ATS: Possible first published use of Carnivore!

A 25-year-old man, Thomas Ray, was released on 10,000 bail after pleading not guilty to attempting to extort Best Buy. Thomas had sent Best Buy threatening e-mails that he would expose "critical weaknesses" of their security systems unless they paid him $2.5 million. With the aid of a Federal search warrant, and Best Buy's cooperation, the FBI was able to use a device they called, and "Internet Protocol Address Verifier" that quickly identified Ray as the sender of the threatening e-mails under the pseudonym of "Jamie Weathersby, IPC Corp." www.startribune.com... Paul Luehr, Assistant U.S. Attorney, said the "address verifier" was on of several investigative tools that were used to track Ray down.

What a bufoon! ALL he had to do was do his original email from a library in another town then use different PUBLIC computers for all the followups...

Sounds like this carnivore is a pretty robust peice of software. Do we know anything more about it?

PEACE...
m...

Try hardware packing some intense software. I know I have read about it here on ATS somewhere...must do a search.

Found;

Originally posted by ADVISOR
Carnivore System, is the FBIs internet wiretap system.
Carnivore is attached either when law enforcement has court order under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) permitting it to intercept in real time the contents of the electronic communications of a specific individual, or allowing it to obtain the "numbers" related to communications from or to a specified target.
Unlike a tradional wiretap of a conventional phone line, Carnivore gives the FBI access to all traffic over the ISPs network, not just the Communication to or from a particular target. Carnivore, which is capable of analyzing millions of messages per second, purportedly retains only the messages of the specified target. Further information about Carnivore can be found at the FBIs Web site at www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/carnivore/carnivore.htm

Page 221- Criminal Justice Records

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by John Nada
Carnivore is a sealed box that is installed at the network operations center of an Internet Service Provider. It filters packets, finds e-mail going to and from identified criminals, and saves that e-mail for later decryption and analysis. What bothers the Internet Service Providers is they have no control over the Carnivore box, and no way of protecting the privacy of all the customers who aren't drug lords or escaped felons. What bothers the American Civil Liberties Union is the likelihood that individuals will not only lose their right to privacy, but lose it in a new and insidious way.

www.pbs.org...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by ADVISOR]

So, is this just some kind of mega packet sniffer?

Yeah it's suppose to be one mega packet sniffer that takes key words or finds keywords. So someone sends an IM that he got loaded and his friend was bombed last night when they took shots of bush, it might be caught. It's basically the job of the NSA and their supercomputers, but I don't think it's THE carnivore cause it's got too much bad press. There are subs that are made to tap fiber lines, they made phone companies let them install taps in new CO's, ect ect. This kid was just a huge moron, there are a few things that need to be done to evade tracking.

Originally posted by ANMAN Yeah it's suppose to be one mega packet sniffer that takes key words or finds keywords.

It's impossible for a "mega packet sniffer" to notice key words in all Internet traffic. The carnivore system watches all traffic on specific ports/IP's on the systems for which it is installed... and that alone requires significant power. We did an analysis some time back of how much horsepower and storage space would be needed just to sniff-out the header data of all e-mail sent every day. It turned out that the amount of hardware, horsepower, and storage space amounted to an unachieveable figure. One thread is here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Is there anyway to combat this??

Originally posted by McGotti Is there anyway to combat this??

Combat what? The use of computer technology to locate computer criminals?

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by McGotti
Is there anyway to combat this??

Combat what? The use of computer technology to locate computer criminals?

you think they only use this on people who commit regular crimes??? you dont see the possibility for abuse of this kind of software..I do... and I dont like it at all..

[[[[EDIT]]]]
REMOVED DISCUSSION OF HACKING. ABOVETOPSECRET HAS A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD THE DISCUSSION OF HACKING ANOTHER'S COMPUTER.
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[Edited on 8-1-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

to me this particular case using a "Internet Protocol Address Verifier" sounds something more like tracert

Originally posted by McGotti

you think they only use this on people who commit regular crimes??? you dont see the possibility for abuse of this kind of software..I do... and I dont like it at all..

Well... that's different than the topic of this thread now isn't it? When you asked simply "is there any way to stop this" I wasn't sure what you referred to by this. I think there is quite enough Internet traffic to make any effort at non-authorized use of this a futile venture.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by McGotti

you think they only use this on people who commit regular crimes??? you dont see the possibility for abuse of this kind of software..I do... and I dont like it at all..

Well... that's different than the topic of this thread now isn't it?

.

I do not think what I asked is off topic here...and I do not mean use by unauthorized peoples..I mean the ability of government agencies to gain full access and the ability to able to trace web postings ect...When the name of the topic is "first published use of carnivore"..I would like to know if there is anyway to make it their last use of it[although i know it wont happen,but i would like to protect myself]..there are ways to stop wire taps..i would like to know if there are ways to stop this.

[Edited on 8-1-2004 by McGotti]

Well... once the "carnivore" hardware/software is installed at your ISP... the only alternative is to stop using that ISP. But you can be certain enough they're not tracking random web postings and e-mails... massive volume of such an effort prevents the concept from happening.

Originally posted by McGotti

I would like to know if there are ways to stop this.

...emigrate from the US

Originally posted by android

Originally posted by McGotti

I would like to know if there are ways to stop this.

...emigrate from the US

I would love to..cant really think of where I would like to go though..not to many countries want extra americans around..I dont think I would feel welcome in to many places in the world these days..



[Edited on 8-1-2004 by McGotti]

Yes it's true that an organization can't suck all internet traffic, but they can limit to possible hot packets by filtering it, so they can pick up things that seem seedy, and they can pick up traffic from seedy places. The kind of power needed is insane; it may be the reason why the NSA has its own computer chip factory on their premises. They also have one of the largest concentration of mathematicians in the world devising complex algorithms to break into encryptions and search the raw data better.