← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Texas Dissident
Thread ID: 4131 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2002-12-21
2002-12-21 01:14 | User Profile
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/20/technology/20MONI.html?ex=1041051600&en=8b95ba76443ce31d&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE]Bush Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet[/url]
By JOHN MARKOFF and JOHN SCHWARTZ
The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users.
The proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year, according to several people who have been briefed on the report. It is a component of the effort to increase national security after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board is preparing the report, and it is intended to create public and private cooperation to regulate and defend the national computer networks, not only from everyday hazards like viruses but also from terrorist attack. Ultimately the report is intended to provide an Internet strategy for the new Department of Homeland Security.
Such a proposal, which would be subject to Congressional and regulatory approval, would be a technical challenge because the Internet has thousands of independent service providers, from garage operations to giant corporations like American Online, AT&T, Microsoft and Worldcom.
The report does not detail specific operational requirements, locations for the centralized system or costs, people who were briefed on the document said.
While the proposal is meant to gauge the overall state of the worldwide network, some officials of Internet companies who have been briefed on the proposal say they worry that such a system could be used to cross the indistinct border between broad monitoring and wiretap.
Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who represents some of the nation's largest Internet providers, said, "Internet service providers are concerned about the privacy implications of this as well as liability," since providing access to live feeds of network activity could be interpreted as a wiretap or as the "pen register" and "trap and trace" systems used on phones without a judicial order.
Mr. Baker said the issue would need to be resolved before the proposal could move forward.
Tiffany Olson, the deputy chief of staff for the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, said yesterday that the proposal, which includes a national network operations center, was still in flux. She said the proposed methods did not necessarily require gathering data that would allow monitoring at an individual user level.
But the need for a large-scale operations center is real, Ms. Olson said, because Internet service providers and security companies and other online companies only have a view of the part of the Internet that is under their control.
"We don't have anybody that is able to look at the entire picture," she said. "When something is happening, we don't know it's happening until it's too late."
The government report was first released in draft form in September, and described the monitoring center, but it suggested it would likely be controlled by industry. The current draft sets the stage for the government to have a leadership role.
The new proposal is labeled in the report as an "early-warning center" that the board says is required to offer early detection of Internet-based attacks as well as defense against viruses and worms.
But Internet service providers argue that its data-monitoring functions could be used to track the activities of individuals using the network.
An official with a major data services company who has been briefed on several aspects of the government's plans said it was hard to see how such capabilities could be provided to government without the potential for real- time monitoring, even of individuals.
"Part of monitoring the Internet and doing real-time analysis is to be able to track incidents while they are occurring," the official said.
The official compared the system to Carnivore, the Internet wiretap system used by the F.B.I., saying: "Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it's 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet."
One former federal Internet security official cautioned against drawing conclusions from the information that is available so far about the Securing Cyberspace report's conclusions.
Michael Vatis, the founding director of the National Critical Infrastructure Protection Center and now the director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth, said it was common for proposals to be cast in the worst possible light before anything is actually known about the technology that will be used or the legal framework within which it will function.
"You get a firestorm created before anybody knows what, concretely, is being proposed," Mr. Vatis said.
A technology that is deployed without the proper legal controls "could be used to violate privacy," he said, and should be considered carefully.
But at the other end of the spectrum of reaction, Mr. Vatis warned, "You end up without technology that could be very useful to combat terrorism, information warfare or some other harmful act."
Copyright The New York Times Company
Don't it just make you feel safer and more at peace knowing our government is looking out for us the way it is?
2002-12-21 07:07 | User Profile
Not surprising. They're cracking down all over the world. In Canada I even read the government is talking about a bill to make ISP's save all browsing logs for six months.
2002-12-24 01:41 | User Profile
[url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white24.html]http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white24.html[/url]
Head for the Hills, the End Is Nigh by Tom White
On December 20 (2002), the New York Times published a story with an exceedingly ominous headline: "Bush Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet."
I can think of some reasons not to be as alarmed as I am at this bit of news and to greet this is just another ho-hum from a big journal. When you ask, Who is so naïve as to suppose the administration was not monitoring already? This simply appears as confirmation of what is going on.
Another yawn comes from realizing this news is actually old stuff, as noted in the article. The proposal was adumbrated September last in "draft form." (When the draft appeared it called for "industry" to do the monitoring, but now, in the current version, government will undertake to do it. Surprise! Surprise!)
