Under the Hood of AT&T's Monitoring System 416
pkbarbiedoll writes "The recent discovery of AT&T's monitoring program has raised more than a few eyebrows. While the class action suit filed by EFF is pending (as well as a seperate suit filed against the NSA filed by the ACLU), interested parties are taking the time to learn more about the scope of this massive invasion of privacy. Bewert examines the Narus architecture used by AT&T in their previously shadowed (and ongoing) collaboration with the NSA."
China - you are WAY behind (Score:4, Interesting)
wow, and I mean just fucking WOW at the processing power alone.
This thing makes echelon look like a toy.
Since I live in the UK, this kind of technology is likely to be used here as well (since we have mandated supreme data retention laws)
This is truly scary
Conversation I overheard in a bar (Score:5, Interesting)
Impressive, but AT&T can bite me (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw AT&T. They aren't going to get my companies money, and I expect that I'm not the only one who is going to ditch them.
They should be sued into oblivion.
Re:NSA and AT&T (Score:3, Interesting)
Well brother, they're sifting!
next frontier (Score:5, Interesting)
Since most of the land in the world is claimed by less than free governments, I'm wondering if the next frontier in freedom needs to be sea based. I suppose for the next few decades people can probably use technologies to secure their freedoms, crypto, open source, etc..., but that won't get arround the physical controll problem. Eventually people will need to physically secure their freedoms.
Maybe the solution is for a bunch of liberty minded people to collaberate together to take controll of a small despot country, but that still would make it very vulnerable to larger military powers. Moving to more free states, juridistictions, and countries would probably help, but doen't seem like a permanent solution. Maybe it would be possible to convince all the freedom hating overloards to go somewhere else, but that seems unlikely too.
Re:Worrisome (Score:4, Interesting)
And using it when authorized and overseen by a neutral, independant party such as the FISA court, or a judge is far different than claiming some absolutely crazy crap, like, "it was authorized by the AUMF" or it's an inherent power in the constitution, or it's available for any president with W as their middle initial.
As an aside, if an AUMF allows that kind of crap, then the next one ought to come just about the same time the sun turns into a red dwarf.
-Greg
Re:Worrisome (Score:5, Interesting)
The Republican party no longer stands for what it once did, but appears (at least at face value) be a form of liberalism of a different sort, bordering on fascism, either that or leading toward the mythical "new world order" which I used to read up on for kicks, but now after watching the Bush administration in action, now think that there may be at least some element of truth to those conspiracy theories which don't seem so crazy any more.
Thankfully some Republicans have awoken and have realized that the GOP is not what it once was.
In the next election whom do we vote for though? A big-government Democrat, or a big-government Republican, both of which seem to want to institute an Orwellian society?
What I'd be interested in... (Score:3, Interesting)
Running a packet-oriented grep on a large datastream is not that hard (ie. easily solvable if you throw enough processing power at it). If the government's sniffers can reassemble packets and recover flows real-time, *then* worry.
Re:Impressive, but AT&T can bite me (Score:2, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with HE. I am simply a satisfied customer.
Re:next frontier (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you mean something like this [freedomship.com]?
The problem with any sovereign nation, especially one at sea is the dependence on external resources. Just ask Japan how it goes.
I do think this is a cool idea, there is plenty of water given desalinization, and if you have a small nuclear reactor on board, you can generate heat and electricity for 15 years per refit. But food? Granted you can grow your own hydroponics, but for the number of people they are talking about, the infrastructure would be quite large.
And then there is the issue of defense. Would you devise your own weapons, or buy from the USA or the Chinese? Choose your alliances well, because they might just end up costing you your country.
No, thanks, starting a new country on this planet is quite impossible. Even at it's face, Iraq's reconstruction is fraught with problems. I say lets just kick the bums out who are in control and have some France-style awakening.
What about client side monitoring assistance? (Score:0, Interesting)
EFF and Narus Met Back in 2001 Just After 9/11 (Score:3, Interesting)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:nc4cgqbKTjoJ:
The article appears to be a lead in for a round table discussion where both the EFF and Narus participated but I can not find the details of the conversation. Anyone else able to get their hand on it? Please post it to slashdot.
