Carnivore can't eat AlQaeda
FBI 'Carnivore' Glitch Hurt Al Qaeda Probe
Tue May 28, 8:40 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Glitches in a controversial FBI (news - web
sites) system to monitor the e-mail of suspected criminals likely
hampered an investigation of al Qaeda two years ago, according to
internal FBI documents released on Tuesday.
According to memos obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, FBI investigators threw out the results of an e-mail wiretap
in March 2000 because the system, commonly known as "Carnivore,"
collected electronic messages of regular Internet users as well as
the target of the probe.
While the target was blacked out in the memo, the FBI unit in
question was charged with monitoring Osama bin Laden (news - web
sites), said David Sobel, the EPIC lawyer who obtained the documents
under the Freedom of Information Act. Washington blames bin Laden and
his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,000
people.
"The FBI software not only picked up the e-mails under the electronic
surveillance of the FBI's target ... but also picked up e-mails on
non-covered targets. The FBI technical person was apparently so upset
that he destroyed all the e-mail take," said an unidentified
supervisor in an April 5, 2000, memo to M.E. "Spike" Bowman, the
FBI's associate general counsel for national security issues.
The documents do not imply the FBI could have prevented the Sept. 11
attacks, but they do highlight problems with the implementation of
Carnivore, Sobel said.
"This shows that the FBI has been misleading Congress and the public
about the extent to which Carnivore is capable of collecting only
authorized information," he said.
An FBI official declined to comment.
Developed to intercept the e-mail and other online activities of
suspected criminals, Carnivore has come under fire from lawmakers and
civil liberties groups who say it is too invasive.
FBI officials have told Congress the system captures only a narrow
field of information for which interception is authorized by a court
order.
The documents showed Carnivore had occasionally grabbed the e-mail
messages of other Internet users, especially when set up to work on
unusual e-mail systems.
"Encountering nonstandard implementation has led to inadvertently
capturing and processing data outside the Order of Consent," says one
memo from an FBI field officer.
Tue May 28, 8:40 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Glitches in a controversial FBI (news - web
sites) system to monitor the e-mail of suspected criminals likely
hampered an investigation of al Qaeda two years ago, according to
internal FBI documents released on Tuesday.
According to memos obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, FBI investigators threw out the results of an e-mail wiretap
in March 2000 because the system, commonly known as "Carnivore,"
collected electronic messages of regular Internet users as well as
the target of the probe.
While the target was blacked out in the memo, the FBI unit in
question was charged with monitoring Osama bin Laden (news - web
sites), said David Sobel, the EPIC lawyer who obtained the documents
under the Freedom of Information Act. Washington blames bin Laden and
his al Qaeda network for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,000
people.
"The FBI software not only picked up the e-mails under the electronic
surveillance of the FBI's target ... but also picked up e-mails on
non-covered targets. The FBI technical person was apparently so upset
that he destroyed all the e-mail take," said an unidentified
supervisor in an April 5, 2000, memo to M.E. "Spike" Bowman, the
FBI's associate general counsel for national security issues.
The documents do not imply the FBI could have prevented the Sept. 11
attacks, but they do highlight problems with the implementation of
Carnivore, Sobel said.
"This shows that the FBI has been misleading Congress and the public
about the extent to which Carnivore is capable of collecting only
authorized information," he said.
An FBI official declined to comment.
Developed to intercept the e-mail and other online activities of
suspected criminals, Carnivore has come under fire from lawmakers and
civil liberties groups who say it is too invasive.
FBI officials have told Congress the system captures only a narrow
field of information for which interception is authorized by a court
order.
The documents showed Carnivore had occasionally grabbed the e-mail
messages of other Internet users, especially when set up to work on
unusual e-mail systems.
"Encountering nonstandard implementation has led to inadvertently
capturing and processing data outside the Order of Consent," says one
memo from an FBI field officer.
Re: FW: Epicurious Recipe Flash 2
OK, I'LL ADMIT IT! I'VE CHECKED THE SITE FOR FLASH!!!!
there, I feel better now...
to think that as a chef, i should have known better...
going back to my kitchen...
/liza
>Great ways to eat chicken...
>Compliments of Flash.
