Michael Polák ( )
Přečteno 174389x, 28 komentářů, rubrika: (en) Archive

Until recently, Carnivore was known just as a project of FBI to deploy something like network sniffer...

But Slashdot has posted link to an interesting article, which came with much more radical idea, what Carnivore can be used for - it would allow someting even nuclear weapons wouldn't be able to do. Read the article for more details.

To be true, the article is of course based on technicaly wrong presumptions: most ISPs are smart enough to locate hosted servers behind switches, so they cannot sniff any traffic on the network, which is not address from/to them. And the same problem is whith Carnivore not being connected as switch, but just as one of machines in the router segment: this would still allow these boxes to make serious problems to most ISPs, but basicaly, I think that any kind of attempt to switch off Internet would be immediately noticed by ISPs, considered to be malfunction of Carnivore box, and would result in immediate disconnection of the sniffing box from attacked network segment - which would be as easy as disconnecting single cable from it.

Basicaly, it is interested idea. Arachne Labs are not dependent on services of U.S. ISPs, so hopefuly no Carnivore box will ever sniff my personal e-mail sent to anyone outside USA... additionaly, most Europan nations have their own, content-rich local Internets, including web pages written in their national language, so I think eg. most Czech Internet users won't be affected by U.S.Internet being switched off using DDoS attack of Carnivore boxes, or whatever, as being discused at Slashdot. Additionaly, Arachne Labs server is connected to ISP Inway, which uses it's own 2.4 Ghz wireless backbone, which makes it kind of "Island in the Net" - as close to being "out of control", as possible in today's world...

I am also considering adding simple graphical frontend for PGP as part of Arachne Insight e-mail client. Currently you have to PGP manualy, which is what most users are too lazy to do - I think it would be nice to have something like "[x] PGP" checkbox on Arachne mail composer screen. I think it makes difference to know, that your e-mail exchange with someone is REALLY private...