FBI seeks huge wiretapping system

In today's San Jose Mercury, online edition. Forgive me if this has already
been passed around.

-=-

FBI seeks huge wiretapping system

BY JOHN MARKOFF

New York Times

The FBI has proposed a national wiretapping system of unprecedented size and
scope that would give law enforcement officials the capacity to monitor
simultaneously as many as one out of every 100 phone lines in some high
crime areas of the country.

Such a surveillance ability would vastly exceed the current needs of law
enforcement officials around the country, who in recent years have conducted
an annual average of less than 850 court-authorized wiretaps -- or fewer
than one in every 174,000 phone lines.

The plan, which needs congressional approval for the money to finance it,
would still require a court warrant to conduct wiretaps. Still, the proposed
expansion of the government's eavesdropping abilities raises questions among
telephone
industry executives as to why the FBI believes it may require such broad
access to the nation's phone network in the future.

And privacy-rights advocates see the specter of a Big Brother surveillance
capability whose very existence might encourage law enforcement officials to
use wiretapping much more frequently as an investigative tool.

``A proposal that envisions some form of electronic surveillance for one of
every 100 telephone lines would be frightening to many people,'' said James
Dempsey, deputy director at the Center for National Security, a public
policy organization in Washington. ``I think law enforcement needs to be
honest with the public about what its intentions are.''

Generally, FBI officials contend that an advanced, high-capacity monitoring
system will be necessary as more of modern life and business -- and crime --
takes place as voice or computer conversations over digital phone lines.

On digital lines, communications are transmitted in electronic pulses
represented by the 1's and 0's of computer code. Such communications are
harder to monitor than with the old-fashioned analog lines in which
conversations are
transmitted as electronic signals corresponding to audible sound waves.

An FBI spokesman declined to elaborate on the bureau's perceived need for
such an expansion of its wiretapping abilities.

``The full implementation is absolutely essential for law enforcement and
public safety,'' said Mike Kortan, an FBI spokesman in Washington. ``We are
in ongoing discussions with the communications industry. Therefore it would be
inappropriate to comment further at this point.''

The plan, which was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 16 but has not
drawn much attention yet outside law enforcement and industry circles, is
the first comprehensive outline by the FBI of the surveillance capabilities
it will require under the controversial Digital Telephony Act that was
signed by President Clinton in 1994.

The law was adopted in the closing hours of the previous Congress after the
administration overcame telephone industry resistance to the extensive
network equipment changes that will be required to permit digital
wiretapping. In order to overcome that opposition, the administration
promised that the government would allocate $500 million to help upgrade
industry networks.

Whether the law will ever go into effect is an open question, because it
requires a federal appropriation, to be paid for out of criminal fines and
penalties, that Congress has not yet authorized. The budget legislation now
pending on Capitol Hill has no proviso for the digital wiretapping money,
although the House budget bill included a wiretapping allocation until last
week.

The House measure was deleted after objections from several freshman
Republicans, including Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, a former federal
prosecutor, who said that he objected to the way the money for wiretapping
would be raised and that he had concerns about how the FBI might use such a
sweeping surveillance ability.

But some lawmakers say the Clinton administration, which has vowed to veto
the current federal budget bill, saw little point in pushing for inclusion
of the financing for the wiretapping at this time.

And others note that money for the digital wiretapping plan, presented as a
tough anti-crime measure, could be difficult for lawmakers of either party
to oppose outright. The FBI and the Clinton administration are expected to
continue seeking funds in the future.

The scope of the FBI plan has startled telephone industry executives, who
said it was difficult to estimate how much it would ultimately cost to carry
out the capacity increases. The officials are worried, however, that if
federal funds are not forthcoming, the government may attempt to shift the
financing burden to the rates that businesses and consumers pay to use the
telephone network.

``The difficulty in this process is going to come down the road when they
ask us to redesign our entire systems and not pay us,'' said Larry Clinton,
associate vice president for governmental affairs at the U.S. Telephone
Association, an
Washington-based industry lobbying group. ``If they try to make rate payers
pay for this we will run into serious and perhaps even constitutional
problems which we hope to avoid.''

The FBI plan, as filed in the Federal Register, calls for designating each
local telephone as falling under one of three categories. Category I would
be made up of urban areas, where most electronic surveillance currently
takes place. In
these regions, telecommunications carriers would be required to make
available up to 1 percent of their network capacity when sought by
law-enforcement officials.

In lower-crime urban and suburban areas, designated Category II, phone
companies would need to make available up to five-tenths of a percent of
their network lines, while the predominantly rural low-crime Category III
areas would require
0.25 percent.

