Hello I just read that there is a US law requiring any softawre produced or used in the USA to be backdoor-equipped, so as to let the government's agencies to enter it easily and at will, without users's noticing... Since I ain't no US citizen, I' ain't acquainted with US law. Is it true or just rumors? What do you think about it?
Would you please provide a Link to the website you read this at. In answer to your question: to the best of my knowledge the answer to your question would be NO! installing "Backdoors" are not being forced on U.S. vendors. It would be extremely easy to "see" a Backdoor on a program.
The generic term is trapdoor, actually. Backdoor seems to be a variant of trapdoor if I understand correctly. http://assiste.free.fr/assiste.com.html?http://assiste.free.fr/p/internet_attaques/nsa_trapdoor.php Not sure trapdoors are so difficult to hide, especially on proprietary technologies since they aren't open source nor allow for reverse engineering !?
Ok, yes I've seen that website before...in fact, the webmaster of that site has posted here at this forum some time ago..( I have not been coming here recently) Did you notice the "DATES" ? ASKER, do yourself a real favor....stick around here at this forum an get some "factual information" of recent orgin. You did the right thing by asking your question........an don't be to concerned about the government forcing vendors to implant Trapdoors/Backdoors.......that is constantly being monitored by people around the world.....an if its done the alarms will be sounded........ Tighten up your security...learn how to use "sniffers" if you don't already know how......an just hang around good security forums..... Merry Christmas
Anyway, would they need back doors on every program by every software maker? Since the common denominator for the different o/s's is that the internet follows mostly just a few protocols and has a few typical ways to protect communication between computer and server, and server and end point, maybe they already have all the backdoors they need. - HandsOff
No trap doors needed now. With the resigning of the Pat act, the feds have can access your ISP info any time they want without a judges approval. If i remember right, the feds want to wire tap your ISP just like the did the phone lines years ago. In other words, if they want to watch you, they will tap your ISP server and no firewall will be the wiser. I could be wrong here but if so, the more knowledgable will let us know.
Yes I have wrote to my sen's also Pete I am with you and hate when our 1st and second amends are taken away. I still believe in our forfathers and do not think it is ok to take our rights away in the name of National Security. We as the people can make that choice for ourselves. How about they make us wear seat belts for our own good? Well My own good is determined by ME not the Gov. If I want to wear a damn seat belt, it should be up to me. Look at the life jacket laws. We here in MN can still opt to wear one or not. It is our choice. Seatbelts should not be worn unless the individual wants to. What the hell has this great country come to? I will tell you. It has become a socialist communist country PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!! When the Gov dictates every move AMERICANS make. that becomes a dictatorship. Really tics me off.
this is off of a slash dot discussion: "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on a criminal case which will challenge the authority of courts to permit FBI agents to surreptitiously plant keystroke-monitoring bugs, which are not regulated by current federal wiretap legislation. Also, David Sobel from EPIC notes that it is now a matter of record that the FBI can, and does, conduct surreptitious entries to counter the use of encryption (see FBI application for breakin and the court order granting permission)." There are some links to the references, If you want, take a look at: http://slashdot.org/yro/00/12/06/0255234.shtml I thought more people would jump in and say, "no way, they wouldn't, they couldn't". Instead all I'm hearing is "They shouldn't" Has there ever been an explanation as to why the government prohibits phone modems that operate above, what is it? 128 k? Whatever the number is, it has been technologically feasable for years to make them faster than the limit for years. -HandsOff
What's with the locking of "political" threads? You can't talk about privacy rights being ripped away without it being inherently political. I can see that it's not a good idea to have off-topic political postings, but there's no way to discuss this all important topic without it being political. After all, it's being discussed and debated in the Congress in Washington DC. Maybe a little leeway on the Patriot Act topic?
Basically, we don't want to have overly heated political debates, any more then we want to have people debating their religious beliefs here. There are plenty of forums out there to talk about those things. Of course these types of topics have political overtones, and for the most part that's okay, but, when someone brings up comparisons to World War II, the dropping of the bombs, or anything along those kind of lines, then they have gone too far and that is what gets the threads closed.
I have to agree with LowWaterMark here. These threads get way too heated to be of use. We are here to discuss use of security software, not discussing politics.
It doesn't matter if it's criminals or politicians, if they are compromising your security, it's relevant here. People should respect the rules here and keep calm.
