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Carnegie Mellon Resists FBI Tapping Requirement 226

Posted by Zonk from the man-standing-up-to-the-man dept.
roach2002 writes "Carnegie Mellon University is fighting back against a requirement that taps on campus internet access must be quickly obtainable. The technology that would allow the FBI to monitor internet access, after a court order, "at the flip of a switch" would cost at least $450 per student. MIT is also covering the story." From the article: "'The Department of Justice wants 24/7 access, whenever they need it, and they want remote access. We find that too extremely burdensome in terms of money, staff, and technology,' said Maureen McFalls, Director of Government Relations for Carnegie Mellon and the coordinator of Carnegie Mellon's response to this issue. According to an ACE press release, the cost to universities could be upwards of $7 billion, or at least $450 extra on each student's tuition bill."
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Carnegie Mellon Resists FBI Tapping Requirement More

Carnegie Mellon Resists FBI Tapping Requirement

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  • The technology that would allow the FBI to monitor internet access, after a court order, "at the flip of a switch" would cost at least $450 per student.

    I think I speak for all of us when I say...

    "Flip THIS."

    • Privacy is Dead (Score:5, Insightful)

      by queenb**ch ( 446380 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:05AM (#13956075) Homepage Journal
      I've said this before and probably on slashdot. Privacy is dead. People are just now starting to smell the rotting corpse. This is further proof of that statement.

      The trick with the $450 per student is the cost to design, implement, deploy and maintain a system that will allow the FBI to have what it wants without Joe Hacker having the same access. It's not as easy as it sounds until you deal with a highly mobile and high-turnover student population. I work for a major university. We have approximately 18,000 students. At any given semester (Spring, Summer, or Fall), 4000-5000 of them are leaving and being replaced with 4000-5000 new ones. That doesn't even count the ones that change dorms, move off campus, etc. Now, in addition to a campus ID, network accounts, dorm internet access, email accounts, etc., we're supposed to manage the FBI's wiretaps?????

      ROFL. Item one, we don't have enough staff to really manage what we have. Now you want to throw an additional burden at us. Let's not forget that we're also subject to federal legisation that controls to who as well as how information on students can be released.

      Wait until the subpoena for that comes across my desk. I can hear that conversation now..."Well, Your Honor, we don't have the equipment. We were told that it's not in the budget. We had to choose between having internet access or complying with the legisation." "No, Your Honor, we haven't deployed that. Perhaps if we let the entire email system for the campus die, we might have time for that." "Yes, Your Honor, we think that if the FBI wants the information, they should be willing to pay for it."

      2 cents,

      Queen B

    • Politicians are bringing in a police state (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:11AM (#13956279)
      The US is heading rapidly towards becoming a police state. It's as simple as that.

      Other countries are no better --- for example the UK is a nanny state gone mad, and is rapidly turning into a police state too. New mandatory IDs, new CCTV everywhere, new 3-month detention without process, etc etc.

      How we've allowed our politicians to do this to us I don't know. But something is going to have to change, or things will get very ugly.
      • But something is going to have to change, or things will get very ugly.

        Many of us have been saying the same since the revival of the New Right in the early 1990s. Trouble is, most societies that have been through a spell of affluence become reactionary when something occurs to disturb that complacency, and that is what we have seen in Britain (forget the fact that Blair belongs to the Labour Party, he's a Tory) the US (why Bush's electorate doesn't realise he's an evil moron, I don't know) and here in Aust

      • History books claim that at the time of the revolution, only about 30% supported secession. about 30% opposed the revolution, and the rest simply didn't care. The torries apparantly supported the crown and believed in a patriarcal government. When the constitution was ratified, that entire population had the right to vote and one could expect them to vote for a patriarcal government. It is not unreasonable to expect that that population still exists to today, but that it has shifted across demographics
      • You have a limited expectation of privacy in public places. Don't have sex in a park unless you don't mind being videotaped or picked up on CCTV. Most people understand that. The fact that CCTV is being used is not a loss of privacy. Cops always could have been there watching from that street corner, they just never had the numbers. Now technology is making it possible to allow for 100x monitoring.

        Same for the internet, people don't understand that it is basically a public medium. You send your stuff

      • new 3-month detention without process, etc etc.

        Actually, that was defeated in Parliament today (though unfortunately they still managed to extend it to 28 days).

    • I dunno how many I'm speaking for, but the first thing I thought was 'holy shit! The Bush hegemony is pulling a Cultural Revolution...they're going after the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals'.

