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Is it so unreasonable for the FBI to want to be able to 'wiretap' a facebook conversation, with a warrant, as easily as they can do so to a traditional phone li

by Ntrails 14y ago

Is it so unreasonable for the FBI to want to be able to 'wiretap' a facebook conversation, with a warrant, as easily as they can do so to a traditional phone line? This is not to say I approve of the idea of an insecure back door into my online behaviours, more that I wonder whether there is not at least some validity in their desire to replicate land line style monitoring for currently untraceable online communications.

bediger4000 14y ago
Yes, it's unreasonable. Asking to make a TCP/IP/SMTP communication traceable in the same sense as a land-line is traceable ignores the underlying technology. It's like trying to schedule automobile rides the same way that steam-engine trains got scheduled in 1905. I suppose that a very powerful, very organized agency could accomplish such scheduling, but at a very large cost, and by making automobile rides far less convenient and efficient.
- Ntrails 14y ago
  I thought this was about monitoring rather than tracing?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - bediger4000 14y ago
    Agreed. I got thrown by the use of "traceable" in the parent to my comment. But I think the point still stands. Asking to monitor cross-country TCP/IP connections (multiple routes, relaying, etc etc) is still ignoring the underlying technology. Not to mention ignoring the market. Where "The Bell System" used to be a nearly monolithic phone company (with pockets of GTE), anyone can make an app. And you really can't tell well-compressed data from encrypted data without a lot of effort.
fiatmoney 14y ago
That's possible today, and even easier than tapping a phone conversation since Facebook stores the content of the communication essentially forever and is more than happy to turn over their data pursuant to a warrant. That's not what's being talked about here.
mikeash 14y ago
They can desire it all they want, but is it worth the costs? Keep in mind that it's a radically different environment. Phone lines are easily tappable because the phone system is fundamentally insecure. The police generally obtained cooperation from phone companies for taps simply because it's easier. Phones that could do secure end-to-end communication basically didn't exist. Compare with the modern internet, where secure end-to-end communication is easy to accomplish and requires no cooperation from the parties involved in transmitting the message. This is totally different from before, when the police could just go have a friendly chat with the phone company. Now they need to get access to at least one end of the communication in order to eavesdrop reliably. This is vastly more onerous than the previous regime, even if their ultimate goal is the same.

by Ntrails 14y ago

bediger4000 14y ago

Yes, it's unreasonable. Asking to make a TCP/IP/SMTP communication traceable in the same sense as a land-line is traceable ignores the underlying technology. It's like trying to schedule automobile rides the same way that steam-engine trains got scheduled in 1905. I suppose that a very powerful, very organized agency could accomplish such scheduling, but at a very large cost, and by making automobile rides far less convenient and efficient.

Ntrails 14y ago
I thought this was about monitoring rather than tracing?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bediger4000 14y ago
  Agreed. I got thrown by the use of "traceable" in the parent to my comment. But I think the point still stands. Asking to monitor cross-country TCP/IP connections (multiple routes, relaying, etc etc) is still ignoring the underlying technology. Not to mention ignoring the market. Where "The Bell System" used to be a nearly monolithic phone company (with pockets of GTE), anyone can make an app. And you really can't tell well-compressed data from encrypted data without a lot of effort.

fiatmoney 14y ago

That's possible today, and even easier than tapping a phone conversation since Facebook stores the content of the communication essentially forever and is more than happy to turn over their data pursuant to a warrant. That's not what's being talked about here.

mikeash 14y ago

They can desire it all they want, but is it worth the costs? Keep in mind that it's a radically different environment. Phone lines are easily tappable because the phone system is fundamentally insecure. The police generally obtained cooperation from phone companies for taps simply because it's easier. Phones that could do secure end-to-end communication basically didn't exist. Compare with the modern internet, where secure end-to-end communication is easy to accomplish and requires no cooperation from the parties involved in transmitting the message. This is totally different from before, when the police could just go have a friendly chat with the phone company. Now they need to get access to at least one end of the communication in order to eavesdrop reliably. This is vastly more onerous than the previous regime, even if their ultimate goal is the same.