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What Can Carnivore/DCS1000 Do?

EPIC- The Electronic Privacy Information Center has aggressively sought out information about Carnivore via the Freedom of Information Act. Click here to see their extensive Carnivore focus area.

The following was written before much of EPIC's material was made available. Most of the conjecture and assumptions below have been borne out by the documentation released by the FBI to EPIC:

The FBI has been reluctant to disclose many details about the Carnivore/DCS1000 spy tool which has been in use since early 2000, but what is known is this:

  • Carnivore/DCS1000 is a combination of hardware and software, which can "sniff" (read or scan) all electronic packets that are sent to and from the ISP (Internet Service Provider) where it is installed.
  • With this info, Carnivore/DCS1000 can, theoretically:
    • Read all incoming and outgoing e-mails, including sender, recipient(s), message subject and body;
    • Monitor the web-surfing and downloading habits of all the ISP's customers, including web searches for information or people;
    • Monitor and/or read all other electronic activity for that ISP- including instant messages (such as with ICQ), person-to-person file transfers, web publishing, FTP, Telnet, newsgroups, online purchases, and anything else that is routed through that ISP;

What Carnivore/DCS1000 Could Do:

That's what Carnivore/DCS1000 can do when installed at a single ISP.

But what happens if Carnivore/DCS1000 goes unchecked, and gets installed at most or all ISPs? All that would take is for the FBI to justify one Carnivore-based investigation at each ISP. This could happen within a year or two if left unchecked. Let's look at what it could mean if Carnivore/DCS1000, and the FBI, were installed at all ISPs in the US:

The biggest threat would be the FBI's new ability to mandate Internet law. One of the great powers of the Internet is the fact that it exists beyond the control of any one person or agency. Almost all efforts to introduce Internet legislation has either been defeated or postponed, usually because enforcement is found to be impractical. Also, any activity that the U.S. might try to prohibit can still be conducted in another country with different laws, and, through the Internet, can still be accessed by Americans.

The Communications Decency Act (basically a censorship law) provoked such a massive e-protest that it was largely abandoned. Internet gambling, online auctions, and music sharing have all largely avoided regulation, because lawmakers know that if you ban it in one place on the 'Net, it will just show up somewhere else.

Carnivore/DCS1000 could change all that. With Carnivore/DCS1000 installed at all U.S. ISPs, the FBI could  (for example):

  • Ban any language or content found to be objectionable, by interception, deletion, or alteration.
  • Monitor the country's communications, and target any person who was found or suspected to be a "problem." The judge of who or what is a "problem"?: the FBI.
  • Invoke mandatory standards for web sites, such as a rating system (like with movies), or lowering security standards (like prohibiting encrypted messages and secure private web sites).
  • Shut down or shut off the communications of any one person, website, company, or ISP. As columnist Robert Cringely put it, they could "Shut the Internet down."

Many people would like to believe the best about our Government, and assume that they wouldn't do such a thing. But most of the efforts by the U.S. Government to control the Internet have failed, not because they didn't want to make the law, but because the nature of the Internet (free and fluid) wouldn't allow it.

Carnivore/DCS1000 will change that, if we don't take action now.

The United States is home to the vast majority of Internet traffic. AOL alone has over 50 million users, and the number of e-mail accounts in the U.S. has been reported as over 300 million. Most of this country's residents use the Internet is some way, and moreso as time goes on.

What's more, communications technology is converging in such a way that traditional technologies, like phone, radio, cable TV, satellite, and wireless, are all becoming part of the Internet. More and more of our communications are sent over the Internet every single day, and the day will come when the Internet will be the transmission tool for virtually all communications (aside from "live," in-person talking). The U.S. is positioned to be the major provider of these services, for its own people, and the rest of the world.

A few years down the road, when your phone company, your cable TV provider, radio stations, and cell phone company are all part of your "ISP", and Carnivore/DCS1000 is installed there, the FBI will have exclusive control of what you can and can't watch, say, or do while using these technologies. And if you happen to say, or read, or watch something that raises their suspicion (like, say, shopping for hemp clothing, or saying you hate something, or advocating drug legalization), you could very well find yourself being served with a search warrant, by people very much like the ones that seized Elian Gonzales from his Miami relatives.

If that's not something you want to look forward to, then take action now, and let's get together and Stop Carnivore!

 

Take Action -- What is Carnivore? -- What Can Carnivore Do? -- Why Is it Bad? -- News About Carnivore -- Stop Carnivore Home Page - - Contact Us -- Check Your ISP for Carnivore
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For more information, contact Lance Brown at lance@futuresolutions.org or 530-274-2474