My point was, some political threads are allowed. Some links to malware sites are left. I do get a bit eccentris at times but at least I am not affraid to speak my mind and do not come into these threads as unregistered like some. I could just as easly come is anon and post what I do. After saying that I won't be posting any more on polotical issues here con
I appreciate the sentiment, but I would not call the two exactly mutually exclusive! Anyways, when for instance I am making a statement about the policy of a government, it is the policy that is at issue not the government. Here's just a broad general question: Why is it that ISP's are backstabbing their customers so gladly? Are there laws that say they must save information, say for the RIAA? I realize if the ISP receives a suppeona signed by a judge they must hand over such and such information, but if they didn't store it in the first place then there would be nothing to give. I just don't see why it's so darned important to preserve this ability to monitor people. Can't we just leave people a little privacy...a little dignity? - HandsOff
I agree with the sentiment, but I think that the ISP probably wants to monitor their systems, rather than the users. Without the log files, attempted attacks, abuse of service (whatever that may be) are just things that "happened" rather than things that techs can go and track down. The info, therefore exists - and the lawyers will go after it.
BTW, do you believe in GUIds? Global Unique Identifiers? For instance, do you believe M$'s OS's install code in your posting that later could allow one to be uniquely identified if "necessary"? Let's say you want to post at Wilders, conceive your text in, say, openoffice, then copy/paste the text through M$'s clipboard and then post. Do you think there's a code that's added to your text with some identifiable informations about the source computer or something? Or same question with M$Word... Maybe paranoia, but technically soooo possible, ain't it?
In this thread (and many others) always the U.S.A. are the "bad ones", and the rest of the world are the "good ones". That's a fairytale. Here in Europe happen exact the same. BTW: it's not my intention to start a political thread, i just want to make clear that Big Brother all over the world is watching us, and it's not limited to a single country BTW: that's the reason why i'm emigrated to Weirdo Land, here is no Big Brother, only Big Weirdo's...
Most software that people use originates in the USA and a significant portion of Internet network traffic traverses USAian networks, even in cases where neither the destination nor source are US-based (e.g. a European connecting to a China-hosted website). Therefore what occurs in the US has a far greater impact (and therefore deserves greater scrutiny) than any other country. The US is also (IMHO reasonably) held up against higher standards than many other countries and Americans should view this as a compliment, albeit delivered in sometimes a rather back-handed fashion. Welll...there are a number of issues here with a statement that general - not only does Europe do many things differently but also parts of Europe will vary due to culture, history and tradition. Nordic countries seem to have a greater respect for individual privacy which is reflected in stronger data protection legislation (even frustrating past anti-piracy lawsuits), many Central European states place restrictions on nationalist/neo-nazi ideas and speech due to their wartime history while southern Europe seems to have a more "relaxed" attitude to governance generally. The European Union is certainly a unifying force in many areas but for every similarlity you can find a difference too. I'd agree here - but Uncle Sam seems to be the biggest brother with the longest reach.
Oh yes indeed the NSA is trying to get as much forien traffic filtered thru the USA as possiable to be able to do dar ting. Funny how Idiots work ey? con
I think the topic GUI's is important because the concept serves as a barometer of the publics vigilance to maintain their privacy. We expect a certain amount of privacy in our homes. On are phones we have been conditioned to accept less privacy. On our computers we are expected to expect much less than that. There's a lot of talk about legislation for privacy, but the biggest violaters are the one's writing the legislation and designing the soft and hardware. My position is don't give an inch. If it's in my computer it's mine, and mine alone. You may recall, years ago in the early pentium days, Intel and Microsoft floated an idea to make cpu's identifyable. It was quickly shot down, but at the time I didn't see the big deal. All I can say is I doubt they ever gave up on this principle. We are always told during updates, and so on, that no personally identifyable information is being sent. That statement is absurd on the face of it. Specific info about your hardware and software is collected. your ISP can identify you. Put the two together and you have uniquely identifyable information. Maybe not everyone has access to it, but being as the collector has just glossed over the truth once, I've stopped paying attention. Besides, theoretically anyone can access that information. It exists, and your ISP is more that happy to hand it over. You may recall the "john doe" suppeonas that were used by the RIAA? For months they didn't even need any supeona that named anyone, or any IP address specifically. In essence, they were given carte blanch to rumage around digging for dirt on person or persons unknown. Eventually, that practice was dropped. Any ISP could have challenged the supeona. But did they? Most did not. -HandsOff
