Carnivore was a software program used by the FBI to intercept email and internet traffic for collecting evidence against crimes. It monitored packets passing through an ISP server and logged those that matched certain criteria. Critics argued that it infringed on privacy rights. The program was replaced by DSC-1000, which is a suite of three programs collectively known as the DragonWare Suite. The US government is moving towards legally requiring ISPs to retain all data on all individuals for up to two years, which privacy advocates oppose.
Carnivore is a proprietary software program formerly used by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to surreptitiously intercept email and Internet traffic. Its publicly stated purpose was to collect incriminating evidence against child pornography, suspected terrorists, online fraud and other crimes. In 2005, it was widely reported that Carnivore was being replaced by commercially available software. Carnivore was allegedly used to monitor traffic on some Internet Service Provider (ISP) servers between the late 1990s and 2005. While the government has been reluctant to discuss the specifics of Carnivore, some facts have been fairly well established.
Carnivore was a “packet sniffer” designed to read headers when passing packets of information. Headers include sender/recipient information, among other details. By scanning all packets passing through an ISP server, Carnivore could use a filtering system to automatically copy and log all packets that matched certain criteria. The criteria, based on identification, could concern some or all of an individual’s online communications. Data packets that didn’t activate the filter would simply go through without being processed.
News of Carnivore eventually leaked to meet negative public response. In press releases, Donald Kerr, deputy director of the FBI, stressed that the FBI follows protocols that first require a subpoena or warrant based on reasonable suspicion before tapping an individual’s online communications. Again, a warrant could be limited to specific emails or certain websites. However, insurers have done little to allay public concerns, especially those of privacy advocates.
Carnivore’s critics have argued that its implementation of monitoring all traffic packets on a server or network could be too easily misused or abused to infringe on the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens. Add to this the lack of oversight of the Carnivore program, as the very nature of the FBI precludes independent oversight. These concerns remain today.
Carnivore is a third generation program, with an earlier incarnation (1997-1999) called Omnivore. Once Carnivore received such negative press, the FBI once again changed the name of the electronic eavesdropping program to the less threatening DSC-1000. The acronym reportedly stands for “Digital Collection System.”
DSC-1000 is actually a suite of three programs, of which Carnivore is one. The other two programs are Packeteer and CoolMiner. While there has never been an official word on Packeteer or CoolMiner’s functions, it is generally believed that Carnivore trapped packets of data, Packateer reassembled them, and CoolMiner ran analyzes on the resulting information. The suite is collectively known as the DragonWare Suite.
If some lawmakers have their way, packet sniffers could soon become useless to law enforcement. The US government is moving towards legally requiring ISPs to retain all data on all individuals for up to two years. This proposition, formally known as “data retention,” is also commonly referred to as ISP snooping. If ISP snooping becomes law, every user’s online activities, including emails, websites visited, programs downloaded, and other communications, will become an integral part of a massive database for law enforcement use.
Although privacy advocates oppose data retention for many reasons, the European Union passed similar laws in December 2005, which are expected to take effect in 2008. With the prospect of having such massive databases with such detailed information on the history For every citizen online, the potential for security breaches and abuses is staggering. Some even argue that if there’s anything good to be said about data retention, it might just be that it makes Carnivore seem tame.
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