>
>==========================================
>EPICURIOUS RECIPE FLASH
>The week of May 20, 2002
>==========================================
ps: i have felt as jerked as the grilled chicken though my
fowl is usually tastier than anything gourmet publishes...
going back, once again, to my fiery domain ...
there, I feel better now...
to think that as a chef, i should have known better...
going back to my kitchen...
/liza
>Great ways to eat chicken...
>Compliments of Flash.
>
>==========================================
>EPICURIOUS RECIPE FLASH
>The week of May 20, 2002
>==========================================
ps: i have felt as jerked as the grilled chicken though my
fowl is usually tastier than anything gourmet publishes...
going back, once again, to my fiery domain ...
If Bill gates wrote this, he IS a genius ...
Sometimes these things are apocryphal but this list of rules is so good
everyone should keep it around ...
>Bill Gates' Speech to MT. Whitney High School in Visalia California.
>Worthwhile reading for anyone. Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail
>on the head with this!
>
>To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here's
>some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11
>thing they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how
>feel-good,politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no
>concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real
>world.
>
>Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it
>
>Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect
>you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
>
>Rule 3: You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't
>be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
>
>Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
>
>Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had
>different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.
>
>Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about
>your mistakes, learn from them.
>
>Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are
>now.
>
>They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
>listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain
>forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the
>closet in your own room.
>
>Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has
>not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give
>you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the
>resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
>
>Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and
>very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on
>your own time.
>
>Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
>leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
>
>Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
>
everyone should keep it around ...
>Bill Gates' Speech to MT. Whitney High School in Visalia California.
>Worthwhile reading for anyone. Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail
>on the head with this!
>
>To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here's
>some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11
>thing they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how
>feel-good,politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no
>concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real
>world.
>
>Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it
>
>Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect
>you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
>
>Rule 3: You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't
>be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
>
>Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
>
>Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had
>different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.
>
>Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about
>your mistakes, learn from them.
>
>Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are
>now.
>
>They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
>listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain
>forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the
>closet in your own room.
>
>Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has
>not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give
>you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the
>resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
>
>Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and
>very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on
>your own time.
>
>Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to
>leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
>
>Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
>
And the Ghettoization of the Internet has started
I see the hysteria over the well-being of "the children" no different than the
hysteria over the well-being of Internet artists. Digital sanctuaries and
kid-friendly Internet domains are just another way of falling to the
regulatory shenanigans of the Rollings Bill. Those smart chips are
going to be used for more than reading DVD-specific code. They
will be used to segregate and track people all over the Internet.
Instead of talking about a digital sanctuary, whether for kids or artists,
we should be talking about digital ghettos, reservations and encampments.
They will not be there to protect our freedoms. They will be there to delimit
the fiefdoms of the corporate lords of the Internet.
If there was ever a doubt that the Internet was a territory that could be
conquered and divvied up, well, I think this proves all the doubters wrong.
=====================================================
House Passes Kid-Friendly Internet Bill
Tue May 21, 2:41 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday
approved a proposal to create a kid-friendly Internet zone free of
violence, pornography and other adult material.
By a vote of 406 to 2, the House approved a bill that would set up an
area within the United States' ".us" Internet domain allowing only
Web sites deemed appropriate for children 12 years old and younger.
Web sites bearing a ".kids.us" address would have to certify that
they do not contain sexually explicit material, hate speech, violence
or other material not suitable for minors.
"The wild West of the World Wide Web will get tamed somewhat," said
bill sponsor Rep. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican, at a press
conference.
In the Senate, North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan said he will
introduce similar legislation later in the day with Nevada Republican
John Ensign.
Unlike previous attempts to screen out online smut, the bill would
regulate content only on a corner of the Internet that falls directly
under U.S. government control. Better known domains such as ".com"
and ".net," as well as the rest of the ".us" domain, would not be
subject to restrictions.
"If you're in Tennessee, Taiwan or Timbuktu, you can publish or speak
any content you want on the Internet," said co-sponsor Rep. Ed
Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, in remarks on the House floor.
The bill represents the latest attempt to keep children away from the
sexually explicit material easily available to anyone with a computer
and an Internet connection.
The Supreme Court had thrown out an early attempt, the 1996
Communications Decency Act, as an infringement on free speech. A
second, the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, remains sidelined by a
court injunction.
