[66679] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: What's the best way to wiretap a network?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Tue Jan 20 16:19:40 2004
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: William Allen Simpson <wsimpson@greendragon.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:02:05 EST."
<400D9745.76839304@greendragon.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:19:13 -0500
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
In message <400D9745.76839304@greendragon.com>, William Allen Simpson writes:
>
>Eriks Rugelis wrote:
>>
>> On the other hand, if your environment consists of a large number (100's) of
>> potential tapping points, then you will quickly determine that in-line taps
>> have very poor scaling properties.
>> a) They are not rack-dense
>> b) They require external power warts
>> c) They are not cheap (in the range of US$500 each)
>> d) Often when you have that many potential tapping points, you are
>> likely to be processing a larger number of warrants in a year. An in-line
>> tap arrangement will require a body to physically install the recording
>> equipment and cables to the trace-ports on the tap. You may also need to
>> make room for more than one set of recording gear at each site.
>>
>This is a feature, not a bug. Law enforcement is required to pay --
>up front -- all costs of tapping. No pay, no play.
Right, at least in the U.S. See section 4(e) of
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2518.html
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
