Big brother wants more eyes....

It's hard enough keeping all the traffic moving as it is.
Imagine if we had to redesign the entire internet to make
this **** possible. Every program, protocol, and hardware device
in existence would be obsolete, or illegal, because the net was never
intended to carry the burden of comprehensive surveillance, or security.
:cool:

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"The ability of federal, state, and local law enforcement to carry out critical electronic surveillance is being compromised today," they wrote in legal papers filed with the FCC earlier this week. "Communications among surveillance targets are being lost.... These problems are real, not hypothetical."

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...cs/8179514.htm

They're just now discovering that there's way too much "privacy" in
electronic communications. And to think that we thought there
wasn't enough.

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Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
Can anyone say...... Encrypted tunnel..... VPN..... SSH..... Steganography......

Another example of the Gubmint coming up with wild assed ideas that won't work and will be got around in minutes, that they don't have to pay for so we will be saddled with another expense that is getting nobody anything beneficial 'cos the crooks will tunnel straight through it...... What will they do next? Outlaw VPN's and encryption...... That'll help business!!!!!!!

Someone need to convince these idiots in Disneyland on the Potomac that there is nothing they can do with their limited knowledge of technology that the people they are trying to get to can't circumvent with a single brain cell's power...... :rolleyes:

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Can anyone say SuperDMCA?
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/states/

Take for instance the bill that was passed in the state where I live in 2001...

http://www.legis.state.de.us/lis/lis...3?Opendocument

All I have to say is that you could build a firewall you'r self. To the point of VPN, SHH and all of that dose not mater if the back door takes the info before you encrypt it.
Good post allenb1963 []

Hmm, once again I find myself entertaining views that I really would rather not. It appears to me that this discussion is one sided and I intend to set things straight. It appears to me that everyone here wants a solution to this problem, well here is some news: there is no solution to this problem! You can’t go attacking this problem if you don’t know how the problem started in the first place. Even if you do manage to get the lot of these programs/“privacy infringements” under control, more will just pop up.

The United States is a land of liberty. People here take for granted a certain amount of freedom. They believe that the government is a benign entity that looks out for their best interests. This is not the case. The United States government looks after it own interests, not those of its citizens. Because the United States government is based on democracy and because parts of its survival is dependent on infrastructure maintained by its citizens it must look after them just enough to ensure its own survival. The United States government sees terrorism, foreign powers, and domestic unrest as things that it cannot control. As mentioned before, the United States government is concerned primarily with itself. If the government can not control effectively then its own survival is threatened. The internet represents a threat to the United States government because the US government can not control what occurs on the internet. The solution to this problem is to either ensure that the internet does not come into existence (too late) or to ensure that the US government can control what occurs on the internet via backdoors, wiretapping, and information tracking (not sure if that is what it is called). Now this is only one part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is that people in the US are rationally ignorant. Rational ignorance is a “stance adopted by voters when they find that the cost of understanding and voting on a particular issue exceeds the benefit expected from doing so” (my economics textbook 345). If you look at the general population of the US you will see that very few people in the US are tech-savvy. The lot of Americans are relative “newbies” to computers and have had little experience, if any, with them. Most people do not realize how these issues will affect them. This uncertainty produces a don’t ask effect that causes people not to ask for fear of being stupid or for fear that the entire issue may be a waste of their time. Most Americans are law-abiding citizens and will have no quarrel if the government takes away rights to privacy on the internet in order to protect the US from “dangerous” threats. The reason for this is because if someone who is not tech-savvy id minding their own business and not doing anything “dangerous” on the internet, why would they think that the government has any interest in them?

The US constitution does not directly and literally say anything about the government’s responsibility to ensure that people have and are ensured a right to privacy. The US constitution, however, does imply this. Implying is not enough. The second amendment makes mention about the right to bear arms. This right to bear arms is ambiguous at best. It could be very easy (or very hard—but nowhere in the middle) to outlaw either guns or the National Guard or military as a whole. (There are many provisions in the US constitution that allow for a standing militia, however.) In the constitution, there is a little statement: “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof” (Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 18). As you can see this is an extremely ambiguous statement. The people for limiting privacy on the internet see their cause as something to protect the American people and to ensure the survival of the US government.

Another, more questionable, part of the problem is that the people promoting the changes to internet privacy are conservative. On the political spectrum conservatives lie to the right and liberals lie to the left. Fascism is a type of government that lies on the right (the far right) and socialism is a type of government that lies on the left (far left). Fascism is a “20th-century form of totalitarian dictatorship that sought to create a viable society by strict regimentation of national and individual lives; conflicting interests would be adjusted by total subordination to the service of the state and unquestioning loyalty to its leader” (Encarta Encyclopedia 1997). It is possible, but doubtful, that the people promoting this agenda are trying to turn the US government from democracy to fascism. The most likely case, however, is that these people are trying to take fascism’s best quality (it’s strong security) and apply it to the US. This would have the effect of ensuring that the US is protected rather well from uncertainties.

