SETI for law enforcement

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Stephen T. Middlebrook" <Stephen.Middlebrook () FMS TREAS GOV>
Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications
<CYBERIA-L () LISTSERV AOL COM>
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:01:48 -0500
To: <CYBERIA-L () LISTSERV AOL COM>
Subject: [CYBERIA] SETI for law enforcement

Today's Washington Post has a really interesting story about how the
Secret Service has linked a number of its desktop computers  to work
together in a distributed manner to help crack encryption schemes used by
criminals.  The system works a bit like SETI.  The article also explains
how difficult it is to break encryption with just brute force and so the
Service scans hard drives and web sites visited etc for keywords to use as
a dictionary in the attack.


DNA Key to Decoding Human Factor
Secret Service's Distributed Computing Project Aimed at Decoding Encrypted
Evidence

"Taking a cue from scientists searching for signs of extraterrestrial life
and mathematicians trying to identify very large prime numbers, the agency
best known for protecting presidents and other high officials is tying
together its employees' desktop computers in a network designed to crack
passwords that alleged criminals have used to scramble evidence of their
crimes -- everything from lists of stolen credit card numbers and Social
Security numbers to records of bank transfers and e-mail communications
with victims and accomplices.
"To date, the Secret Service has linked 4,000 of its employees' computers
into the "Distributed Networking Attack" program. The effort started
nearly three years ago to battle a surge in the number of cases in which
savvy computer criminals have used commercial or free encryption software
to safeguard stolen financial information, according to DNA program
manager Al Lewis."
Full article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6098-2005Mar28.html

stm


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