For many of the most densely populated metropolitan areas, like New York,
Los Angeles and Chicago, there are tens of millions of phone lines. The FBI
document contends that in such places, the demands of digital wiretapping
may make it
necessary to intercept tens of thousands of phone calls at once.

Some industry officials said they were at a loss to understand how the
government expected to make use of such requirements. At an industry
gathering last year, telephone industry executives discussing the Digital
Telephony Act could not think of an example of more than seven wiretaps ever
being run from a single phone company office at any one time, according to
Ron Peat, director of federal legislation analysis for the Pacific Telesis
Group, the San Francisco-based regional Bell company.

Some technology experts said that the FBI's projected needs, which the
bureau said were based on historical records and on demographic data and
market forecasts, reflect a growing belief by law enforcement that
electronic surveillance will rapidly increase in importance in the digital
age, where most communications will take place using an array of mobile
computerized devices.

``These are staggering numbers,'' said Mark Rasch, director of information
security law and policy for Science Applications International Corp. in
McLean, Va. ``Either they do a lot more wiretaps than they now admit, or
they plan
on doing a significant larger number of wiretaps in the future because of
the fear of domestic terrorism.''
--
   Jay Campbell                edge@got.net - Operations Manager
   -=-=-=-=-=-=-               Sense Networking, Santa Cruz Node
   Jay@Campbell.net            got.net? PGP MIT KeyID 0xACAE1A89           
 
"On the Information Superhighway, I'm the guy 
  behind you in this morning's traffic jam leaning on his horn."

On this topic...

We had lunch with the deputy director of the NSA yesterday. In between
agreeing to put backdoors in the Internet, help round up subversives and
build a DES cracker :-) the topic of telephone tapping came up.


One point that was quite clear, a lot of what happens in the federal 
government has more to do with the agency structure than common sense.
When the NSA are being asked to comment on an export license they
are being asked "is this thing dangerous", not "should it be exported".
But when the response comes back to commerce "its dangerous" you can 
hardly expect the person on the other end to put their neck out on the
line and risk allowing an export license.

Out another way this is a beuracracy where the objective is to avoid
the negative rather than gamble for a positive. Where risks are taken
they are calculated beuracratic risks.

What is needed is a federal task force to reevaluate the crypto 
export issue. This should look at whether the effect of the embargo
is positive or negative. Of course the result would be known in 
advance but would provide a shield to hide behind. Would be useful
if some other counterproductive policies were re-examined at the same
time, like the persecution of Phil Zimmerman.

On ITAR he did say that the policy met the desired objective. The 
particular objective concerned was not stated however. Probably if
they could tell us the objective we could provide a solution but then
again if they told us it would probably defeat the objective in itself.


On telephone tapping the statement was made that they do not allow 
unauthorized taps and that technology was making wildcat taps by
local officials harder. Which makes sense. If the taps are performed
digitally they should be easier to monitor at a management level.
It is a fair point that just because technology has changed the 
nature of the game it should not mean that wiretaps cease to be 
possible.

What is very odd however is the FBI request for $500 million. This is
a somewhat large quantity of money to say the least. The telephone
switches are programmable these days, it should be possible to 
provide tapping at substantially less cost. Mind you the Federal
government is not known for tight cost control. The NSA reconned that
a DES cracker would cost substantially more than $1 million because
the system costs would be much higher than the component costs.
"And it would only be able to operate on one keystream at once", also
note "DES is used more for authenticity than for confidentialty by
banks". One reading, the NSA can get the info they need at less cost than
breaking DES because the financial feeds are using DES to provide
CBC residues for MACs rather than encryption. Anyway the NSA price 
estimate was "two or more orders of magnitude more in cost". I dispute
that since we brought in the ZEUS trigger system at arround $40 million
five years ago and it is vastly more complex than a DES cracker, this
constitutes a system cost of about ten times the raw component cost.
there was considerably more component diversity and system copmplexity
than any cypher machine would need. The raw input bandwidth of 
6 Terabytes/sec would chew up DEs keyspace very quickly (ie it
is equaivalent to exhausting a 40bit keyspace in a second).

If the NSA want a cheap DES cracker they have my number. I'll take 5%
ot the difference between the actual cost and $100 million (their
estimate of cost) as my fee.


		Phill

hallam@w3.org writes:
>It is a fair point that just because technology has changed the 
>nature of the game it should not mean that wiretaps cease to be 
>possible.

