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Re: [h2o-discuss] Echelon
At 11:44 -0500 on 11/22/99, Robert S. Thau spake about Re:
[h2o-discuss] Echelon:
>BTW, early published reports I've read have stated outright that
>ECHELON *does* intercept Internet traffic --- see, for instance,
>
> http://www.pathfinder.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,27293,00.html
but not ALL Internet traffic. That June new report had some
non-sequiturs in it. I would be appalled if our intelligence agencies
did not monitor some international traffic, exactly as I suspect they
monitor some international mail and parcel post. As always it is a
question of who, how, why, and with what safeguards against abuse.
>The "critical junctions on the Internet" alluded to in the story
>are presumably large NAPs such as MAE-West and MAE-East.
Early reports mentioned 6 or 7 junctions being monitored world-wide
(at least including Germany and Australia, as well as the UK & US. No
one has yet advised which junctions, and what sort of traffic goes
though them, which is the kind of information that would let citizens
judge what class of commerce is being sniffed, and whether the
question affects the average individual. We may hope that such
information will be forthcoming.
I have been concerned that some alarmist (the Waco/Ruby Ridge/Mont.
Freemen claque) groups are trying to say that every email message
there ever was was monitored, including for example, my e-mail to &
from my wife at her college in this town, which likely never leaves
the local copper-wire exchanges (traceroutes have always been
strictly local). I believe that such reports are a gross exaggeration
and threaten in their falsity to divert the inquiry into the wrong
area, with which such questions I sure do not trust Bob Barr to have
the right sense of relevance.
If there is a problem, and there very well may be, we need to
quantify and describe it accurately, so that we may correct it
surgically, and not throw out some baby with the bath water. I do not
care a wit for the privacy of foreign intelligence services, nor for
the privacy of international heroin vendors. On the other hand, the
government has no business monitoring this list, or my e-mail to my
clients.
Thanks.
Ted
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