Re:Worrisome (Score:5, Interesting)
You are very much correct. In the US, we refer to it as the Military-Industrial Complex [wikipedia.org]. Some things don't change every 4 years, and the MIC is one of them. The Military-Industrial Complex is a term coined by Eisenhower to describe the entangled relationship of Congress, the Military and Big Business (industry - especially defense contractors).
I've noticed how somethings in our government really don't change. Take Cuba for example. It's been over 45 years and our policy towards Cuba hasn't changed on iota, even after all the different administrations we've been through. In fact, the military very much wanted to attack Cuba back in the 60's. After JFK was able to defuse that situation they decided to escalate Vietnam instead. You see, we need to have wars every few years in order to keep our poor defense contractors fed. We try to minimize (American) casualties, but it's very important that we bomb the hell out of some poor backwards-ass country every few years so we can test out all our cool new weapons, while using up the old ones. We can't buy too many new bombs until we use up the old ones, and how will we field-test each new generation of soldiers unless there's a real conflict to fight in? War is just a business like any other. In fact, you could say it's the engine of our whole economy. Now that you know the War in Iraq is all about buying yachts for the executives and lobbyists of Boeing, Lockheed, and other megacorps, don't you feel so much better about it? War is the American way.
Re:Worrisome (Score:1, Interesting)
Our defense contractors can stay fed by selling new shit to our military, while unloading old technology on other nations. There's plenty of wars out there to keep all of them rich; there's no requirememnt to start new ones.
As for "testing out all our cool new weapons, while using up the old ones", weapons are tested well before they're actually deployed, and old stocs are used up in training, or are sold off once they start reaching the end of their service life.
Finaly, "field-testing new soldiers" is rather pointless, as human nature rarely changes. Training is standardized and does not decrease in effectivness. Therefore the only thing to be gained by sending soldiers to war is the development of new tactics and doctrine. However, those things tend to change from conflict to conflict anyway, so starting wars just to develop new tactics is also rather pointless.
Where the hell do you get these ideas?
OSI v. TCP/IP (Score:3, Interesting)
TCP/IP operates on a 4-layer model, while the OSI protocols operate on a 7-layer model. As the OSI model started loosing brainshare, people tried to market it as a teaching tool (or vice versa).
OSI protocols seem really weird and complicated when implimented on TCP/IP. You have all sorts of things that have to be emulated, such as separate channels, which means you often have a very large number of sockets used and many of these are dynamically allocated. H.323 is a very good example of this.
Re:Worrisome (Score:2, Interesting)
Narus STA 6400 - Missing web page (Score:4, Interesting)
This page has dissapeared from the server and it can't be found in google cache. Does anyone know much about this model? What sort of processing power is behind it and what are it's capabilities? It looks to have the ability to sniff through 600 mbps each up and downstream from the snippet above, but little else is known.
Also, only this first google result seems to have relevant info on this device. If anyone here has more info, please post. A lot of us are curious, especially considering that the administration has been saying they only sniffed suspicious communications.
Re:Worrisome (Score:2, Interesting)
I do. Government should only build roads, protect borders, and keep order by punishing evildoers. And by evildoers, By "evildoers" don't mean those who disagree with whoever the president is, or who is a communist, or who is a liberal or who is a conservative. By evildoers I mean burglars, murderers, crooks, etc.
Marriage? Government should NOT have ANY say in marriage. If two men want to marry, and it's immoral, if there is a God, let "God" worry about punishing them for immorality. It's not up to us to force morality on everyone else. My view used to be different on this matter, but I've thought about it a great deal; and realize that Marriage is a religious concept. Government has no business in dictating religion, be it the judicial branch, the legislative branch, or the executive branch.
Want a moral society? Create one by being a good example lighting the way. Don't FORCE it on people. I will no longer vote for morality, but for small restrained government with limited spending and limited reach into private lives. Let they who dc "evil" (in "God's" eyes) do evil, and let they who do good, do good. If you want "morality" set an example by being a good example. Right now many "Christians" are good examples of bad examples, and no wonder many people hate Christians. Me? I've become cynical thanks to Bush's policies encroaching on our "inalienable" Constitutional rights.
