FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

FC: FBI surreptitious black bag jobs circumvent encrypti

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 17:17:57 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: FBI surreptitious black bag jobs circumvent encryption products Copies to: sobel@epic.org Send reply to: declan@well.com

Here's an article I wrote about this possibility over a year ago:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,21810,00.html

>Another answer might lie in a little-noticed section of the
>legislation the White House has sent to Congress. It says that during
>civil cases or criminal prosecutions, the Feds can use decrypted
>evidence in court without revealing how they descrambled it.

-Declan

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Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 16:24:44 -0500 To: declan@well.com From: David Sobel <sobel@epic.org> Subject: FBI Break-in Targets Use of Encryption Cc: politech@politechbot.com

As many of us have long predicted, it is now a matter of record that the FBI can, and does, conduct surreptitious entries to counter the use of encryption.

The FBI application is at:

http://www.epic.org/crypto/breakin/application.pdf

The court order is at:

http://www.epic.org/crypto/breakin/order.pdf

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http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/12/04/front_page/JMOB04.htm

A federal gambling case against the son of jailed mob boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo could instead be the first legal test of cutting-edge cyber-surveillance technology that some critics of federal investigations say borders on Big Brotherism.

Court records in the pending case indicate that Nicodemo S. Scarfo, 35, was the target of a sophisticated surveillance tool - a so-called keystroke-logging device - that allowed the FBI to reproduce every stroke he entered on a computer on which gambling records allegedly were stored.

Scarfo subsequently was charged with supervising a mob-linked bookmaking and loan-sharking operation in North Jersey.

Questions about the FBI's spying methods in the Scarfo investigation surface at a time when defense lawyers and civil libertarians have begun to ask how far federal authorities should be permitted to go with electronic surveillance. Critics say that technology is evolving faster than the laws governing privacy rights and that federal investigators, emboldened by the capabilities of their cyber-tools, frequently disregard constitutional guarantees.

. . .

The FBI would not comment. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald D. Wigler, the prosecutor in the case, said only that he expected the FBI's surveillance methods would be challenged in a pretrial defense motion and that arguments could establish new case law.

"I can't talk about any of it," he said, "but I think it's correct to say this is [a] cutting-edge [legal issue]."

. . .

[Scarfo's lawyer] would not discuss what his client was storing on the encrypted program but said Scarfo was using software known as PGP.

"It stands for Pretty Good Privacy," the lawyer said with a chuckle.

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