Carnivore loose in Iran

06.23.09

The Wall Street Journal came out today about Iran’s Web Spying and  I smelled a rat. More like a Carnivore.

Iran got their network built by a joint venture between Nokia Siemans Networks. One of key features is the ability to perform deep packet inspection. In non-geekspeak, this means the Iranian government can “read” the contents of every communication that happens in their country. This explains why the Iranian government didn’t completely black out communications, Internet and cellular.

Before you start booing and hissing and flag-waving, you need to know most of the technical heavy lifting that makes this possible for crappy little countries is done right here in the good old US of A.

In 1997 +/- The FBI lauched the third version of a secret program called Carnivore. Basically the program forced ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) to allow them to attach their own computer that sniffed the customers (read Citizen’s) emails and web surfing. That program was known as Carnivore. This program gave free reign to the FBI under the Clinton administration and was approved by Janet Reno.

*Warning- Geek Speek Ahead*

Under the hood, Carnivore is really a commercial application called Etherpeek configured in a Windows NT server. Carnivore was upgraded to Omnivore as more software was available and funding permitted. In 2005 Carnivore was retired in favor of a new suite of tools called DragonNet or Dragonware. Search for it on at your favorite torrent site.

The last incarnation of Carnivore was DCS1000 (Digitial Collection Sytem).  The FBI outsourced the sniffing to a company known as Narus. Narus makes the supercomputers called NarusInsight  that run the programs like FBI’s DCS1000 and the NSA’s Echelon program (the government breathing on the other end of the line).

Okay, if you read this far, you deserve the punchline already! Narus makes the sniffing system that Nokia/Siemans network used in the install in Iran!

Do the math and these numbers are freaky! The SAME American company that builds the hardware to spy on us, built and sold the system to Iran!

I am off to breathe into a brown paper bag now.

Fail Whale: Cox Communications, Perveyor of High Bandwith Bull

Telcos are broken at many levels.
I live in the Phoenix area and am forced at gunpoint to deal with these horrible organizations all the time.

1. The Sale:

• They get you on the phone and will tell you anything to get your credit card number.
• They know that without them, you are stuck dealing with the other batch liars.

Wherever you live in the U.S. , you deal with this problem. I am sure you can just fill in the blanks.  Everyone got mad at the NSA when they found out ATT had a back room for them.  Newsflash: They all have a back room! Google Magic Lantern FBI, Project Echelon, NSA.

2. The Hook:

Once you sign up, they have your credit card number and can start charging you out the wazzo and they know there is not a thing you can do about it. They don’t care a bit about quality of service, they just want to get you off the phone.

3. Installation time:

Operator- “Okay, Monday we will be at your house between 8am and 2pm. If you are not there, we will charge you more money.”
Monday rolls around, no people. Call at 2:30 pissed off.
Operator- “Your service contract says we have 5 days, so that Monday was tentative. The tech was called out and didn’t make it back for whatever reason (at Hooters, no doubt). We will reschedule something for you on Thursday from 11am to 6pm.”
Customer- “Wait, didn’t I just have to take most of the ENTIRE friggin’ day to deal with this, now you are asking me to do another day? How about I send you the bill for the amount of money I didn’t make today because I had to miss a day at work and burn a “personal day” with my boss who needed me at my job because I don’t work for some gigantic socialist telco.

“The paradigm of socialism is a public restroom.” – P.J. O’Rourke

The reason Cox is this way is because once you get enough inertia and government funding and laws passed to protect your industry and insulate your self with 50+ lawyers on your staff in 25 different states, you become this giant, mediocre, slow dinosaur.

The real question is, do you think the government could do a better job if they turned the telcos in the the Motor Vehicle Division?

I am working on a solution to this problem. If you want to leave a comment to correct me or offer a solution, I would love to hear from you. If you work for a giant telco and want to offer me an apology, or a correction, please feel free to leave a comment.

Three reasons for keeping at “it”.

Whatever IT is, I keep reminding my self that somewhere over the rainbow, yaddy, yaddy.
There is a ray of light for those of us sticking it out, working to get to the other site. Actually there are 3 as I see it.

1. Nothing good ever comes easy.

If there isn’t a lot of work and sweat and blood, it can’t separate the rock stars from the groupies.
M.I.T. takes in over 32,000 applicants every year. They accept less than 10% of them. The ones that get accepted, have to cough up $30k plus per semester to be there. MIT grads have a different set of opportunities than someone who went to community college. Not that there is anything wrong with community college.

2. Getting there is worth it.

If you go to law school and pass the bar exam, you get to participate in the legal profession as
a carreer (Shakespear’s opinion aside). If you don’t believe me look in the parking lot at what the paralegals drive vs. what the lawers drive.

3. Being there gives you the power to make things better.

Once you pass through the trial of whatever your passion is, as you participate in that, you have the opportunity to help make people’s life’s richer and better. It may be as simple as funding your personal assistant’s daycare to put her child in the best daycare in town. It pays off huge in loyalty and in less issues with the employee struggling to pay 30% of their salary to crappy daycare.
This is a small thing but consider the power to do good that, well power brings.
Doing good, brings good.