More recently, lawmakers had hoped the international body that
controls domain-name policy would set up a ".kids" domain.
After the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers passed
on the idea in November 2000, Markey and Shimkus introduced a bill
that would force it to set up a ".kids" domain.
But they backed off from that plan last fall after witnesses told
them it would be difficult to dictate policy to ICANN (news - web
sites), which is not under direct U.S. government control.
The revised bill would place a ".kids" subdomain under the control of
NeuStar Inc., the Washington-based telecommunications company that
won the contract to manage the ".us" country-code domain last fall.
NeuStar would be expected to police the subdomain to ensure it
remains free of inappropriate content, and it would answer to the
Commerce Department (news - web sites)'s National Telecommunications
and Information Administration (news - web sites).
Web sites in the domain would be prohibited from linking to sites
outside it, and they could not set up chat rooms, instant messaging
(news - web sites) or other interactive services unless they could
certify that they did not expose children to pedophiles or pose other
risks.
If privately held NeuStar were to lose money on the venture, it could
give control back to the Commerce Department, which would seek
another operator.
hysteria over the well-being of Internet artists. Digital sanctuaries and
kid-friendly Internet domains are just another way of falling to the
regulatory shenanigans of the Rollings Bill. Those smart chips are
going to be used for more than reading DVD-specific code. They
will be used to segregate and track people all over the Internet.
Instead of talking about a digital sanctuary, whether for kids or artists,
we should be talking about digital ghettos, reservations and encampments.
They will not be there to protect our freedoms. They will be there to delimit
the fiefdoms of the corporate lords of the Internet.
If there was ever a doubt that the Internet was a territory that could be
conquered and divvied up, well, I think this proves all the doubters wrong.
=====================================================
House Passes Kid-Friendly Internet Bill
Tue May 21, 2:41 PM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday
approved a proposal to create a kid-friendly Internet zone free of
violence, pornography and other adult material.
By a vote of 406 to 2, the House approved a bill that would set up an
area within the United States' ".us" Internet domain allowing only
Web sites deemed appropriate for children 12 years old and younger.
Web sites bearing a ".kids.us" address would have to certify that
they do not contain sexually explicit material, hate speech, violence
or other material not suitable for minors.
"The wild West of the World Wide Web will get tamed somewhat," said
bill sponsor Rep. John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican, at a press
conference.
In the Senate, North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan said he will
introduce similar legislation later in the day with Nevada Republican
John Ensign.
Unlike previous attempts to screen out online smut, the bill would
regulate content only on a corner of the Internet that falls directly
under U.S. government control. Better known domains such as ".com"
and ".net," as well as the rest of the ".us" domain, would not be
subject to restrictions.
"If you're in Tennessee, Taiwan or Timbuktu, you can publish or speak
any content you want on the Internet," said co-sponsor Rep. Ed
Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, in remarks on the House floor.
The bill represents the latest attempt to keep children away from the
sexually explicit material easily available to anyone with a computer
and an Internet connection.
The Supreme Court had thrown out an early attempt, the 1996
Communications Decency Act, as an infringement on free speech. A
second, the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, remains sidelined by a
court injunction.
More recently, lawmakers had hoped the international body that
controls domain-name policy would set up a ".kids" domain.
After the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers passed
on the idea in November 2000, Markey and Shimkus introduced a bill
that would force it to set up a ".kids" domain.
But they backed off from that plan last fall after witnesses told
them it would be difficult to dictate policy to ICANN (news - web
sites), which is not under direct U.S. government control.
The revised bill would place a ".kids" subdomain under the control of
NeuStar Inc., the Washington-based telecommunications company that
won the contract to manage the ".us" country-code domain last fall.
NeuStar would be expected to police the subdomain to ensure it
remains free of inappropriate content, and it would answer to the
Commerce Department (news - web sites)'s National Telecommunications
and Information Administration (news - web sites).
Web sites in the domain would be prohibited from linking to sites
outside it, and they could not set up chat rooms, instant messaging
(news - web sites) or other interactive services unless they could
certify that they did not expose children to pedophiles or pose other
risks.
If privately held NeuStar were to lose money on the venture, it could
give control back to the Commerce Department, which would seek
another operator.