[Politech] Weekly column: FBI's latest wiretapping push [priv]

[Dean Anderson]

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

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