[814] in libertarians
Re: packet sniffers & their ilk
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mitchell Trott)
Thu Mar 16 15:46:46 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Mar 1995 10:34:50 EST."
<9503161534.AA19567@m66-080-6.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: trott@lids.mit.edu
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 15:44:17 -0500
From: Mitchell Trott <trott@lids.mit.edu>
>>>>> Operator writes:
>> (Prof. Trott--I've heard you have an interested in computer
>> security issues and are also a systems admin--please contribute!)
I hesitate to do so, having little expertise in the legal issues
involved. Nor am I in any way an official representative of MIT.
Finally, I'm not a member of the mailing list, so I'm not sure of the
context of the discussion. Still, as a professor, I like to hear
myself talk, so here goes.
>> What sort of packet sniffing--intended to violate student's privacy
>> rather than to merely break into the system--can be done on Athena?
Most machines at MIT are connected to insecure physical networks.
Certainly my own subnet (building 35) has many easily-compromised
non-athena machines that could be (and may well be) monitoring all
local network traffic, including traffic from athena machines.
It is fairly easy to filter for interesting messages. It would
take some work to install a sniffer on every MIT subnet, however.
>> Is it possible that MIT deans might recruit or employ hackers [...]
>> to penetrate the files/communications of students subject to COD
>> action, involved in rough readmission cases, etc.?
This is paranoid. I have no knowledge of this ever happening, and I'm
highly doubtful that it would happen for an internal MIT matter. But
I'm not in a position to know.
However, it might well happen that an outside agency could ask MIT for
some form of wiretapping. Again, I've never heard of this, but it is
probably just a matter of time before it happens. My limited
experience with universities (Stanford, MIT) suggests that they are
motivated by:
1) Maintenance of good public relations
2) Retention of government funding
Secondary motivations include
3) justice
4) protection of personal liberty
These days, universities work hard to maintain the appearance of being
law-abiding, at least in cases where there is even a small chance that
items (1) and (2) could be involved. This usually has a positive
effect on (3) and (4), to the extent that our legal system is just.
On the other hand, when pressed, they tend to retreat to the narrow
letter of the law. Then items (3) and (4) may suffer.
My feeling is that a university, like most large organizations, would
respond without question to a legal wiretap or search request.
If you care deeply about privacy, don't use email, and don't save
private files to any machine connected to the network. Encrypting
files is not of much help. These are the standard instructions I give
all users of my system. Even if you keep personal information
physically isolated, it can still be seized in a police search. So,
if you want to be safe, don't store any kind of document, written or
electronic, that could incriminate you in some unforeseen scandal.
But this is obvious.
- Mitch
