[LINK] cops snatching servers and other privacy related matters

Sun Apr 12 11:35:50 AEST 2009

[remember the Wolverine release pre-release date? 
wonder what warrants they had for this and the 
limitations on snooping all the innocents who 
have now been snooped upon by the FBI? At least Hugh should be proud.]

1sockchuck writes "FBI agents have raided a 
Dallas data center, seizing servers at a company 
called Core IP Networks. The company's CEO has 
posted a message saying the FBI confiscated all 
its customer servers, including gear belonging to 
companies that are almost certainly not under 
suspicion. The FBI isn't saying what it's after, 
but there are reports that it's related to video 
piracy, sparking unconfirmed speculation that the 
probe is tied to the leaking of Wolverine."

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/03/231220&from=rss

[nope, not piracy, more like 'thievery', or at least the FBI must think so]
craig writes "CBS11 News reports that the raid on 
Core IP networks is in the result of an 
investigation into unpaid telco access fees paid 
by CLECs and VoIP carriers to terminate calls on 
their networks. They also report that this raid 
is linked to the March 12th raid on Crydon 
Technology's datacenter, which also hosted VOIP 
providers. Anyone in the telco business will tell 
you access fees to other carriers are a total 
mess and lots of carriers have unpaid balances 
out there. It gives you the feeling that the FBI 
is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon."
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/04/2013200&from=rss

[and from my prior home town]
logicassasin sends in a story about a blogger in 
Phoenix, AZ, who runs a site that is critical of 
the local police department. The police recently 
raided his home and seized his computer hardware. 
"Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the 
officers confiscated three computers, routers, 
modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything 
necessary to continue blogging. The 41-year-old 
software engineer said they also confiscated 
numerous personal files and documents relating to 
a pending lawsuit he has against the department 
alleging harassment  which he says makes it 
obvious the raid was an act of retaliation." A 
local publication quotes Pataky saying, "We have 
heard internally from our police sources that 
they purposefully did this to stop me... They 
took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone 
worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/04/1515239&from=rss

And this out of Washington:
a whoabot writes "The San Francisco Chronicle 
reports that the Obama administration has stepped 
in to defend AT&T in the case over their 
participation in the warrantless wiretapping 
program started by Bush. The Obama administration 
argues that that continuation of the case will 
lead to the disclosure of important 'state 
secrets.' The Electronic Frontier Foundation has 
described the action as an 'embrace' of the Bush 
policy." Update: 04/07 15:18 GMT by T : Glenn 
Greenwald of Salon has up an analysis of this 
move, including excerpts from the actual brief 
filed. Excerpt: "This brief and this case are 
exclusively the Obama DOJ's, and the ample time 
that elapsed  almost three full months  makes 
clear that it was fully considered by Obama officials."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/07/1330229&from=rss

This from Canada:
Deep Packet Inspection, or DPI, is at the heart 
of the debate over Network Neutrality  this 
relatively new technology threatens to upset the 
balance of power among consumers, ISPs, and 
information suppliers. An anonymous reader notes 
that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner has 
published a Web site, for Canadians and others, 
to educate about DPI technology. Online are a 
number of essays from different interested 
parties, ranging from DPI company officers to 
Internet law specialists to security 
professionals. The articles are open for 
comments. Here is the CBC's report on the launch."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/07/2059255&from=rss

P2P patterns may be enough to recognise you:
pinguin-geek writes "Researchers at the McCormick 
School of Engineering and Applied Science at 
Northwestern University have identified a new 
'guilt-by-association' threat to privacy in 
peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that would enable an 
eavesdropper to accurately classify groups of 
users with similar download behavior. While many 
have pointed out that the data exchanged over 
these connections can reveal personal information 
about users, the researchers shows that only the 
patterns of connections  not the data itself  
is sufficient to create a powerful threat to user 
privacy. To thwart this threat, they have 
released SwarmScreen, a publicly available, open 
source software that restores privacy by masking 
a user's real download activity in such a manner 
as to disrupt classification."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/09/1310223&from=rss

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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