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FBI's Wiretap Platform Unveiled
Carnivore is a total wimp...

Wired News has an interesting read on a significant new surveillance platform being used by the FBI. Discovered via redacted documents obtained by FOIA requests, the system is dubbed DCSNet (Digital Collection System Network), and performs "instant wiretaps on almost any communications device."


With the use of a snazzy GUI, DCSNet is tightly woven into the nation's communications infrastructure, connecting FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional landline operators, VoIP providers and wireless companies:
quote:
FBI endpoints on DCSNet have swelled over the years, from 20 "central monitoring plants" at the program's inception, to 57 in 2005, according to undated pages in the released documents. By 2002, those endpoints connected to more than 350 switches. Today, most carriers maintain their own central hub, called a "mediation switch," that's networked to all the individual switches owned by that carrier, according to the FBI.
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An interesting side note from Wired's Threat Level blog is that Cox is one of the only truly transparent operators when it comes to wiretaps:
quote:
Among the things that didn't make it into the final piece is that Cox is the only major telecom company to publicly publish its forms and fees for wiretaps. That documentation, which doesn't reveal any national secrets, should be on every telecom's website, in interests of transparency. Unfortunately, none of the largest wireless carriers do so, nor [did] they, with the notable exception of AT&T, [respond] to requests for comments on the story.
The public also recently caught a glimpse of an FBI-developed stealth PC spyware dubbed CIPAV. Hopefully, these systems work better than the $581 million software money pit that was highly ridiculed in 2005.

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GNShell
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GNShell

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Does everyone have the memory and forsight of a gold fish?

They don't have the technology, they said...
They don't have any reason to spy on anybody but foreigners, they said...
They are doing it to protect our freedoms, they said....
The next administration will fix the last administrations mistakes (said every election year), they said....
America will be great again one day, they said....
Tin foil this, tin foil that, they said.....

Which administration was responsible for legalizing domestic spying again? How many years did it take to create such an infrastructure again? How many different administration over these many decades or so abused these powers again? The elites are important to this country for what again?