The one thing I try to remind people, is that "technology has no loyalty". It can be used against you as easily as you can use it against someone else. Further, the concept of an _FBI_controlled_ backdoor is completely novel in the telecom industry. With telephone tapping, the FBI is supposed to have paperwork. Then the telephone company will route the audio of that phone to a "wiretap port", a line to the FBI office in response to an FBI request, for which records are kept. The FBI is never, ever given access to the CO cableplant, or the CO facilities. FBI tapping equipment is not allowed in a Telephone Office. There is someone in the Telephone company that _can_ blow the whistle either publicly or to the FBI itself in the event of abuse. (eg, Agent soandso asked for a Tap on his ex-wife) In contrast, the kind of facilities that the FBI is installing into the internet carriers allows the FBI unsupervised access to all and any communications. There is no way to detect abuse. Futher, the FBI's own equipment is itself potentially vulnerable to cracking, and therefore, misuse by criminals. It can be misused by FBI employees, who, as we've found out with the Boston FBI Office, are themselves sometimes working for Organized Crime. The extreme ease of use of internet wiretapping and lack of accountability is not a good situation to create. --Dean ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen@leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]