrown out of court. Typical
   Internet wiretaps last around 45 days, after which the FBI removes the
   equipment. Mr. Thomas said the bureau usually has as many as 20
   Carnivore systems on hand, "just in case."
   
   FBI experts acknowledge that Carnivore's monitoring can be stymied
   with computer data such as e-mail that is scrambled using powerful
   encryption technology. Those messages still can be captured, but law
   officers trying to read the contents are "at the mercy of how well it
   was encrypted," Mr. Thomas said.
   
   Most of the criminal cases where the FBI used Carnivore in the past 18
   months focused on what the bureau calls "infrastructure protection,"
   or the hunt for hackers, though it also was used in counterterrorism
   and some drug-trafficking cases.
   
   Write to Neil King Jr. at [log in to unmask] and Ted Bridis at
   [log in to unmask]
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   URL for this Article:
   http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB96326458470629282
   9.djm
   Hyperlinks in this Article:
   (1) http://interactive.wsj.com/pages/netpriv.htm
   (2) http://wellengaged.com/engaged/wsj.cgi?c=WSJ7&t=407
   (3) mailto:[log in to unmask]
   (4) mailto:[log in to unmask]
     _________________________________________________________________
   
      Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


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