“The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned. The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.” I no longer know what to say. You will be monitored by The State. If you oppose such monitoring, you’re a terrorist.
FFS, it’s supposed to be hard for police to spy on you.
Then again, wtf do they need this retarded policy for when they already can arrest and detain you indefinitely on mere suspicion of illegal activity.
Also, what happens when the backdoor gets discovered, exploited, and used by the people that this is supposedly trying to catch?
This should be the headline for every major news outlet everywhere.
This kind of news has unfortunately become common place these days and no one bothers anymore. Soon, the FBI will require that all homes be equiped with a 24/7 web cam and everyone will comply…
Wouldn’t it be quite easy to have external voip services used in the US? I mean, having the servers that exchange the ip adresses you currently use to establish the direct voip connection somewhere else, so they won’t have to abide by the US laws? I don’t see how they want to wiretap that. Of course they would gain a lot of information, but those who would want to harm the US (as in, the real terrorists) could still quite easily continue their businesses as usual. While the normal guy/girl is being wiretapped all the time. Counterproductive much? I could be wrong though.
You’re not even taking ZRTP encryption for SIP-based VoIP into account, where people read off numbers to verify no man-in-the-middle attack the first time (since we humans are good at checking voices), then all subsequent calls use key continuity to verify security automatically.
(Or, for that matter, OffTheRecord for deniable, end-to-end IM encryption and the authors’ plans to develop something similar for SMS)
Edited 2012-05-05 07:24 UTC
I think that it’s a serious offence for these guys to wiretap you. With or without a permission. If they do it it’s the soviet union all over again. Why they aren’t sued for even proposing something like that?
Nevermind what they want to do. Doesn’t this highlight what has always been considered ‘business as usual’ by the gov’t?
I mean, the justification for adapting new technology is, essentially, that they’re finding it more difficult to invade our privacy, and they’re demanding companies to facilitate their ability to spy on us so they can continue ‘business as usual’.
In a nation that exerts control over every aspect of our lives, where the law is broad and often grey or counter-intuitive, and the government is hypocritical with the law, a citizen breaking the law is virtually inevitable.
Really, if you were a citizen of such a country – how are you supposed to feel about being lawful, if breaking the law seems inevitable?
<sarcasm> Maybe we should all spend the four years in highschool getting law degrees. </scarcasm>
Don’t ask the English Parliment – they will do this in a heartbeat.
The want to backdoor facebook? Why? Oh yeah….9-11. What a crock. I guess this is part of the “fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here”…..oh, wait.
Tell me, who were the good guys again and who are the cyber criminals? No wonder the pirate parties are surging in polls everywhere.
Obligatory;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35TbGjt-weA
Wiretapping was found to be constitutional in the USA in 1928. I don’t understand all of the uproar like this is some kind of new thing. I suppose anybody who opposes the idea also opposes the idea of legal telephone wiretapping.
US lobbies … uhm, government is trying really hard to push yet another incredibly invasive bill.
What and ordinary guy can do? boycott USA.
– don’t travel to USA
– don’t use products from USA [no matter where they were produced – [it’s about brand, because money goes to USA]
– use alternatives – software, goods produced in your country or countries that actually respect your freedom, privacy, data, etc. Few examples: OS – Gnu/Linux, *BSDs, OpenIndiana, etc
Let USA drown in its own filth. Let americans fight the crap their government is creating. But never, ever allow [by your choices] crap to spread throughout the whole world! Oppose, deny, boycott.
That’s my view and that’s what I do. You can criticise me, you can praise me. It won’t stop me from doing what I do. It won’t stop my relatives and friends from doing it.
I recently found out about Opera’s free mail service (which they launched after they bought fastmail.fm) and I find it very good. It gives you 1 GB of storage, IMAP access and a nice, simple but quite good web interface. They even got an XMPP service, though it’s not advertised very much.
All in all, it’s a good alternative to gmail. I hope they don’t host anything in the US.
Before anybody asks, I am in no way affiliated with Opera, I just like the service.
Or you can use tototl.com
They have unlimited space, bandwidth, support IMAP, IMAPS, POP3, POP3S, SMTP, the service is hosted on Netherlands and also offers 3 nice interfaces: SquirrelMail, RoundCube, and Webmin, they also support GPG through Webmin interface. They only ask 3 questions to create your account (Name, username, password). No captcha.
They recently launched and you can check their uptime realtime on their website.
I’m wary of any service that doesn’t tell me how they intend to pay their bills if/when they really get popular.
Oh yes, a totally unknown domain name, registered by a person from Mexico (not a company) gives me lot of confidence in the service. The name even resembles your username, so you are just advertising your own mailserver here, claiming it has unlimited resources?
It is evident from the whois info that it is his service.
And freemont(?) and dallas.
Wow, really? I doubt it.
That’s…good? bad?
That would mean avoid using products made by, or employing components made by:
– Intel (CPUs, chipsets, SSDs, network controllers),
– AMD (CPUs, chipsets, GPUs),
– nVidia (GPUs and chipsets),
– SandForce (SSD controllers used by various vendors),
– Google/Android,
– Cisco/Linksys,
– Juniper,
– Qualcomm Atheros (network controllers)
– Broadcom (especially wireless network controllers used in various mobile/stationary devices)
– Netgear,
– Nintendo (Wii uses wireless network IC produced by Broadcom),
– Sony (esp. PlayStation 3, which relies on nVidia GPU to handle graphics processing),
– Any Internet service provider (I bet they’re using Cisco and/or Juniper devices in their infrastructure),
– etc.
If you live outside of the U.S. and have Internet connection, be advised that your ISP may be paying some U.S. company for international backbone/exchange link. You might want to stop using the Internet as well.
You go ahead, and do keep me posted.
Yeah, the GP went a little too far, and you are right, it’s totally impossible. It’s quite sad that the world is THAT much dependent on technology coming from the US.
But, to avoid any online service that is hosted in the the US and/or by a US company is totally possible. Google? lots of alternatives there.
Gmail/Yahoo mail/you-name-it-mail? plenty of services outside the US, or maybe roll your own
Facebook,Twitter? lots of social networks outside the US, or maybe just quit using that
What on earth are you talking about? if it is dependent on some technology, it is technology which comes from CHINA and east in general. Guys, wake up.
most of the world is on european backbones. the location makes more sense.
… but that’s what these guys don’t get
they probobly think they’re in the centre of the whole world, which is not the case.
I think you are overestimating USA, which is … well, kinda typical I must say
FYI, there are PLENTY of hardware manufacturers, software developers, etc OUTSIDE USA, which do NOT use ANY of USA “goods”.
Oh, and the ISP thing … come on … you really think there’s only “US” internet? man, wake up … we have regional sites, ISPs, intranets, local news services, etc, etc. Myriads of them actually. Most people never ever go to US sites, with the unfamous exception of Facebook. And don’t even get me started on Facebook …
They never learn. This is ridiculous and will cause even a stronger push back from the Internet.
Talk from Nick Merill about Calyx:
http://audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm050412d.mp3
He says there, that while FBI will require backdoors, it doesn’t mean it’ll require backdoors to encryption itself (i.e. some special keys). So there is still a way to ensure privacy, if users actively encrypt their data.