No it isn't.  If someone builds a "cone of silence", traditional audio
surveillance becomes impossible.  Why should wiretaps be any
different?  Strong crypto is the "cone of silence" for digital
transmission.

hallam@w3.org writes:
 > It is a fair point that just because technology has changed the 
 > nature of the game it should not mean that wiretaps cease to be 
 > possible.

I disagree that this is a "fair point".  That wiretaps are possible is
an accident of design.  Just because that slice of the salami appears
gone, I see no reason to concede that it can't be re-attached.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Nobody's going to listen to you if you just | Mike McNally (m5@tivoli.com) |
| stand there and flap your arms like a fish. | Tivoli Systems, Austin TX    |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mike McNally writes:
> 
> hallam@w3.org writes:
>  > It is a fair point that just because technology has changed the 
>  > nature of the game it should not mean that wiretaps cease to be 
>  > possible.
> 
> I disagree that this is a "fair point".  That wiretaps are possible is
> an accident of design.  Just because that slice of the salami appears
> gone, I see no reason to concede that it can't be re-attached.

Indeed, I have searched both the constitution and my collected works
of Nietzsche and found no reference to the inalienable right of
governments to listen in on any conversations, let alone the 1% of
conversations the FBI wants access to. By the way, I believe the
quantity in question exceeds the quantity tapped by the East German
government at its height -- certainly it does if you take into account
the fact that phones were more scarce there.

Thank you, Louis Freeh, for taking another step towards the police state.

Perry

>Indeed, I have searched both the constitution and my collected works
>of Nietzsche and found no reference to the inalienable right of
>governments to listen in on any conversations, let alone the 1% of
>conversations the FBI wants access to. 

Nietzsche is not a recognised authority on the US consititution nor
are his works on ethical systems particularly definitive. At best he
points out the deficencies in the ethical systems of Kant and hints
at a limitation of reasoned approaches to ethics. His ethics of
Will are hardly a fully finished system of ethics. If you want a 
contemporary system of ethics you would find Rorty, Habbermass or
Singer a far better choice.

Even within the Nietzschian system of ethics it is very clear that 
listening in on the telephone conversations of "the botched and the
bungled" would lie well within the rights of super-man. Indeed he
is very explicit that there is no logical need for these people to
have rights of any sort. Their lives are at the disposal of the great
leader.

The justification the NSA relies upon is the fact of a Federal law 
that makes it lawful to conduct wiretaps. I think the FBI have gone 
off into gaga land with the magnitude of their request. This is a good
thing. They are not likely to get anything as a result. 


	Phill

hallam@w3.org writes:
> 
> >Indeed, I have searched both the constitution and my collected works
> >of Nietzsche and found no reference to the inalienable right of
> >governments to listen in on any conversations, let alone the 1% of
> >conversations the FBI wants access to. 
> 
> Nietzsche is not a recognised authority on the US consititution nor
> are his works on ethical systems particularly definitive.

I was being facetious. The point is that the government has no
inherent right to tap our phones -- indeed, it didn't do so for nearly
the first 200 years of our existance, and we did just fine -- better,
in fact. Who among us has felt SAFER since they gained the ability?
Has anyone been feeling more and more safe with time, since the more
and more draconian laws granting the government more and more
authority should have been "fixing" things, right?

> Even within the Nietzschian system of ethics it is very clear that 
> listening in on the telephone conversations of "the botched and the
> bungled" would lie well within the rights of super-man. Indeed he
> is very explicit that there is no logical need for these people to
> have rights of any sort. Their lives are at the disposal of the great
> leader.

Actually, thats a complete misinterpretation of Nietzsche, but thats
another story.

Perry

Today's (11/2) NYT carries a Markoff story on The 1% Solution at the top 
left of the front page. The article mentions that the DT appropriation has 
been cut out of the current budget bill (last week ?). It points out that 
since the White House officially plans to veto the current bill anyway, 
they're unlikely to waste too much effort on sticking things into it.

Supposedly they want three zones of wiretap capability: (roughly) 1% in 
cities, 0.5% in suburbs, 0.25% in the country.

We've discussed the grave concern that digital equipment makes everything
much easier to handle. I would like to know what sort of technological 
assurances we could possibly obtain that the arbitrary 1%/0.5%/0.25% figures
couldn't trivially be bumped up to, say, 10%/5%/2.5% with a little bit of
programming. Is this a legitimate worry ?  If the FBI gets its way on this,
how far will we be from the day when 1% is merely a parameter in a wiretap
control program ?  

I don't know enough about telephone switches etc. (digital or otherwise) to
know whether this is just idle speculation.

-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>