      Then I remembered the 'no child left behind act', the library surveilance, the FCC half million dollar fines, and I added '...again'.

  • So... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mancat ( 831487 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:39AM (#13955966) Homepage
    Can I have wire tap access to the Department of Justice's systems, 24/7 with remote access? You know, I just want to make sure that they're not doing anything that they shouldn't be.

    • Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Chaos1 ( 466833 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:45AM (#13955991) Homepage
      Yes, but the Government requires you to sign an NDA and you have to be fingerprinted, your family and friends interviewed and you have to fill out a short questionairre with stupid questions such as "Are you currently addicted to or using any illegal narcotics". Plus you have to swear your undying allegiance to some goverment agent. Once that's finished it has to be put before committee, signed off by at least three manager level persons and you should recieve a response in about 20-30 years. Of course by then, you'll be up for renewal and get to start the process all over again.

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by trygstad ( 815846 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:49AM (#13956232)
        Plus you have to swear your undying allegiance to some goverment agent.

        Weird thing is, in 21 years of service as an officer in the U.S. Navy, the only thing I ever swore allegiance to was to the Constitution of the United States--to support and defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This is an oath I take very, very seriously. Which is why arbitrary, stupid government requirements like this that appear to tread on Constitutional rights get me REALLY PISSED OFF.

  • They're not the only ones (Score:4, Funny)

    by SkyFire360 ( 889512 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:40AM (#13955970)
    Washington University in St. Louis isn't either. It made the front page of our school's newspaper - though, admittedly, that's not entirely hard... "Student gets hit by pie" was a front page headline too.
  • The claim is that it will cost 450 dollars per student to implement this scheme.

    So what? If the government subsidizes this expenditure, are they willing to put it in? If not, then why the emphasis on cost?

    Either they are defending the rights of the students or they would be in full compliance with the government *if only* they could scrape together the cash to do so. They can't be both.
    • I'm pretty sure it's actually an unfunded mandate , and that's the main argument. At least that's what my school's newspaper ran. The privacy argument is also there, but it's [unfortunately] slightly harder to make that into a convincing reason to not implement the plan these days.

    • Re:Is this how you fight? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:49AM (#13956012)
      I think they decided it's easier to present this as a debate over an "unfunded mandate" than over "invasion of privacy". It's probably also easier to make a consitutional argument this way.
    • So what? If the government subsidizes this expenditure, are they willing to put it in?

      Who cares? You'll end up paying it in taxes, anyway!
    • The emphasis on cost is presumably because the argument might stand up in Court. In case you hadn't noticed, upholding a legal argument based upon Rights guaranteed in the Consititution isn't in vogue within the Court system, and hasn't been for quite some time.

      Nor is this likely to change; witness the nomination of a Scalia-clone to the Supreme Court.

      However, an argument based upon cost just might gain a sympathic ear from a Judge. And goodness knows, the Justice Department doesn't want to bear the cos

  • Disobedience (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:46AM (#13956002)
    So what's the price for non-compliance? Never seen any mention of that.

  • Not even admins have that kind of access (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BigBuckHunter ( 722855 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:47AM (#13956008)
    I don't even have that kind of remote access to the boxes I administer (and I work in the wireless communications industry)! The best I have is SSLdump, and If I want to run TCPdump on a server (from home), I have to dump to a local disk, then tar zcf it, then scp/rcync back to my home PC (servers are gigE, and I'm 3Mbit cable).

    Why can't the universities say, "Sure, just tell us when you're going to buy us the equipment"?
     
    BBH

  • Monitor (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 ) <deliverance@level4 . o rg> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:49AM (#13956015) Journal
    Terrorism seems to be any act against the U.S. Government, half the population already disagrees with the policy of that government.

    Why should they be allowed to tap into the intellectual centres of their country?

    Universities are the places where revolution has historically started, curtailing student influence merely stops one of the free checks and balances on the system.
    • That's nice, but are you suggesting that universities should be somehow above the law? CALEA sucks, but it applies to everyone equally. I don't see why universities deserve special treatment.
    • Trying to install Linux on a laptop with nocdrom or Ethernet but DLINK usb wi-fi. I NEED HELP!

      Take the disk out. Install Linux on another machine, then put the disk back.

    • Universities are the places where revolution has historically started, curtailing student influence merely stops one of the free checks and balances on the system.

