FC: Norway military and police preparing secret Carnivore system

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 10:37:26 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
To: politech () politechbot com
Cc: pcs () digitoday no
Subject: FC: Norway military and police preparing secret Carnivore system


*********

From: "per christian k stokke" <pcs () digitoday no>
Subject: Norwegian Carnivore / surveillance controversy
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 16:26:42 +0100

Norwegian Carnivore controversy

Norwegian military and police intelligence units have entered into a
secret internet surveillance cooperation with the country's top 15
companies - keeping the national assembly in the dark.

Norway got its own Carnivore controversy Friday, as news service
digitoday.no revealed an Internet surveillance network, the result of
a clandestine cooperation between military and police surveillance
units and Norway's top 15 companies.

News of the project, which is said to be set up to defend national IT
infrastructure from cracking and DoS-attacks, spurred demands for
review of the project from politicians in the Norwegian parliament.

Intelligence honchos confirm that there are plans and talks, but
refuse to go into detail.

"It would be irresponsible of us not to do whatever necessary to
describe any potential threat", said Olav Aune, director of operations
at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence Service (FO/E).
http://www.fo.mil.no/etterretningsstab/index.html Aune wouldn't
comment as to how far in the process they are, but confirmed that
there is a cooperation between military and police intelligence and
the big 15, adding: "I prefer to call it an 'early warning' system".

A source closely involved in setting up the system claims that it's
operational but not yet implemented for large-scale surveillance.

The system consists of network surveillance tools that can reveal
unusual patterns of traffic as well as identify known security threats
like trojans and backdoors based on their 'signatures', much like
common anti-virus software. But such systems can be set up to tap into
the bitstream and check almost anything, according to security sources
- just as FBIs controvercial Carnivore.

Arne Tjemsland, managing director of one of Norway's leading security
companies Sikkerhets Systemer (Security Systems) said that their
system could run checks on all types of content, but that there are a
few limitations, both technical and legal. Sikkerhets Systemer is a
defence contractor, and has delivered similar surveillance systems to
both public institutions and companies.

Police intelligence unit POT http://www.pot.no will issue a press
release next week, according to a spokesperson in the defence
department.

The Justice Department late today (norwegian time) confirmed the
existence of the cooperation. A press release calls the system VDI,
saying its an intrusion detection system that can't and won't be used
to identify attackers.

Former prime minister and leader of the government-appointed
'Vulnerabilities Committee' K?re Willoch said he didn't know of the
initiative until early this week, but lends his support to such
security measures on a general basis.


Articles: 
http://www.digitoday.no/dtno.nsf/wframe/mainstory (in norwegian)
Translation tool available here (does, admittedly, produce some very
strange results at times...)
http://www.translation-experts.com/intert.htm

Call Justice Department press officer Bjorn Tal?n, tlf +47 22 24 51 09
or me (journalist Per Christian Stokke) at 47 982 16 685 for details.

Regards,

per christian k stokke
reporter   digitoday.no
per.christian.stokke () digitoday no
http://digitoday.no
+47 23 08 06 85   +47 982 16 685




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com
---
To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of
"SIGNOFF ISN".