And I am sure you can find other notes of "business as usual" in the article.
The dead-pan reporters, John Markoff and John Schwartz, who never come even close to saying the dread word censorship, run on for a couple of dozen short paragraphs about how the purpose of the proposal is, of course, the urgent search for terrorist activities and not at all about invading privacy, etc., etc., which is the worry of the Internet service providers and others they interviewed.
But any lover of the Internet is going to get cold chills from, if nothing else, the storyââ¬â¢s lead: "The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users."
Surveillance! Ah, how deliciously World War II (movie version). Can you see those marvelous Nazi officers that Hollywood always had on tap, asking for your papers as you attempt to escape on the last train out of Berlin? Theyââ¬â¢ll surveillance you all right, have no fear. Ach! Ceeteezen Weiss, strengst verboten! (I remember those words from some war movie).
I have long felt the Bush Administration is not shaping up as the most glorious friend of freedom the world has ever seen. I have said before in this space that whenever the boilerplate rolls out from the Oval Office you can usually do a direct Orwellian translation: peace means war, security means danger, freedom means government control, etc. Thatââ¬â¢s when they are talking platitudes or denying the obvious.
But when they are telling you whatââ¬â¢s coming they manage to be a bit more direct: the title of this proposal is "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace."
Also one Ms. Tiffany Olson, deputy chief of staff for the Presidentââ¬â¢s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board (donââ¬â¢t you love those titles?) said, according to the Times article, that the need for a large-scale operations center is real, because Internet service companies and other online companies only have a view of the part of the Internet that is under their control. "We donââ¬â¢t have anybody that is able to look at the entire picture. When something is happening we donââ¬â¢t know itââ¬â¢s happening until itââ¬â¢s too late." (Like 9/11 presumably?)
Or this from an unidentified official with a "major data services company": "Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact itââ¬â¢s 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet."
Gary North has made a virtuoso demonstration of the miracle of the Internet in offering just three or four links that revealed the depth and extent of the linkage of the CFR, the OSS and CIA, the Rockefeller interests, and the national government under a whole string of Presidents since FDR.
Just for starters, FDR was a Rockefeller man through and through and his alter ego, Harry Hopkins, often credited with "winning the war," carried water for the Rockefellers all his life. The Rockefellers hired a couple of historians (academics are notoriously cheap) to falsify the record of FDRââ¬â¢s role in the start of WW II, and thatââ¬â¢s just one thing to their credit. As a friend of mine said, they rigged up a long-lasting depressed stock market in the 30s and then "bought the country back with sandwiches."
Missing from the panorama North opened to view was any comment on a particular bête noir of mine, Beardsley Ruml, the inventor of the withholding tax, a Rockefeller employee and later government official, who is deserving of a special day on the national calendar set aside for the burning of his effigy in every county public square. Money buys loyalty big-time, but loyalty to the commonwealth? Not a bit of it.
I hope that somebody who knows more about the possibilities in this area, and the technical side of whether or not it is possible for the Powers That Be to control the Internet as they now control the major media, will now come forward to reassure us that I am wrong to see this as a real threat to the ability to check the suppressed history of the age just past and to find out what is really going on today.
I have great respect for people mastered by the desire to dominate. In the end they are headed for ruin, but they are the devilââ¬â¢s own instruments while they are in action, and they famously donââ¬â¢t like criticism. They are very thin-skinned and, like Orcs, very ugly when aroused.
December 21, 2002
Tom White [send him mail] writes from Odessa, Texas.
2002-12-25 00:17 | User Profile
Originally posted by George@Dec 24 2002, 23:40 ** > Originally posted by Zoroaster@Dec 24 2002, 01:41 ** [url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white24.html]http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white24.html[/url]
ÃÂ Head for the Hills, the End Is Nigh by Tom White
On December 20 (2002), the New York Times published a story with an exceedingly ominous headline: "Bush Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet."
[ snip -S ]
December 21, 2002
Tom White [send him mail] writes from Odessa, Texas. **
EXACTLY... the so-called War is HERE... but no one, especially not the likes of pedigreed poodles like a B.Buckley, Jr. have the cojones... for REAL war... kids, why go to "Vietnam"? Or what's it now... Did George Bush really take the "small pox" shot... I DOUBT it... none of his family, nor any of his Staff did... what a bunch of fraudulent garbage bags... he, is...
