Carnivore (FBI) |
Carnivore is a name given to a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is analogous to wiretapping except in this case it is email that is being tapped instead of telephone conversations. It is a form of policeware.
United States Government officials will confirm or deny little about the physical or logical workings of Carnivore, but there are some basic facts that are generally agreed upon:
In order to be affected, a computer must be physically installed at an internet service provider (ISP) or other location where it can sniff traffic on a local area network segment to look for email messages in transit. The technology itself is nothing really special — using a standard packet sniffer and some fairly straightforward filtering (such as a Perl_programming_language script), one could easily duplicate this functionality. Getting the cooperation of the ISPs or the owner of the LAN onto which Carnivore is to be placed can either be voluntary or by court order; however, once a system is in place it is not allowed to simply capture every email that passes through the system — they should get a Warrant (legal) or court order naming specific people or email addresses that may be monitored, but sometimes that [http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/5_02_release.html doesn t happen]. When an email passes through that matches the filtering criteria mandated by the warrant, the message is logged along with information on the date, time, origin and destination. This logging is most likely relayed in real time to the FBI but the details are not currently known. All other traffic would presumably be dropped without logging or capture.
There is much speculation and concern regarding the implementation, usage, and possible abuses of Carnivore. Free speech advocates and others interested in civil rights are concerned over the potential for misuse.
Assistant FBI Director Donald Kerr has been quoted as saying: The Carnivore device works much like commercial sniffers and other network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may not. For example, if a court order provides for the lawful interception of one type of communication (e.g., e-mail), but excludes all other communications (e.g., online shopping) the Carnivore tool can be configured to intercept only those e-mails being transmitted either to or from the named subject.
...is a very specialized network analyzer or sniffer which runs as an application program on a normal personal computer under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It works by sniffing the proper portions of network packets and copying and storing only those packets which match a finely defined filter set programmed in conformity with the court order. This filter set can be extremely complex, and this provides the FBI with an ability to collect transmissions which comply with pen register court orders, trap & trace court orders, Title III interception orders, etc....
...It is important to distinguish now what is meant by sniffing. The problem of discriminating between users messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like bomb or drugs. It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.[http://cryptome.org/carnivore-rf.htm cryptome.org]
After prolonged negative coverage in the press, the FBI changed the name of its system from Carnivore to the more benign-sounding DCS1000. DCS is reported to stand for Digital Collection System ; the system has the same functions as before.
It has been reported, [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144809,00.html] as of the middle of January 2005, that the FBI has essentially abandoned the use of Carnivore in favor of commercially available software.
=See also=
*Magic Lantern software, the FBI s keystroke logging tool *Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act UK Legal provision for digital interception *ECHELON NSA worldwide digital interception program *DragonWare Suite FBI program for storing website information *Total Information Awareness *CALEA to make clear a telecommunications carrier s duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for Law Enforcement purposes, and for other purposes
==External links== *[http://cryptome.org/carnivore-rf.htm Cryptome on Carnivore] *[http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45798,00.html Wired on Carnivore] *[http://www.epic.org/privacy/carnivore/foia_documents.html EPIC on Carnivore] *Slashdot: [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.plsid=05/01/15/1424207&tid=158&tid=103&tid=1 Carnivore No More], [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.plsid=05/01/19/1432217&tid=158&tid=103&tid=17 Why Did The FBI Retire Carnivore]|
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