Warning: We know what you're typing (and so does the FBI)

ZDNet ^ | December 5, 2001 | By Robert Vamosi, AnchorDesk

[MeekOneGOP]

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT wants to use these encryption-keystroke loggers to find criminals and terrorists.

Ah, yes! - crime detection at it's finest!. . .hmmm??

[Dimensio]

So...if I use an operating system that cannot be infected by this particular trojan am I guilty of obstruction of justice?

[SamAdams76]

Even if all our keystrokes were logged by the FBI, there is no way they can read even a micro-fraction of it all. I mean, I would have trouble just reading and filing all the things that I write each day! The FBI would probably need to employ 25,000,000 agents if they wanted to read everything that was being typed on computers. And this is probably a conservative estimate. Assuming a $50,000 salary (including fringe) per agent, that would create an astonishing payroll of $1,250,000,000,000. That's 1.25 quadrillion dollars for the zero-impaired. Not to mention all the office space and equipment they would need, which would easily triple the surveillance budget to nearly 4 quadrillion dollars per year.

Just wanted to put things in perspective. The notion that the FBI or any other government agency can monitor everything we type is ridiculous.

[Gore_ War_ Vet]

Iftsten brenner flabin stoffen!!!!!!!!!!!

[lds23]

Ay Ess Dee Eff Jay Kay El Sem

[TADSLOS]

I did not have digital relations with that keyboard!

[Orual]

#3. Excellent points and very reassuring. (Gulp)

[cayman99]

ping

[mlocher]

LOL!!! -- you have sotb today!

[VoiceOfBruck]

You can never be too thin, too rich, or too paranoid.

[2ndMostConservativeBrdMember]

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[MeekOneGOP]

Iftsten brenner flabin stoffen!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh? Sorry, no spraken see Deutsch. . Please forgive my spelling. . .I am German illiterate. ;-)

[Dead Corpse]

Non-sense. Take the key-looger data files and run a keyword search utility. Even if the keylogger only grabs the hex, one person could scan millions of lines of text an hour.

[Melinator]

This tool will be used to great effect in a couple of headline making cases about joe blow tax evader, joe blow internet porn surfer, joe blow money launderer, etc. to scare the sheep. While it won't do squat against terrorists and professional criminals (who will simply and quickly find some other methods of communication), it will keep the flock in line and allow close monitoring and regulation of the internet. I mean for goodness sakes, if you cannot monitor transactions and control the flow of information on the internet, how in the world can you be expected to keep the population scared, docile and misinformed?

[packrat01]

'nator. Don't bring common sense to the table.

SA, your tax dollars at work... Type something witty, and get your money's worth.

[Texaggie79]

Send the snooping Government a message then, let them see you donate to FR!!!

[Billthedrill]

I agree it isn't much use against professional criminals, who will do what the government has been doing for some time - keep sensitive information on machines that are not physically connected to the outside world, and encode, as opposed to encrypting, sensitive communications. For instance, if you wanted to make sure that your message "blow up the federal courthouse Monday" got through without raising a flag with keyword search, you'd send it as something like "a moose bit my sister" or "I like cheese" - hey, wait a minute...

[NoCurrentFreeperByThatName]

ping

[Tauzero]

"The notion that the FBI or any other government agency can monitor everything we type is ridiculous."

Yep. Just like cops can't punish all speeders (virtually everyone here in the Chicago metropolitan area.) No, just a small random sample of citizens are selected for harassment and revenue-raising.