New spychief: Government must be able to read ALL INFO crossing Internet!

[MikeWB]

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/13/d...nto-cyberspace/

Quote:Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace
Siobhan Gorman reports on the U.S. spychief.


Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Part of the lawmakers’ ire, they have said, is the paltry information the administration has provided. The cyberspace security initiative was first reported in September by The Baltimore Sun, and some congressional aides say that lawmakers have still learned more from the media than they did from the few Top Secret briefings they have received hours before the administration requested money in November to jump start the program.

In a series of interviews that began in July, McConnell also weighs in on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In the past six years, McConnell says, U.S. intelligence agencies have stopped “many, many” terrorist attacks. But his deputy David Shedd says that in the search for America’s most-wanted terrorist, “the trail is cold.” McConnell says that while bin Laden is believed to be in the tribal region of Pakistan, the U.S. will not invade the country to chase him down. You cannot indiscriminately attack a sovereign nation,” he says, adding, though, that if the U.S. can pinpoint his location, “we’ll bring it to closure.”

On interrogation policy, McConnell said he reviewed the secret U.S. policy on interrogation and evaluated it with the advice of the doctors who oversee the process. “Our policies are not torture,” he said, defining torture as “excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain.”

Asked specifically about waterboarding, McConnell appears to suggest waterboarding would be torture, but he then backtracks.

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful!” McConnell says. “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.” Asked later about that comment, McConnell says he did not mean to suggest he personally condemned it. “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,” he says. “I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning.” Yet McConnell declined to be more specific, because “if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it.”

On McConnell’s apparent equivocation on waterboarding, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said in a statement today that, McConnell’s comments amount to “a very strong endorsement of the value of CIA’s detention and interrogation program,” noting that McConnell also said the interrogation program has saved “tons” of lives. Mansfield added that the procedures have been deemed lawful by the Department of Justice, approved by the National Security Council, and shared with congressional intelligence committees.

McConnell, a South Carolina native, also reveals that he fancies himself a fabulous dancer

[LoopRadar]

I think it's part PSYOP, to condition and harass people.
Besides, it just won't work!

EDIT: http://www.torproject.org/torusers.html.en See? It doesn't work...! :laugh:

LR

[nataraja]

we discussed the full scale monitoring of the interweb the other night on irc.

its possible and likely that they monitor some of the major nodes, but due to the large amount of isps and smaller nodes its impossible to monitor them all, but unfortunatly the way the internet works most of the traffic is routed automatically through the major nodes.

although the nsa or cia might have tech thats more sofisticated than the mainstream its unlikely that they have the resources to actually monitor the internet in real time, there is just too much data and too many people.

thats why they are pushing for more and more internet regulation, if they had it monitored already they wouldnt bother.

edit: oh and tor has proven to be unaffective as people have traced packets through tor and intercepted conversations from foreign leaders communications.

we need to start making our own internet, the technology is there.

[LoopRadar]

Quote:edit: oh and tor has proven to be unaffective as people have traced packets through tor and intercepted conversations from foreign leaders communications.

we need to start making our own internet, the technology is there.

Sounds like a myth. It's called encryption and to find or trace, let alone crack the communication " from foreign leaders" sounds like a wet dream. Not reality.
Tor is our own internet. Hello?

[nataraja]

no its not, tor works off the same infrastructure that is THE internet

see link: http://lwn.net/Articles/249388/ & http://pcworld.about.com/od/emailsecurity/...ted-embassy.htm

[LoopRadar]

Quote:no its not, tor works off the same infrastructure that is THE internet

see link: http://lwn.net/Articles/249388/ & http://pcworld.about.com/od/emailsecurity/...ted-embassy.htm

Quote:Tor is better in that regard, perhaps, because all but the last leg (which, of course, traverses any number of routers) are encrypted. If an encrypted protocol, SSL or an ssh tunnel for example, were used end-to-end, Egerstad's monitoring would not have worked. With proper certificate/key handling, no intermediate node, Tor or router, can decrypt the traffic.

Quote:But although traffic between nodes in a Tor network is encrypted by default, traffic entering and exiting the system is not, so anyone wanting to hide not only who are they are communicating with, but what they are saying, must apply an extra layer of encryption themselves. Embassies and companies neglected to do this, which left their information open for Egerstad to collect.

If your ignorant, as those embassy sys-admins obviously are, of course you'll get f****.

Quote:no its not, tor works off the same infrastructure that is THE internet

:smile:
So, you wanna start rolling out some new cable then?

LR

[Spoox]

sry i haven't read the whole article...

The whole concept of the idea that they could follow and observe ALL INFO crossing the internet - in real time... is really disturbing

Yet I am very disturbed not because of the government, but the people who are buying this.

Do you have any idea how much information is travelling across the net each moment!?!

And to catch all of this info in the same moment... not to mention decryption of some information... it's completely impossible.

And before some smartass attacks me back - How much do you know about technology? Obviously nothing if you're willing to believe this crap. Ask anyone who knows something about computers... they'll tell you the same