Snooping on Web Traffic Gains Favor

An Internet-monitoring technology known as deep packet inspection is gaining favor as a tool to combat viruses and make networks run more efficiently, despite concerns that the technology allows improper snooping on private Web traffic by governments and other prying eyes.

The technology created a political firestorm when the administration of former President George W. Bush used it to monitor international communications as part of counterterrorism efforts. Iran's apparent use of deep packet inspection, or DPI, during a crackdown on protesters last month gave the technology another black eye.

But use of DPI, which examines Web traffic at a much more detailed level than previous technologies could, is still growing globally. "I don't see it shrinking at all," says Al Gidari, a Seattle lawyer who focuses on the communications industry. "Its complexity is increasing, and I don't doubt this field will become even more lucrative."

Forget Net Neutrality

In the ongoing efforts to control spam and "bad" web sites, there is a technology that promises good results.

There are a lot of bad things on the Internet: spam, child porn, malware, phishing and so on. Until recently, it’s been up to people to protect themselves, using security software or web site blocking.Lately, however, governments and legislators have been calling for service providers to limit where users can go, both to stop criminal activity and to protect na?ve surfers from straying onto malicious sites. Recent advances in DNS may soon let carriers comply with such regulations.

Efforts have been made: In June, three major carriers agreed to purge child pornography hosted on servers their customers operate in their data centers.

Yet there are diffculties: Blocking dangerous destinations is difficult. They change often, so firewalling their addresses doesn’t work well. Inspecting user traffic is CPU-intensive, and deep packet inspection (DPI) has privacy concerns (which hasn’t stopped Sweden.) So it’s been hard for carriers to enforce regulations.

There is a technology which might work: DNS.

In other words, the next time you try to visit a banned site, you’ll simply get an “Address Not Found” error. You’ll also be taking the first step toward a day when your government, your ISP, and even your community will decide what it’s OK for you to visit.

There is a flip side to controlling objectionable web sites: loss of individual choice, and growth of monitoring by the proverbial Big Brother.

Cellphone Data Track Our Migration Patterns

Fascinating story highlighting the efficacy and ease of using available data, as well as its dangers and potential abuses. I particularly enjoy that the focal point is Flushing.

The one stat that jumps out at me is how significant the percentage of calls to Porto, Portugal is: 9% of calls from Flushing.

Cellphone users are spiders of the electromagnetic spectrum, spinning intricate, invisible threads of data about themselves as they walk and talk throughout the day.

Physicists, urban planners and social scientists are eagerly weaving millions of these electronic threads into patterns of people on the move, through studies that until now were all but impossible.

What makes things possible is that all calls are in the phone companies records: number dialing, number called, minutes spoken. The phone company also knows who owns the calling number, and might known the called number, too.

More than 3.3 billion wireless-phone subscribers world-wide have, in effect, voluntarily adopted devices that record their daily movements in the same way satellite sensors monitor migrating birds, whales, bears and other wildlife. Such precise positioning data, automatically collected by cellphone companies, makes privacy advocates queasy but has social scientists dazzled by the research possibilities.


3.3 billion people voluntarily, perhaps unknowingly or oblivious or indifferent to the consequences of their calling habits being known, allow their privacy to be available. It does, surely, also provide intriguing possibilities.

U.S. Judgment Set Aside Search Rights

It boggles the mind how the Bushies interpreted the law. Yet this one is frightening.

The Justice Department concluded shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks that constitutional protections against unreasonable searches didn't apply to "domestic military operations," according to a recently declassified Justice Department document.

What in hell are "domestic military operations"?

What activities the judgment intended to cover is unknown because the opinion is classified, but the ACLU concluded it related to warrantless surveillance based on information provided in another lawsuit.

Surveillance is a military operation? Perhaps it is conducted by military intelligence?

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the warrantless spying program "relied on a separate set of legal opinions" that have been shared with Congress. Jameel Jaffer, of the ACLU, said Mr. Fratto's explanation raised more questions. "What kind of surveillance program was it meant to justify, then?" he asked. Suzanne Spaulding, a former CIA counsel, said the opinion -- written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo -- may have been designed to permit what might otherwise be considered invasive searches as part of military activities on U.S. soil in response to an attack, given that the administration had concluded the new battlefield now included the U.S.

The US a battlefield? It makes me shudder to contemplate what they have done: operations inside the country are labeled military. Putting the government on a tack of conducting domestic military operations is frightening.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an entry on its website discussing this matter. Does this mean that the Administration's lawyers believed that it could spy on Americans with impunity and face no Fourth Amendment claim? It may, and based on the thinnest of legal claims -- that Congress unintentionally allowed mass surveillance of Americans when it passed the Authorization of Use of Military Force in October 2001. In their arguments on the warrantless surveillance program, they try to portray them as "military" in nature, even though they occurred in the United States, far from the military theater.

Curiouser and curiouser

Curious only begins to describe this. Earlier today the reports had only Obama's file breached; now all three. Smells.

3 Candidates’ Files Breached, State Department Says

Passport files for Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama were improperly accessed, the State Department said.

BBC News

US election rivals files breached

Ms Rice said she would not want her passport file looked at either Condoleezza Rice

The passport files of the three leading US presidential candidates have been improperly accessed, the state department has said.

A state department employee looked at the files of both Republican candidate John McCain and Democratic front-runner Barack Obama, the department said. State department spokesman Sean McCormack said a trainee also accessed Hillary Clinton's file last year. Two state department contractors have been fired and a third disciplined.

The interesting details here are that a trainee and contractors had access to such files.

Working at a cubicle farm

This is how the corporate cubicle office looks:

Doug Benz for The New York Times

Debt collectors working the phones at the Northstar Companies near Buffalo, one of 108 collection agencies that have proliferated in western New York.

Yuck. Been there, done that. Look at the smallness of each cubicle, the proximity of one to another. That makes for virtually no privacy. Making private phone calls is out. Of course, with cellphones now available, one can simply go outside and call one's spouse, lover, child, or recruiter. When I worked in such settings, there were no cellphones. In this case, of having a phone to carry anywhere, progress is good.