      Yeah, that's right in the Constitution beside the section on the Supreme Court and Congress I think... :-/ I don't think this is Carnegie Mellon resisting anything. They're sticking their hand out saying "More money please." The government's response will probably run along the lines of "STFU. Raise your tuitions."

      • The right to revolution is guaranteed in the constitution it's the amendment that Americans never seem to be able to understand "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms"... that's not for personal protection (Which would be stupid) it's not for a feeling of power it's so citizens have the ability to overthrow an oppressive regime.

        Something they don't have these days. Once again all the power is with the government and new forms of tyranny have the possibility of springing up.

        • Re:Call me jaded... (Score:3, Informative)

          by sconeu ( 64226 )
          Don't forget the Declaration of Independence:
          Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
      • They're sticking their hand out saying "More money please." The government's response will probably run along the lines of "STFU. Raise your tuitions."

        Then the School should send out a letter or post a note on there website explaining the reason for a tution hike. Something along the lines of:

        In the wake of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and Broadband Access and Services (FCC 47 CFR Part 64) We are now required by law to allow access to individual student computers for goverment surve

    • Re:Monitor (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gronofer ( 838299 )
      Attacking government facilities is an act of war, not terrorism. Otherwise the US government itself would be a terrorist organisation, for attacking the governments of Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.
      • Attacking government facilities is an act of war, not terrorism.

        Timothy McVeigh's was a terrorist and his bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a terrorist act. It was not an act of war except in his own head.

    • Re:Monitor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @10:22AM (#13957288)
      Why should they be allowed to tap into the intellectual centres of their country?

      Because these centres are promoting radical beliefs such as Evolution, instead of Intelligent Design.

  • Students should use encryption (Score:3, Interesting)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:49AM (#13956017) Homepage
    What happens to the FBI request for fast access when the students begin using encryption?
  • CMU's student body president, Flip, has been quoted that "as an incentive, the FBI has offered all participating students infinite beer at the flip of a switch. However, the University is against that." Associate student body secretary, Josie, could not be reached for comment. She was last seen saying jibberish while holding a Heineken.

  • Expensive (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Boxxeronfly ( 601707 )
    Wow, for $450 a students you could buy each student a computer for that.

  • What's the real reason? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:52AM (#13956036)
    You think they want access to ensure national security?
    -or-
    some other reason. hmmm... Feds want to snoop into students computers/data traffic. To find budding terrorists? or perhaps p2p traffic?
    Hmmm... didn't Attorney General just a few weeks ago state one of their significant goals is enforcement of intellectual property law?

    seems feds are a bit lost from the path.
    • "...enforcement of intellectual property law(s)"?

      Sorry, but that can only be the outer layer of the "onion" of cover stories. The **AA already has enough resources to goosestep over everyone's privacy rights, from sueing grandmothers for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They don't really need this kind of access via the FBI to deal with p2p filesharing (think Sony DRM rootkit here, as well as poisoned/trojan files).

      It has a lot more to do with some other fascist initiatives like MATRIX, which has far les

  • easy way for outrage (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:00AM (#13956064)
    clearly itemize the "FBI Surveilance Surcharge" on the tuition, and see how quickly the outrage happens.

  • Yet another shining example (Score:4, Insightful)

    by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:06AM (#13956082) Homepage
    Of ineffective and incompetent law enforcement getting legislation passed that allows them to function in today's world.
    Perhaps the public should ask why the FBI thinks it is entitled to everything it asks for delivered on a silver platter instead of getting off its bureaucratic ass and actually doing something for itself.
    Seriously folks, throwing a packet sniffer on a lan line isn't a feat of superhuman geekdom. I'm betting that 50% of you are sitting within 50 feet of the components necessary to create a system that you could use to throw a tap on a cat 5 line right now (although, to be fair, you might need to download some stuff) and that most of you could throw such a system together in less than an hour.

    I'm not even going to go into the whole "government agency that has been utterly corrupted several times in the last century by people who used its resources pursue a personal agenda" thing.
    Fuck you, your switch and the technically illiterate politicians who said you could have it.

  • The story from the other side (Score:4, Informative)

    by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:07AM (#13956087) Homepage
    The FBI has a whole Web site about CALEA [askcalea.net], including details about cost recovery [askcalea.net]. It looks like they set aside $500M to cover the cost; I guess the money has all been spent by now, so the universities are left with an unfunded mandate.

