IP: more on EARTHLINK SAYS IT WON'T INSTALL DEVICE FOR FBI: Edupage, 14 July 2000

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: Joe McGuckin <joe () via net>
> Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 17:26:18 -0700 (PDT)
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> This begs the question: How many national ISP's *have* installed
> Carnivore and haven't publically disclosed the fact?
>
> Apparently Earthlink didn't willingly agree to install Carnivore, the
> SF Examiner mentioned that Earthlink lost a federal court case
> and then subsequently tried to install Carnivore.
>
> The SF Examiner mentioned that there was an operating system incompatability
> with the Carnivore software. So now I'm wondering - Is Carnivore a software
> package that get's installed on your mail servers? Or is it a box that
> snoops SNMP traffic when placed on the same subnet as your mail servers ?
> (If so, this would seem to indicate that you can't use ethernet switches to
> connect key ISP infrastructure equipment together, reducing the security
> level and reliability of key services like email and netnews. A large step
> backwards.)
>
> Are ISP's going to be forced to use an OS of the FBI's choosing to facilitate
> the governments surveillance goals? I for one, sincerely hope they do not
> choose NT or Win2K!
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joe McGuckin
>
> ViaNet Communications
> 994 San Antonio Road
> Palo Alto, CA  94303
>
> Phone: 650-969-2203
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