I resent my tax dollars being extorted for me to subsidize people who don't want to work.
Now, there are people who can't work - but I can't give to them because Uncle Sam (and by uncle sam I mean ALl taxes combined, between Federal, State, excise, and sales taxes) already takes abnout half my pay by the time all taxes/fees/etc. are added up.
Social security should be eliminated. Why should we be forced to put more money into a retirement system than we will ever get back? Replace it with more proective tax benefits on 401(K) and other individual, private retirement plans. Or, let people squander their money if they choose; it's their choice.
If taxes are more resonable
Also our tax system is set up to benefit those who use the most resources. Why should I, a single woman with no kids, have to subsidize large families who get a tax break for every child they can make? They should pay MORE in taxes because they use FAR more resources. They should pay more property taxes.
That won't happen under the Bush administration, or is at least very unlikely - even he has to realize that the military is stretched so thin that we could not win a war in Iran, and furthermore, invading Iran will only provoke the entire Arab world into attacking Israel, which will in turn initiate a world war. He can't possibly be so blind as to think that we could possibly win. Also, with most of our manufacturing base gone, if WWIII were to break out, we would see imports cease due to sanctions and ourselves in a war that cannot possibly be won. He has already alienated much of NATO so our allies cannot be counted on to come to our aid.
Re:Worrisome (Score:5, Interesting)
I just left a year and a half ago and saw combat in operation Iraqi Freedom. I can say without hesitation, the leadership has their "dicks in their hands" contemplating having a venue in which to "Train" for real. Will people die? Sure, that's never been a problem for the military. They would gladly exchange a few sons for the realism you just can't get in excercises and simulations. The military NEEDS combat veterans. Period. This is an excellent way to grow a new crop. Why the hell did we do Grenada and Panama? Mostly for the opportunity to shake the cobwebs off our war machine.
It is damned refreshing to know some people can actually see what's going on. This not to say I condone these events. I'm just attempting to validate your point of view.
Kudos!
Remember the Maine (Score:5, Interesting)
I wanted to comment on the AT&T Thing. Narus is company that was started in America by some ex-Israeli Defense Forces people (unit 8200 alumni) who wanted to bring their Semantic monitoring software to America to sell to big telecom. This was always security software and Israel has always been very very far ahead in that realm (because of the "realities" there. There are a lot of these companies that were formed by ex-Defense people, specificially unit 8200. Checkpoint systems is another fine example.
From this article [66.218.69.11] (direct link [cji.co.il]:
Anyway, the original goal was to make a bundle of money selling this stuff. Why? Well, it's useful for a number of reasons. Because the internet has been "redesigned" around business and commerce (and the needs of the consumer), the nature of the network has changed. From the original decentralized network (which did use leased phone lines from Ma Bell, so it's not really decentralized from THEM), now there are huge "tier 1" trunks that carry the majority of the transcontenental data. The idea in the late ninties of "IP Network Convergence" or Voice Data Video etc. all coming out of one pipe was the big hot one. Of course, how do you make money when people are only paying for their ISP connection. Enter "usage-based billing".
The idea behind the Narus system was to create a system to track IP traffic and transactions semantically (because you still didn't know where the traffic might be coming from) and create a sort of database of records like they talked about in TFA. Like the old fashioned telcom "call records", these would record a source and target and the data transmitted. The data would only be stored if "relevant", ie: part of a usage-based service or today, "interesting" ie having actionable words or phrases, etc. Of course, then the thing in New York happened and all of a sudden there was a LOT of funding available for people who had the stuff in place or ready to go and a lot of the old red tape was struck down. Remember "karnivore?" Cohen and his more spooky cohorts made a few calls to 8200 friends (IDF and M*s*ad were working "closely" with the administration) and due to the no-bid process (not unlike that of the Iraq contractors and the Katrina and new york ground zero cleanup operations) they got the job in a sec.
Of course, AT&T is going along because they need support for the big merger with SBC (putting most of the baby bells back together. AT&T was once the largest company on earth and they are set to do it again. Guess what, voice calls are still big business and how do you think your cell phone calls go from tower to tower. You guessed it, land lines..............AT&T has always been an evil company.
