Bad News for Snoops By Fiona Ross, Smart Business March 12, 2001 9:00 PM PT URL: http://www.zdnet.com/smartbusinessmag/stories/all/0,6605,2688765,00.html The delicate balance between personal privacy and national security just grew more precarious with the passing of part three of the United Kingdom's RIP law, or Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (see "Losing the Company Keys," February, page 48). Under the new law, the British government can monitor and store all Internet traffic for seven years, as well as demand files and PGP keys from its citizens' computers. Enter M-o-o-t (www.m-o-o-t.org), a new open source cryptography project designed to help people get around RIP and similar laws and technologies, including the FBI's controversial snooping system, Carnivore. Peter Fairbrother, Crypto/Oversight Group leader of the U.K.-based organization, says the project spawned from concern about governments spying on citizens. Fairbrother admits that M-o-o-t won't end spying, but he says his group expects to stop "trawling methods and mass surveillance." RIP and Carnivore were ostensibly passed to help fight terrorism, espionage, information warfare, and child pornography, so the FBI and Scotland Yard aren't likely to be pleased with M-o-o-t's efforts. Even Fairbrother concedes, "It is inevitable that 'M-o-o-t' will be abused. However, we are more worried about abuse by governments if M-o-o-t isn't written." The self-contained software will be shipped on a bootable CD. User data and mail will be encrypted and stored in offshore data havens, bypassing local storage. Untraceable e-mail and telephony are also in the works.