An Omnivore’s Take on Carnivore and Thoughts on the NSA’s Secret Love of Pink Floyd

by Lee Graham | Jun 25, 2013 | Developer Blog | 1 comment

In the late 1990’s, I was working on a paper in a computer ethics class on one of the hot topics of the day which was the implementation of Carnivore (later Digital Collection System 1000 or simply, DCS1000) by the FBI. Basically, these were strategically placed packet sniffers used for the collection of email and other data. The FBI would gain permission to place this system at an Internet Service Providers location and start intercepting data. As a young and naive computer scientist, I was up in arms that my personal security was being compromised by my own government. In this pre-9/11 era, the FBI was attempting to explain such shenanigans as protection against the organized crime syndicates of New York. Certainly a hard sell to say the least.

Unless you are transporting goods from Morocco to Egypt on a camel train in the northern Sahara, you are aware that a new system for domestic spying has come to light with a much broader functionality than Carnivore. Fortunately, the NSA has seemed to pick a better name than the FBI years before. Prism brings to mind a friendly Dark Side of the Moon album cover and succeeds in giving me a warm fuzzy feeling, where carnivore brought to mind T-rex with his stubby arms flailing in the Jurassic era wind getting ready to devour me. However, even with the NSA’s benign name, it is hard to overlook the magnitude that has revealed itself over the past couple of weeks. Initially, I was shocked. Surprised as I was more than a decade ago when I saw my privacy dissolving before me. However, keeping in mind that privacy will generally degrade/improve cyclicly based on available technologies I would certainly think that this is a ripe time for the clever software engineer. (more…)