Anyway, Narus is the key to everything now. The company was the one pushing for convergence from the beginning and now it's possible to monitor all traffic because it's all on IP. How convenient. Even an anonymizing proxy such as ToR cannot provide the protection you need if one of your packets happens to stray across one or more Narus points. It's a simple matter to monitor the packets and put together not only
Re:Worrisome (Score:4, Interesting)
There will not be any attempt at occupation, even bush knows by now that's a bad idea. There will be lot of killing and destruction though, we like that.
Re:Impressive, but AT&T can bite me (Score:1, Interesting)
Have none of you read any of the legislation passed this decade? It doesn't really matter who they are, if they're a US company they work with our govt, or they get thrown in jail. If anything we should be supporting whoever leaked this info, not banning at&t. They're just the ones caught with it.
Re:Worrisome (Score:5, Interesting)
Carl Sagan made a wry observation about exactly that, back during Iraq War I when the TV news programs were loaded with glowing reports about the Patriot interceptor missiles, "smart" bombs, etc. "[It] was a massive arms bazaar arranged by the United States to showcase some of the products that you, too, might acquire -- and only for all the critical resources of your society that might otherwise be spent on bettering your people. Line up over here!" (excerpt from the Playboy interview).
Re:Worrisome (Score:2, Interesting)
A war they cannot lose a foe that cannot bring the wind out of their sails. Maybe we should send less troops to even it up next time?
They have to see their friends die as well as their enemies and the innocent. Those are only words to you, please don't throw them about carelessly.
Now they go back to the millions and become heros and bring the millions of unready up to a new level, get them frothing at the mouth just waiting for 'fluffy' to rear their head up again. Now have a real core to your army. If you think uncle Sam can pick your scrawny, pale ass give him a gun and your gonna let the frags go like Quake, you would likely shit yourself before you got your first shot off and possibly go into shock when you get real brains splattered all over you.
If someone calls me a hero, it's a slap in the face. I do what i do so my brothers and sisters don't have to. I wouldn't try to block anyone's attempt to volunteer, but i don't want to see the innocent lose what makes them precious. As far as Uncle Sam taking some scrawny pale kid and sending him into battle with rifle in hand. Who do you think fights these things? Not old men, i can assure you. Kids. Just out of high school with two months of training under their belts and they're ready to take on the world. They're just kids. Even when they get back and take that blood stained uniform off, they're still kids. Still laugh and play and can't legally drink.
now it is battle-hardened, blood and killing no longer scares it or slows it down it just wants more. We're monsters. You've ensured that we are absolute monsters. We don't fit in with "normal" people anymore. That's why so many soldier's hang themselves, become Bums, or re-enlist and fight until they're bodies are ragged and worn out. It is a rare case indead to meet a monster that laid down his rifle and doesn't miss it.
You can hate us, it's quite alright. We're already more tortured then you can ever imagine.
an acquiescent people have given it up. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the big picture, an individual's personal porn preferences is not the problem.
The problem is that all legitimate American governmental power flows directly from the Constitution, and all elected Federal Politicians, as well as all appointed Federal judges have solemnly sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Amendments to the Constitution:
Do you need any help understanding the original intent of the following phrases?
Have Americans' ability to understand simple English degraded to the point that nine old verbose fetishises for black satin moo moos must augur the Constitution's entrails to divine what was meant?
The government was precluded from equivocating on sworn warrants; Jury trials; public - a)presentment of prosecutorial charges, and b)trial; right to challenge witnesses and evidence; right to competent and dedicated representative to aid in defense, and lastly, most importantly, habeas corpus. This is what has been lost. This is why you should care.
There is no "terror" exception. These rights are universal, and bar the government's actions against citizen and non-citizen alike. They were explicitly placed in the possession of humans, not the state. Any governmental representative who takes these rights is participating in an illegitimate tyranny. The abject owardice and lack of faith in the American system is implicit in persons advocating acts which degrade these rights.
A president, "whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People".
This is what matters. The Dreamtime America is fading away.