[117352] in Cypherpunks
SNET: Computer snooping by Joseph Farah
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vladimir Z. Nuri)
Wed Sep 1 02:32:35 1999
Message-Id: <199909010613.XAA05742@netcom13.netcom.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 99 23:13:14 -0700
From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Reply-To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
From: "Nicky Molloy" <nicola@meridian.net.nz>
Subject: SNET: Computer snooping by Joseph Farah
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 16:18:28 +1200
To: "Adventure Conspiracy" <adventure-conspiracy@onelist.com>, "Jim" <JPKMIB@aol.com>, "SNET" <snetnews@world.std.com>
-> SNETNEWS Mailing List
The latest from Big Brother
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Attorney General Janet Reno, who brought you Waco, has a new plan to protect
the federal government from the people.
She wants the FBI to have the authority to break into the homes of those
suspected of encrypting information on their computers, steal their hard
drives and leave permanent bugging equipment behind. I'm not kidding. That's
the latest Big Brother snooping plan from the Department of Injustice.
What's most interesting about this proposal is not that it represents any
significant breakthrough in the government's ability to snoop on you or me.
The fact of the matter is that the FBI has the means and motive to
accomplish such monitoring activities without entering our homes.
The audacity of this proposal is that it would permit the government to
snoop not on a few select individuals but on a massive number of citizens at
bargain-basement costs "just in case" they might be up to something.
You see, for a long time the technology has existed to pick up computer
screen images and CPU and data transfers from as much as a mile away from
the target using the radiated RF energy generated by a normal PC. The only
problem, from the government's point of view, with such procedures is that
they require a van, personnel, man-hours and about $15,000 worth of
equipment.
The easiest and cheapest way to do long-term surveillance on suspected
"troublemakers" is to break into the home or office, copy the hard drive
with the encrypted data, replace the keyboard connector with a radio
transmitter and wait to capture the keystrokes with the help of a simple
receiver with solid state storage in a telephone box or electric meter.
The total equipment cost, according to one friendly hacker, would be less
than $150. This is obviously a much cheaper method than continuous
monitoring, which easily starts at $100,000 for a typical wiretap and
monitoring personnel.
So, you see, this plan is not intended, as Reno and the FBI would suggest,
to help them monitor the activities of potential terrorists or drug
kingpins. They already have the means to accomplish that. This is a plan to
broaden its surveillance on you, me and everyone else concerned enough about
privacy to use some form of encryption on computer-generated communications.
The first assumption of this crowd in Washington is that people who attempt
to protect their privacy must have something to hide. Their second
assumption is that if they have something to hide, it is the government's
right and duty to find out about it.
This is about power -- the power to intimidate, the power to monitor, the
power to read our very thoughts.
I don't know how any intelligent observer could watch this renegade
government in Washington without concluding that it is making big plans for
massive population control. We're on the verge of a great leap into
authoritarianism. America is not that far from totalitarianism. Fascism is
just an emergency or two away.
There are so many of these Big Brother eavesdropping and surveillance
proposals coming down on us that it is nearly impossible to keep track of
them, let alone mobilize opposition. I believe this is part of a deliberate
strategy to overwhelm and demoralize those of us who are aware enough to
fight back.
Think about it. You know how effective the "scandal fatigue" strategy has
been. So many have given up. So many have lost track. So many have lost
interest. So many have missed the point. We've been overwhelmed with
corruption so thick, you can't see the forest for the trees.
The same is true with corrupt policies designed to curtail our freedom.
Perhaps we will be successful at beating back one or two. But when they are
coming at us by the dozens, what are the chances we as a people can preserve
our freedom?
So what hope is there for us? The only hope is to land a stunning blow to
the forces of creeping fascism. The architects of such plans, not just the
plans themselves, must be laid low.
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A daily radio broadcast adaptation of Joseph Farah's commentaries can be
heard at http://www.ktkz.com/
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-> Posted by: "Nicky Molloy" <nicola@meridian.net.nz>
