More on Cisco Building Surveillance into Routers 469
An anonymous reader writes "The company recently published a proposal that describes how it plans to embed 'lawful interception' capability into its products. Among the highlights: Eavesdropping 'must be undetectable,' and multiple police agencies conducting simultaneous wiretaps must not learn of one another. If an Internet provider uses encryption to preserve its customers' privacy and has access to the encryption keys, it must turn over the intercepted communications to police in a descrambled form." See our earlier story and the RFC for background.
Another strike against Cisco. (Score:5, Informative)
Now I certainly feel justified in moving my company off of Cisco's overpriced products.
Lawmeme also covering this story (Score:5, Informative)
sPh
Re:Big brother (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Another strike against Cisco. (Score:1, Informative)
No (Score:5, Informative)
This software can already be bought (Score:3, Informative)
This concept isn't new. (Score:5, Informative)
I get what you are saying, but this is not a new concept. I used to work for a big cell-phone maker, in the cellular software division. I saw preliminary information about a wiretap project that would allow the carrier to intercept, log, and reroute calls if told to do so by some authorized government agency. I have no doubts this is possible, because we were working on real-time systems. To do it would take a second or two at most. I don't know what ever happened to that project, it kind of faded away and our department didn't actually work on it. But this was back in '94, so I am sure something similar has been implemented somewhere.
This isn't new, we are just able to find out about things like this now because of the internet. As much as we don't want "our" technology mucked with by the government, I think it is going to be tough to prevent.
What's being discussed IS teh 'Evil Bit'. [n/t] (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Another strike against Cisco. (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, like who? Who else makes equipment as dependable, and most especially, has the most kick-ass support I've ever come across.
True story:
I once had a router go out on me, a little 1600. Being clueless (well, mostly harmless as Mr. Adams would say) about em, I could telnet it and see that the flash memory had gone bad. I was freaked and has no idea how to fix it. As a last resort I called up Cisco, knowing I was going to be reamed for not having a contract.
After explaining my situation, the guy on the other end started walking me through fixing the problem. This is all fine and good, and I waited for one of those Okay-Now-We're-Going-To-Get-Paid breaks where they'll cut off support until you give them a credit card number. I've ran into these kinds of hiccups before, specifically with Symantec support.
But that moment never came. I kept waiting on it and during a file transfer, a new memory image which he made specifically for this problem and had given me a ftp user/pass to use in which to download it, I asked him how we should work out the payment for this call.
He responded: "No, that's okay. You bought our products and this call can demonstrate what kind of support you would get if you purchase a support contract with us."
Within 45 minutes of picking up the phone, my router was fixed and worked perfectly. He also guided me through backup and restore procedures, and some helpful hints in getting my CCNA.
We bought a 3 year contract with them the next day.
Now you tell me where you can get that kind of support and reliability. Do I agree with this being a terrible thing? Of course. But don't knock their equipment or their service. Top notch all the way.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
phones (Score:5, Informative)
Virtually all phone calls (cellular and land line) in America run through certain switches controlled by Verint [verintsystems.com] and they are always used by law enforcement for wiretapping (and are constantly accused of abusing their authority). (Google [google.com] for Comverse, the company's name before the recent change to Verint.)
Re:Another strike against Cisco. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:As bad as it sounds, it IS their product (Score:1, Informative)
Why does this suprise anyone? (Score:2, Informative)
this is an improvement, because... read more (Score:2, Informative)
When we first started talking, some engineers said, "Let's turn this on and use that." I said, "Heavens no, if we can narrow the range of information, let's do it."
CISCO Port SPAN [cisco.com]. This is what he is refering to. They can currently trap all the packets. This new technology will allow them to select a smaller subset of packets to capture...
This is still scary stuff, and will lead to other new encrypted VOIP stuff that is not built around Cisco hardware, but sending packets themselves, encrypted...
intercept this (Score:2, Informative)
Also, look at products like those offered by startups including CloudShield -www.cloudshield.com - these boxes when used with or within Cisco/Juniper/Avici/Procket/Caspian routers will make such 'intercepts' much more powerful. then all one needs is googling capabilities built in and voila.... sharks riding on elephants with frickiN laser beams on their heads....
Re:Big brother (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, I'll just have to wait for my legislators [theonion.com] to be replaced.
Re:Big brother (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Big brother (Score:3, Informative)
*uncomfortable cough*
I'm not American, but I don't need to pick up a gun... Canada has had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms [laurentia.com] for many years.
The US deserves a *ton* of respect for its pioneering work in this area... but much of the developed world has caught up or [idg.net] arguably [epic.org] surpassed [educause.edu] it [epic.org].