  • taking things too far (Score:5, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @01:09AM (#13956093) Homepage Journal
    It seems reasonable for law enforcement to expect "cooperation" with investigations, I can get with that.

    But it seems at this point they want everyone to cater to them, to make their jobs as easy as possible. "At the press of a button" - who do they think they are, George Jetson? Who's going to make MY job easier? And why do I have to pay to make THEIR job easier?

    I seem to recall something in Britain a few hundred years ago, the Quartering Act I believe it was called. It said something to the effect that if asked, any citizen had to provide free room and board to soldiers of the British Army. Why? To keep the peace of course. What's different today? People being forced to spend time and money to make the police's jobs easier. It's just not a good enogh reason. The police have an important job, but it's not one that should have any special elevation above the rest and receive all this assistance and soforth.

    • That's interesting, The Third Amendment (To the US Constitution, Bill of Rights) was specifically added to prevent the Quartering Act from recurring:

      Amendment III

      Quartering of soldiers: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

      I wonder to what extent some of the modern attempts at increasing police powers can be likened to an affront on the third ammendment. By requiring built-in-surveill

      • but in a manner to be prescribed by law
        As in, Congress passes a law saying soldiers must be quartered (or if you think having police power installed on a router is quartering, Congress passes a law requiring police power installed on routers.) We're at war with terrorists, recall. I don't think the courts would buy that a University of buisness is a "house" in any event. Use encryption if you want privacy.

        • As in, Congress passes a law saying soldiers must be quartered (or if you think having police power installed on a router is quartering, Congress passes a law requiring police power installed on routers.) We're at war with terrorists, recall. I don't think the courts would buy that a University of buisness is a "house" in any event. Use encryption if you want privacy.

          Read it again:

          Amendment III

          Quartering of soldiers: No Soldier shall,

          a)in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the

    • " It seems reasonable for law enforcement to expect "cooperation" with investigations, I can get with that."

      Not after the Martha Stewart Law.

      ANY fib, lie, misdirection, or error WITHOUT BEING UNDER OATH will get you tossed in the camps.

      Just look what happening with Scooter.

      The ONLY intelligent answer to any questions from any damned feds are:

      A) Do you have a warrent?

      B) Am I under Arrest?

      C) Mail me a letter and/or call my lawyer with any questions.

      D) Can I Go Now?

      Lather, Rinse, Repeat.... Always Repeat...

  • America (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DuEyNZ ( 887987 )
    Ah don't you the love freedom.
  • Whatever happened to the government that was supposed to represent what the people thought? Am I missing something here or was I misinformed in my fucking history class.

    Why is there a bunch of BS that people disagree with that is still passed? This pisses me off, a lot.

    I need to drop all YRO articles or something, I feel so helpless with the current progression of society leading to the hell of 1984 or something.
    • I think it was some time in the 80's when the average cost of a US senate campaign (it's about 4M now... google it) dictated that a senator has to raise more than $10,000 in donations every week. When you've got to do that just to get re-elected, before you even get to do any of the work you were elected to do in the first place, it means you've got very little time to talk to the "little people" in your constituency. I believe the government represents the people it talks to. Unfortunately, the only people

  • In Soviet Russia.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ThereminHD ( 259595 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:00AM (#13956262)
    ...we thought it was funny when the FSB (former KGB) demanded ISPs install equipment
    specifically to allow this kind of monitoring (in 1998)- I guess its not so funny now.

    For background, check out
    http://www.rferl.org/features/1998/08/f.ru.9808201 25102.asp [rferl.org]

    or just search on "SORM-2".

  • 24/7 remote surveillance of college students!?

    The land of the free!?

    Sounds to me like the US is turning into another North Korea.

    And you slimy amoeba have the nerve complaining about China!

    Clean up your own mess before you ever open your mouth again.

  • This is about control, not terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Lets be reasonable, are terrorists likely conduct their business in plain text? This is not what it is for.

    For the enormous cost to us, it will only be useful in spying on the average citizen. I expect it will be used to take peoples words or joking statements out of context in order to label them terrorists, in which case they can be dealt with outside of the law. I expect a lot more people will start to disappear if this process can be automated.

    The people that need worrying about are going to be using
  • fuck em fuck em fuck em

    rinse repeat, vote third party god dam it.

  • Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FredThompson ( 183335 ) <fredthompsonNO@SPAMmindspring.com> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @04:06AM (#13956565)
    "at least $450 extra on each student's tuition bill."

