[ale] REASONS for choosing linux over Windows

[Jonathan Rickman]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2001, ChangingLINKS.com wrote:

> Someone wanted a list of reasons for his company to choose Linux. I got the
> following message in my email from Red Hat:

Here's another good one...

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25471

Wednesday, November 28, 2001

The FBI's Magic Lantern

By Mike Sposato

Cyber Knights. Magic Lantern. These names conjure up visions of King
Arthur, the Round Table and defending the weak from the strong. Protecting
the innocent from the corrupt. Defending all that is good from that which
is evil. How could something called "Cyber Knights" possibly be bad?

It is, though. It is very bad. After eight years of being headed by Louis
Freeh  a man who saw fit to revise Benjamin Franklin's famous statement,
"Those who would give up essential freedoms for security, deserve neither
freedom nor security" and replace it with his own "The American people
must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for
safety and security"  the FBI has chosen to use Sept. 11 as an excuse to
remove yet another "degree of personal privacy."

Under a new initiative called Cyber Knights, the FBI has launched into the
business of creating "Trojans"  a particular type of computer virus  to
infect computers. Yes, that's correct, the FBI, wants to infect your
computer with a virus. Launch a program from an infected e-mail, and the
FBI will have a record of every keystroke you make on your machine. They
call it their "Magic Lantern." Possibly learning from their public
relations debacle "Carnivore," now renamed the "DCS-1000," and the lesser
known "Omnivore," the FBI has chosen names wisely this time. Names
carefully designed to evoke warm fuzzy feelings of being protected by the
proverbial "White Knight"  a Cyber Knight, if you will.

Modern cryptography has reached the point where it is not breakable by the
FBI. Nor will it be in the foreseeable future, barring some stunning
breakthrough in computer science or mathematics. The basic problem in
breaking strong crypto is that you start with two prime numbers, and then
you combine them mathematically. To break the code, and recover the
message, you have to get back to those original prime numbers. Which has
been compared to mixing a pound of sugar with a pound of salt, and then
trying to separate them back out at a later date.

Every public case where the FBI has overcome cryptography has involved
getting the "pass-phrase," or "key" surreptitiously. One notable case had
them installing a "key-logger" on a suspect's computer, which allowed them
to capture his pass-phrase, and open his encrypted files.

But you must pity the poor FBI. In order to accomplish this task, they
have to get a warrant, physically enter the premises and install their
hardware  all without being detected. Then someone had a bright idea: If
hackers could plant viruses on people's computers undetected, why couldn't
they do it too? Once remote control key-loggers are installed as "Trojans"
on your machine, you'll never even know you're infected.

"But wait a darn minute! I use anti-virus software! I'm protected," you
might say. Guess again. Like other quislings and collaborators of the
past, McAfee, largest anti-virus software producer in the world, sniveled
up to the federal police and simpered that they would take steps to ensure
their software didn't alert you that you had been infected by the FBI.
This infuriates me. I use McAfee's product  which I paid for in good
faith. Their software's job is to alert me when a virus has infected my
computer. It is not their place to decide what is a "good" virus and what
is a "bad" virus.

There are questions about the legality of this approach. Will they need a
warrant? How will you know if they have acted without a warrant? Plus
there is that darned old Constitution getting in the way of "efficient"
law enforcement again. (Side note  always be afraid when the powers that
be, begin talking about "efficient law enforcement.") The Fourth Amendment
states in part "  and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to
be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Installing
key-loggers that capture every keystroke indiscriminately would seem to me
to be a violation of this clause. It also seems to me that this could
constitute a "fishing expedition," if the key-logger is grabbing all
keystrokes, when a warrant specifies a pass-phrase.

But I may be wrong. In a post Sept. 11 world, we seem to have entered a
world where "the ends justify the means" and the average American seems to
agree with Louis Freeh. Pretty sad, America.



-- 
Jonathan Rickman
X Corps Security
http://www.xcorps.net


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