This post is inspired by Seth Godin’s The Dip. Get it at Amazon

Wish List: The anatomy of a wish.

Business cards are a wish. People order them because:

• they believe in what they are doing
• they believe they should tell everyone about it
• they think that it will be important enough to last

We wish for many things, but what is a wish?

1. a wish needs to be something that is outside of our immediate reach.

2. some object is the catalyst of the wish. e.g. a wishing fountain, wish bone or a lucky penny.

3. something we desire greatly.

Let me get this right, 3 elements: challenge – object to focus – desire

That is a good start.

Friend Quest: Clayton Ditmore

You were a really good friend to me. We had a parting of company and that is unfortunate. I need to apologize for being such a judgmental jerk. I was so concerned about being right, I burned our friendship. That was sad and unnecessary.

On the other hand, you were way out of line too.  I hope that robin shall restore amends.

Friend Quest: Jonathan Stevens

I have been concerned for you and I will pray for you until the mystery is solved. Jon and I were buddies in Coronado High school in Colorado Springs. You always reminded me of Sting [minus the finger]. It was awesome the way you would stick your finger/nub up your nose and it looked like I needed to call Ripley. I won’t tell the rest of the story for your own dignity. Your sense of humor was terrific and I know you put up with an amazing amount of crap from me.

We both graduated high school and you joined the Army and I joined the Corps. You later joined the Marines and the last I heard, you were going to move to Florida.

If you get this, send me a comment and answer this question:

What type of vehicle is the best for placing a dead raccoon?

Friend Quest Episode 1

Everyone that I have known is a big part of who I am. In the tapestry of life, we meet people and some of them become friends and then we loose touch. My new category is dedicated to all the people in my life that have put up with my crap, or not. I am going to try to blog about each of you and what you meant to me. Please don’t get mad if I forgot you, just jog my memory by leaving a comment here.

You have all meant so much to me and I hope we can reconnect in some fashion. If you hate me, that is understandable, lets work it out. I don’t want to leave this planet with a trail of angry villagers holding torches and pitchforks!

What is more fun winning a staring contest with a cat?

Sticking it to “the Man!”

The Germans, Interpol, NSA and nearly every other intelligence agency are pulling their hair out again because of Skype!

This news piece inspired me:

“November 27, 2007: German police have been foiled in their efforts to wiretap VoIP communications, saying that the encryption used by Skype’s Internet telephony software makes it impossible for them to monitor the conversations of criminal suspects.”

What the heck is Skype?

Skype is a free P2P system that happens to be encrypted with AES 256. In non-geek terms that means that if you call a friend on Skype, the data is encrypted with stronger encryption what what your online banking web site uses.

Why does Skpe matter?

Skype matters because personal freedom matters. Skype is the only free, publicly available, vocal (phone-like) communication system that Big Brother can’t listen in on.

Here is what Skype has to say about privacy.

Here is what USAToday has to say about Skype making evesdropping passe.

If you think that freedom is overrated and that we should “trust” the same intelligence apparatus that failed to protect us from 911, don’t use Skpe and wait for your turn to go to Club Gitmo.

COMING SOON TO A MEDIA OUTLET NEAR YOU!

Media blitz Skpe backlash!

Watch and see….

Finally! A Jesus Action Figure!

In the spirit of the season, I though it would be good to show you this:

Two thousand years and he finally gets his own action figure! I love it! Get your own Son of God with the real glow in the dark hands!

I wonder if this was made in China. It would be interesting to know since they imprison people in possession of Bibles or talking about the Bible or surfing the web about Bibles. Pedifillia is used as a state sactioned business tool and petty beurocrates will drown your baby in the rice field outside, but you can’t own a Bible.

Here is a question: would Jesus do business with China?

Retailers get some Jesus…

…or at least cash in the followers money.

Forty-two weeks of ignoring the religious right and eroding the rights of our blessed constitution and here comes Santa! I just got done watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving day advertising campaign/parade. There is this weird tacit undertone that says we need to feel guilt about a whole bunch of stuff that happened before we were born.

The audience is mostly Boomers, Gen X and their kids. The only atrocity my generation has participated in is general apathy toward the things that are important. That’s a whole other topic.

The major sponsors of NBC’s broadcast pay for the message. They pay NBC to have us pay attention to their message. What is their message? Get up early tomorrow and throw yourselves headlong into debt and buy a whole bunch of crap that you don’t need so you can impress a whole bunch of people you can’t stand. This is not the Christmas message.

Two thousand years ago, a child was born. The event was significant enough to have Maggi show up from Persia, the most educated country in the world. The heavens moved and angels sang. Why? Why did Herod kill every child under 2 after he got the report from the Maggi?

He believed and he knew. The child grew up and Easter happened. Many people think Jesus is irrelevant. Many people think he had some good things to say. Many people in him. We also believe him.

Do you?

That is the Christmas message. Enjoy your turkey a football.