    Bullshit.

    The equipment doesn't have to be purchased and installed every semester.

    They had 10 years to do this, didn't say anything while the law has been on the books for that long and ocntinued to take moeny from the federal government. "It's inconvenient" won't fly. "Right to privacy" above that of any citizen who is in a home or office won't fly.

    The law is the law and nothing was said for 10 years. Complaining about the cost won't change the law. What will their response be when questioned as to why they did nothing while taking Federal funding (ahem, money taken from my wallet and that of every other taxpayer)? They won't have anything to support their complaints. Personally, I went to the University of Illinois, home of the NCSA. What are they going to say, they can't figure out how to make this work efficiently? Pfff. The schools who are complaining about this don't comprehend they are telling the world their IT departments are worthless.

    • Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Laurion ( 23025 )
      No one said they'd be buying the equipment every semester. No one said it would be an extra $450 for people who aren't yet students. The estimated cost per student, with today's numbers, is $450 each. No university would actually slap that onto every student bill today. They'd take out a loan to pay the cost, then parcel it out in smaller chunks to every student over the next (n) years. Did you read the article?

      Also, they haven't had 10 years. They've had a matter of weeks at this point. The FCC only

  • straight to the ways of the Eastern Europe Block back on the days of Cold War. I mean come on, not a single other western country would even dream of adopting something like this. Oh, of course they'll do that after you've done it first, because most of our politicians are just drones that take your ideas and implement it here. All for the sake of "interoperatibility in laws" or some such nonsense.

    But then again, I might be wrong. Maybe every single western country is headed this way on it's own fucked up

  • Suprise, anyone? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ONU CS Geek ( 323473 ) * <ian DOT m DOT wilson AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @05:20AM (#13956715) Homepage
    As a former PBX Administrator for a private university, I can say with some certanity that making sure that ensuring that they're getting the right information and monitoring the right person is not as easy as it seems. About five years ago, we had a situation where one of the janitors was downloading child pr0n onto campus computers. The Feebies brought their "Carnivore" system in, then we set up the proper configuration on the cisco gear. They asked us to change the disks daily, and they sent a courier to pick the Zip disks up every evening.

    I have also had instances where drug task force officers have 'stormed in' to the switch room and demanded the information of someone who called a campus extension. These requests were met with resistance on my part (they never had a warrant), until they left -- university policy was if we were asked for something specific we were to look it up without their presence, then forward the information to the legal department who would turn it over if a search warrant or subponea was issued for the information. Law enforcement also attempted to pressure the university into letting them wiretap all of the public phones on campus (again, to try to curb drug-related activity), however, the university resisted and finally they gave up on trying to get such a broad scope of phones wiretapped (they did manage to get one phone wiretapped for a month; the interesting factoid of that was that the phone was only used 4 times that month, all dialing campus security to help them get back into their locked car -- the law enforcement types were quite livid at the end of their wiretap and they didn't have anything)

    I can see where CMU has issues with this (isn't their campus network totally fiber-optic gigE? that will run the cost up), and I can also see where the professional side of me would want more university insight to make sure that the law enforcement types are doing this on the up-and-up.
  • Are universities special in some way that allows the FBI free reign to invade peoples privacy ?? Universities/Colleges are made-up of mostly adults iirc.. and they're citizens of the country for the most part. Have they given up some sort of constitutional right because they're enrolled in a 4 year program ?!

    Why isn't the FBI asking consumer-level isp's to install backdoor software on their customers ? College student or an isp subscriber, whats the diff...
    • From reading (skimming, actually) the regulation, it appears the ISP's have been included in this all along-- that's who the regulation was written for. The universities and libraries only just found out they're included as well, which may be explained by the growth of network services available at universities and libraries. I think it's safe to say that ISP's will be in compliance by the required date, and can't really argue about it.
  • just on the cost :(
  • Just don't pay your "tap bill", and the FBI will turn off the taps, just like what happened with your whole telephone. When they break out charges like this, you can afford to be selective!
  • We've all heard that the FBI is under increasing pressure from large intellectual property owners to crack down on theft. If they can get the American government to crack down on these cesspools of file sharing (colleges) that will save them the time, effort, and considerable cost of tracking these culprits down and bringing them to justice.

    If they can't tack on a "File Sharing Fee" to tuitions all of the colleges ($450 sounds about right), if they can't threaten them all into coughing up the identity of

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