IP: Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing (fwd)

Eugene Leitl Eugene.Leitl at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Mon Jan 7 06:01:14 PST 2002




-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 13:46:30 -0500
From: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
Reply-To: farber at cis.upenn.edu
To: ip-sub-1 at majordomo.pobox.com
Subject: IP: Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing

[ In keeping with protocol, I was an expert witness (pro-bono) for the
defense and submitted several affidavits on the technical issues djf]


>         http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,49455,00.html
>
>Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing
>By Declan McCullagh
>2:00 a.m. Jan. 4, 2002 PST              WASHINGTON -- The Justice
>Department can legally use a controversial electronic surveillance
>technique in its prosecution of an alleged mobster.
>
>In the first case of its kind, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey has
>ruled that evidence surreptitiously gathered by the FBI about Nicodemo S.
>Scarfo's reputed loan shark operation can be presented in a trial later
>this year.
>
>U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan said last week that it was perfectly
>acceptable for FBI agents armed with a court order to sneak into Scarfo's
>office, plant a keystroke sniffer in his PC and monitor its output.
>
>Scarfo had been using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to
>encode confidential business data -- and frustrate the government's
>attempts to monitor him.
>
>         [snip]
>
>The court order from the federal magistrate judge stated that the FBI
>could "install and leave behind software, firmware, and/or hardware
>equipment, which will monitor the inputted data entered on Nicodemo S.
>Scarfo's computer in the target location so that the FBI can capture the
>password necessary to decrypt computer files by recording the key related
>information as they are entered."
>
>Defense attorneys had said that the PGP pass-phrase snatching was akin to
>a telephone wiretap and pointed out that the FBI never obtained a wiretap
>order. Scarfo's lawyers also claimed the FBI was conducting a general
>search of the sort loathed by the colonists at the time of the American
>Revolution and thereafter outlawed by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition
>of "unreasonable" searches.

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