Where else can you at least speak your mind, anymore except on the Internet... no Wonder now the scum, want to "monitor" it????????????? Who will monitor, would you say, subsequently, the scum? I'm UPSET. **
"BLOG..."
Bith-ches... & whores, & some good folks (wherever you is) read the above... Oh, no does I have to go after'Em all myself... like Judge Roy Bean???? Throws'Em in with the Bear...and no beers for the Bear???
Who d'hey kiddin'Today... seriously dopey bastards'N'bith-ches... d'hey kiddin'you's? No doubt... so here we IS... I know about that at least... got's to stay with the times...
2002-12-27 18:53 | User Profile
Hey, rummy! Could you please explain to me the need to quote - twice! - an entire essay that's already posted on this page? It's an utterly pointless waste of bandwidth (doubly so, considering it's followed by your incoherent wino babbling)!
**Who d'hey kiddin'Today... seriously dopey bastards'N'bith-ches... d'hey kiddin'you's? No doubt... so here we IS... I know about that at least... got's to stay with the times... **
Now there's a quote for the ages! Will somebody please give this guy a dollar for ripple so he can push his shopping cart to the liquor store and stop blocking traffic?
2002-12-27 20:18 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Dec 27 2002, 18:53 **Hey, rummy! Could you please explain to me the need to quote - twice! - an entire essay that's already posted on this page? It's an utterly pointless waste of bandwidth (doubly so, considering it's followed by your incoherent wino babbling)!
**
IR: It would be hilarious to fix him up with the avatar of Barney Gumble of the Simpsons. :lol:
<img src='http://www.aggeggioso.it/scans/scans/barney_burp.gif[/img]
2002-12-27 22:39 | User Profile
I just know that I would never allow any computer in my offices or home that are stuffed by Intel....you need to know who owns that company to be as cautions as I am.
2002-12-29 22:10 | User Profile
BLOG
that's the point of the internet... shopping carts blocking traffic... what are you stupid? If dopey bastards speak like you, I'll have fun speaking Otherwise... you don't know it, you're frightened chickens... here, come here, I'll cut your heads off... better for you...
there's a quote for the ages...
2002-12-29 22:25 | User Profile
Originally posted by George@Dec 29 2002, 22:10 **BLOG
that's the point of the internet... shopping carts blocking traffic... what are you stupid? If dopey bastards speak like you, I'll have fun speaking Otherwise... you don't know it, you're frightened chickens... here, come here, I'll cut your heads off... better for you...
there's a quote for the ages...**
So, you're a mean drunk. I'll be damned. I thought you were a lovey-dovey drunk like Barney Gumble or Otis Campbell.
I am deeply hurt, George. :angry: :( :D :P :blink:
2002-12-29 22:56 | User Profile
I think you're a mean sober... even your 'christ' or talisman... if you've got one...knows that's worse... get out of your head javelin-catcher... you remind of that guy with that arrow through his brain... don't blame me, I didn't put it there... (good catch?) :D You're no comp...I shouldn't beat you Up, G-d willing... he's a prick, the Unnameable one, in my opinion, did you know that, girl? By the way, lovely hat, but what's that, like, arrow thing? On the other hand G-d is kind too... I must confess, got me out of jams... thanks G-d... is it possible to help Javelin-Catcher? I'll even pray for javelin... who knows?
2002-12-30 00:37 | User Profile
Originally posted by George@Dec 29 2002, 22:56 I think you're a mean sober... even your 'christ' or talisman... if you've got one...knows that's worse... get out of your head javelin-catcher... you remind of that guy with that arrow through his brain... don't blame me, I didn't put it there... (good catch?) :D You're no comp...I shouldn't beat you Up, G-d willing... he's a prick, the Unnameable one, in my opinion, did you know that, girl? By the way, lovely hat, but what's that, like, arrow thing? On the other hand G-d is kind too... I must confess, got me out of jams... thanks G-d... is it possible to help Javelin-Catcher? I'll even pray for javelin... who knows?
Why all of this making fun of my avatar? I threw the Javelin in college. I could knock an apple of a Jew's head at 200 feet.
Is this "G-d" of yours helping you at all with your drinking problem and/or Alzheimer's?
2002-12-30 01:25 | User Profile
Well, son of a bith-ch.
2002-12-31 02:10 | User Profile
DITTO.
G-d is my drinking 'problem'... though who said it was a "problem" of mine? ... I didn't. I (personally) don't have any problems, to worry about. Thanks...G-d.