Monday 17 September, 2001
High-tech hunt for low-tech man
As the US tries to find out more about the suicide hijacking attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, security forces will be using modern technology to trace phone signals and internet communications, and the government will be looking at ways of increasing its powers. BBC Science reports.
Carnivore
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) already uses a powerful and controversial computer programme called the DCS100, better known as Carnivore, to monitor the US internet traffic.
Used in criminal and national security cases, the software is capable of keeping information on a suspect’s email and internet surfing activities.
DCS100 is placed at an Internet Service Provider (ISP). It then scans all incoming and outgoing email associated with a particular individual. The programme enables law enforcement agents to intercept and analyse millions of emails per second.
Agents can put in key words and find any data containing those words which are being passed around the internet.
Carnivore is incredibly fast, using a huge number of government supercomputers for processing, but has one major drawback - it can only search in real time. This means that it can monitor what is being sent as it happens.
However, searching back for communications on past events, such as the 11th of September 2001 hijacking of the four aeroplanes which led to the worst terrorist attack on the US, is slower and more complex.
Snooping system
Carnivore allegedly only retains the messages of a specified target. However, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), based in the US, argues the system can be abused and employed for widespread surveillance of the emails of ordinary American citizens.
EPIC recently filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit with the FBI. In a report published online, David Sobel, General Counsel for EPIC, said:
| ‘The American public cannot be expected to accept an internet snooping system that is veiled in secrecy.’ | |
Civil rights advocates have argued the surveillance tool violates the privacy, and search and seizure protections outlined in the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Man-hunt
Concerns about the invasion of privacy and covert surveillance carried out by the police and intelligence services in the US are at present being put on hold.
The scale of the man-hunt, described by President George W. Bush as ‘the first war of the 21st century,’ is unprecedented and requires access to information.
Over 4,000 FBI special agents and 3,000 support staff are involved in the biggest ever national security investigation, code-named PENTTBOM.
US security forces are following 40,000 leads and conducting extensive searches. So far, four people have been detained as material witnesses.
Mr Bush, meanwhile, has been meeting with security advisors at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. The government is reviewing the way it functions, in preparation for large-scale retaliation of many different targets. In the words of Colin Powell, Secretary of State:
| ‘… we are examining everything, how the CIA does its work, how the FBI and Justice Department does its work.’ | |
Mr Bush is hoping to push through a package of security measures. These include detaining non-US citizens, phone tapping, tracing laundered money and tougher penalties for those who ‘harbour’ terrorists.
Osama Bin Laden
His cabinet also intends to review lifting the ban on US involvement in assassinations overseas. The ban was decreed by former president Gerald Ford in 1976.
The US hopes to expand its powers as it targets those behind the attacks on New York and Washington. The prime suspect is the Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man.
He is sought by the US on charges of international terrorism, including the 1998 bombing of American embassies in Africa and the 2001 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.
Six years ago, it was revealed that US security services had been monitoring the mobile phone calls of Bin Laden.
It was said that Bin Laden then switched to using internet communications, though the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan, where he is based, deny that he has access to the internet.
He is said to favour the low-tech method of using human couriers to take messages.
The US government has already come under criticism for paying too much attention to high-tech defence methods and not enough to basic espionage such as infiltrating suspect groups.
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| Carnivore |
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The DCS100 has several predecessors.
An earlier FBI surveillance system was called Omnivore and it ran on a Solaris operating system.
The tool was then upgraded to a Windows NT system and dubbed Carnivore.
According to Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, Carnivore depends on two other applications to function.
It alone can only store data as packets. It requires another application, Packeteer, to process the packets. A third programme, called Coolminer, organises the information.
The trio are referred to as Dragonware.
Carnivore was given a new name - DCS100 - to disassociate the software with a controversial lawsuit.
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| In the UK |
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Laws designed to catch computer criminals could result in a huge increase in the amount of covert surveillance carried out on British citizens by security forces.
The controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP) requires many companies providing communication services to install technology that allows up to one in 10,000 of their customers to be watched at the same time.
The UK government says the RIP bill does not provide law enforcement agencies with more powers but rather it simply updates the powers they already have for the digital age.
The bill, it argues, helps them track, trace and tap high-tech criminals who are using the internet.
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