DaytonCIM's Journal: By the way...

you know President Bush is lying when he says no one "listened" to domestic calls. And why hasn't anyone asked about email?

Hmmmm...

Everyone has such a short memory. Remember the FBI's Carnivore program?

Assistant FBI Director Donald Kerr has been quoted as saying:

The Carnivore device works much like commercial "sniffers" and other network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may not. For example, if a court order provides for the lawful interception of one type of communication (e.g., e-mail), but excludes all other communications (e.g., online shopping) the Carnivore tool can be configured to intercept only those e-mails being transmitted either to or from the named subject. ... [it] is a very specialized network analyzer or "sniffer" which runs as an application program on a normal personal computer under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It works by "sniffing" the proper portions of network packets and copying and storing only those packets which match a finely defined filter set programmed in conformity with the court order. This filter set can be extremely complex, and this provides the FBI with an ability to collect transmissions which comply with pen register court orders, trap & trace court orders, Title III interception orders, etc.... ...It is important to distinguish now what is meant by "sniffing." The problem of discriminating between users' messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like "bomb" or "drugs." It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.cryptome.org

The software grew from an earlier FBI project called Omnivore. Omnivore began in February 1997, and was then rebranded. After prolonged negative coverage in the press, the FBI changed the name of its system from "Carnivore" to the more benign-sounding "DCS1000." DCS is reported to stand for "Digital Collection System"; the system has the same functions as before. The three separate packages Carnivore, Packeteer and CoolMiner, are referred to as the DragonWare Suite.

I guess most of us

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Just realize that the biggest problem with any of these communication sniffers is information overload. No one's listening because out of the billions of communications they wiretap (or sniff), only a small number of them are relevant to any given investigation- and the rest we just don't have the manpower to monitor.

Re:I guess most of us

[Mantorp]

I see this as my opportunity to speak to the president every day just by using my own phone or email. He has broken down the barriers so the common man can have White House access in a way.

Hi George! [blogspot.com]

Rad your own cite

[TheConfusedOne]

The problem of discriminating between users' messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like "bomb" or "drugs." It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.cryptome.org