Anyways, this is my thought. If you enjoyed reading this please give me some positive antipoints. If you didn’t enjoy reading this and now hate me a whole lot please give me some positive antipoints (I assure you, those positive antipoints will teach me a lesson ;-). Thanks all, have fun. Oh yeah, I included a picture of Rumsfeld. Isn't he scary?

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Originally posted here by R[A]100
All I have to say is that you could build a firewall you'r self. To the point of VPN, SHH and all of that dose not mater if the back door takes the info before you encrypt it.
Good post allenb1963 []

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Now, I think that I know what you are saying, R[A]100. You are suggesting that people create a firewall themselves that doesn't have any backdoors, right? Now if someone were to do that, they would be fighting back agianst the government, I believe. Now along with creating a firewall, you could encrypt all the data that goes through it via hash or something and then give your friend the firewall that would allow them to decrypt all the data that coems from your firewall. This would protect against wiretapping, but the government could still get inside your computer via backdoors in the OS itself. All OS's have backdoors, some placed on purpose and some on accident, but they all have them. What you would have to do is to find a way to ensure that the government doesn't use any of thosebackdoors. The easiest way might be able to create a new OS that is for use for you and your friend but that would take too many resources. Best off using a very stripped down version of Linux, that does assume that the government doesn't force Linux to have any backdoors. Maybe you could get hte kernel and start from that, I don't know. Oh my, I am lost...

Well, I guess that I am just gongn off on one of my tangents. If anyone else cares to finish up what I am saying, go ahead. :-)

Well, In my opinion there aren't enough people left in the world that do not use the internet, to keep track of all the people who use the internet. The amount of people who use the internet is too great. I would say about a good 80% of the world's population use the internet. So how would you keep up with that amount? Although they would probably only look into detail specific computer which they think look suspicious the others wouldn't be looked into with great detail. Nor do I think they will monitor and arrest EVERY person who does illegal things on the internet. Because they're a lot of people who do a lot of illegal things, you need a pretty big prision to hold them all. Because how much people download serials/cracks for programs and use them. Although the smart thing for them to do is download them but never use them ONLINE, so the goverment wouldn't have any proof that you actually used it, but back to the point. The goverment couldn't possibly control something so big. They might be able to control a portion of it but every country has their seperate laws.

Hmm, I don't know. The government can do a lot of things. It is important to remember that the government can pay a large amount of people to work for them in this project. The government can also keep a large database oh who does what. They can also use bots like google uses (spiders/crawlers) to sift through large amounts of information easily. It is not too hard but it might not be feasible.

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The easiest way might be able to create a new OS that is for use for you and your friend but that would take too many resources. Best off using a very stripped down version of Linux, that does assume that the government doesn't force Linux to have any backdoors.

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For christ's sake...

Linux is open source. There are no backdoors, buddy. You are being WAY too paranoid, and...

Nevermind. Think whatever you want.



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All OS's have backdoors, some placed on purpose and some on accident, but they all have them. What you would have to do is to find a way to ensure that the government doesn't use any of thosebackdoors.

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You've gotta be kidding me.

Whatever. For real this time.

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All OS's have backdoors, some placed on purpose and some on accident, but they all have them. What you would have to do is to find a way to ensure that the government doesn't use any of thosebackdoors. The easiest way might be able to create a new OS that is for use for you and your friend but that would take too many resources. Best off using a very stripped down version of Linux, that does assume that the government doesn't force Linux to have any backdoors. Maybe you could get hte kernel and start from that, I don't know. Oh my, I am lost...

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This is all in my opinon...

Are you kidding? The US.gov can't force developers to put in backdoors. There are so many different distros. Maybe they can influence certain vendors... but they can't force a vendor in another country to include one. Remember... Linux is developed by people all over the world. If they were to try... I'm sure it'd be exposed pretty quickly..

Is it possible that a developer installed a backdoor? Yes. But for the kernel... its highly unlikely. So many people audit the kernel that it'd be found and patched. There'd be more of a chance that other programs have the backdoor... which is not really linux. Linux is the kernel. There are just a lot of programs/services that run on the Linux kernel.

If anyone were to be pressured to put in backdoors... I'd suspect m$ first. Why? Because the .gov has the power to influence m$. The US.gov doesn't have the power to make developers of Linux to insert a backdoor.

Anyway... the .gov doens't need to pressure m$ to put in backdoors... they do it themselves. (badly written code)
Just look the the full disclosure list and other security lists... they are exposed all the time.

Ok heres what i want to know. I live here in the UK. Now in the highly unlikely event that blair doesnt follow everything the US does then how would they enforce these rules onto things made in the uk? What im saying is say all this passed couldnt you just get software that was made in a different country (therefor not having the backdoors etc)? I know there are certain laws in the US that im abit hazy on involving encryption but surely the FBI cant enforce this worldwise. Plus if the FBI were to "wire tap" someone outside of the US would this be breaking privacy laws for that country as the FBI would have no power over the laws without a court ruleing from that country. Like i said im hazy on this i dont know if any of the above is correct or not just my thoughts.