FBI gets new hacking tools - any ideas? (fwd)

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:28:47 -0700
To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
From: mech () eff org (Stanton McCandlish)
Subject: FBI gets new hacking tools - any ideas?

Got a call from a journo, Michelle Quinn of San Jose Mercury News
(+1 408 920 5749, mquinn () sjmercury com) relating to info they obtained
from the court in the case of US v. Patrick Naughton.  The case
revolves around a programmer type (Naughton) who allegedly crossed
state lines with intent to engage in sex with a minor (this was
another of those cases where the "minor" was a FBI agent, so it's
questionable whether any crime was committed at all; looks like
entrapment).  After a bit of a court fight, Naughton agreed to
capitulate to a greatly reduced sentence (no prison time), in exchange
for creating 5 pieces of software for the FBI.

The court document is 20+ pages, *compeletely* redacted with black pen
other than a single paragraph, which says that these are tools the FBI
did not yet have, and that they consist of:

* "IP number capturing" software
* "chat monitoring" software
* "image matching" software
* "steganography detection" software
* a "framework for a program" to enable remotely searching subjects' PCs.

Any of these could raise some obvious concerns.  I'm curious if anyone
might have a clear idea what "image matching software" is, and whether
"steganography detection software" is even feasible and what one might
do to defeat it.  The others are fairly obivious in both intent and
viability.

I'm expecting a fax of the relevant part of the document shortly, and
will put it up on our web site at:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/

Filename to be determined; it'll be at the top of the index.  May take
a while to get it - the reporter's on deadline. That said, she'd
probably appreciate any additional info if anyone has any.


--
Stanton McCandlish      mech () eff org       http://www.eff.org/~mech
Online Communications Director/Webmaster, Electronic Frontier Foundation
voice: +1 415 436 9333 x105   fax: +1 415 436 9993

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