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Tracking Device  

The growing power of microprocessors and software also is making it 
easier for others to know where you are. For that matter, the lowly 
cell phone has been a fairly effective tracking device for years.  

"It's basically a vast surveillance network that half of us are 
now tied into, that follows us around," said Richard M. Smith, 
an independent security consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

The network needs to keep track of where the handset is so it can 
be handed off to the next cell. That means it's possible to pinpoint 
a person's location to within less than a mile, according to Jim 
Southworth, chief technical officer of East By North, a broadband 
consulting company in Reston, Virginia. Government agencies can tap 
into that information in real time if necessary, or check carrier 
records, he said.  

Location detection takes a big step forward with Global Positioning 
System, in which devices on the ground or in the air determine their 
own locations using signals received from a network of satellites. 
This system can pinpoint the location of any GPS device to within 
feet, Southworth said. The devices are quickly growing smaller and 
are being pitched as add-ons for mobile phones and cars.  

Doing a Little Digital Eavesdropping  

There is a wide range of technologies for eavesdropping on what 
people send over data networks and even what they do on their own 
computers. They break down roughly into consumer tools, ones made 
for companies with IT specialists, government capabilities, and 
the murky area of methods used by hackers and other rogue agents, 
according to Erik Laykin, president of consulting company Online 
Security, in Los Angeles.  

Surveillance software is available off the shelf and on the Internet 
for consumers, such as parents keeping an eye on children's computer 
activity. Vero Beach, Florida-based SpectorSoft's EBlaster can copy 
all Web sites visited, keystrokes typed, and e-mail messages sent and 
received from the computer on which it is running. That information 
can then be forwarded to someone else's e-mail address, such as that 
of a parent at work. Programs like this could also be installed 
surreptitiously, for example on a PC at a competing company, 
through a virus or other means, according to Gartner's Hunter.  

In addition to software for keystroke recording, there is at least 
one stealthy hardware device that does the same thing. KeyGhost, 
in Christchurch, New Zealand, sells a small cylindrical device that 
can be plugged into a keyboard cable and looks like an electrical 
adapter. It can capture about eight months' worth of keystrokes 
in flash memory.  

Invisible Surveillance  

Corporations can do something similar on a larger scale using 
Raytheon's Silent Runner, a "watered-down" version of a tool 
originally developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, 
Online Security's Laykin said. His company is a reseller of 
the software.  

"Once the tool has been placed on a network, the tool is actually 
invisible to everyone on the network, including the network 
administrators, and it will capture and view all the data and 
traffic flowing on that network," Laykin said. Using keywords 
and rules, Silent Runner can detect improper activity, such as 
sending e-mail messages with information about a secret new product.  

Because it could be dangerous in the wrong hands, Silent Runner is 
tightly controlled. If Silent Runner is watching you, you probably 
know it, he said.  

"Generally speaking, employers have an obligation to tell 
employees there's a surveillance program," Laykin said.  

Government Tools  

However, regulations on private surveillance vary around the world. 
Meanwhile, little is known about some systems used by governments.  

One of the most controversial tools is the U.S. Federal Bureau of 
Investigation's Carnivore system. Carnivore is a "packet sniffer" 
that the FBI installs at ISPs to capture traffic associated with 
a customer under suspicion, according to Smith. Despite fears of 
agents reading every Internet user's e-mail, the system officially 
can be used on specific suspects only, Smith said. But some privacy 
advocates worry that there is too little oversight of agents carrying 
out a Carnivore probe.  

More wide-reaching is Echelon, a system many experts believe has 
been deployed by governments in the U.S. and Europe to monitor 
international voice and data traffic over both land lines and 
satellites. Echelon is used like a net, capturing a large portion 
of the world's communications so authorities can later sift through 
it and find what they are looking for, Gartner's Hunter said.  

Chinese sources say police in that country have been known to monitor 
e-mail as well as message board activity at major Chinese portals. 
If the police find messages with political or other content the 
government finds objectionable, they may work with the portal 
operator to try to find those who created the messages.  

Dangerous Deliveries  

Perhaps the most frightening prospect for surveillance comes from 
outside the realm of legal tools. A custom "Trojan horse" designed 
to go into a specific targeted system couldn't even be detected, 
Laykin said.  

"The virus scanners, like McAfee and Norton, will not have a 
signature for a custom-written virus," he said.  

Some advances in technology also have made computer users more 
vulnerable to unscrupulous electronic surveillance. DSL Internet 
connections are always on, unlike dial-up accounts, so there may 
be more opportunity for intrusion. Wireless LANs also open up the 
possibility of snooping. The encryption system built into the popular 
IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN standard can be cracked just by examining 
a brief sample of packets, according to Peter Shipley, a security 
consultant in Berkeley, California. Shipley said he has intercepted 
wireless LAN traffic from 20 miles away, with an inexpensive antenna 
at the top of a hill.  

Putting It All Together  

As much as you may worry about being watched or having information 
gathered from you, what may be most scary is what can happen when 
all that information is pulled together.  

Already, data mining systems can analyze 15 terabytes of data in one 
day, roughly as much information as is gathered by the U.S. national 
discount chain Wal-Mart Stores in one day, according to Gartner's 
Hunter. The power of this kind of software is growing, and systems 
that can analyze 125 terabytes per day are now under development 
and are likely to be deployed within five years, he said.  

Storage and database technology now allows the companies with which 
you do business to keep more information about you. Civil rights 
protections may be able to keep government away from that data, but 
companies face an inherent risk if they keep it, said Lee Tien, senior 
staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in San Francisco.  

"You can't disclose what you don't have, but if you have it, you may be 
compelled to give it up," Tien said. "Data retention seems to be getting 
a foothold around the world. We're already seeing undeliberate retention 
being used for surveillance purposes."  

Within Reach  

Meanwhile, the Internet does for data transmission and sharing what 
microprocessors do for data gathering: put it within reach of anyone. 
It can take a snooper's photo, such as digital pictures that have been 
taken of women entering family-planning clinics in the U.S., and put 
that in the hands of any Web surfer, Hunter pointed out.  

"We're talking about a world where most human activity is recorded... 
and most of what is recorded will be available to anyone who wants 
it badly enough," Hunter said.  

Only in Their Dreams  

Some surveillance nightmares will probably just be bad dreams for a 
long time, according to vendors and analysts in the industry. Among 
their expectations for the near future:  

# Heat-sensitive infrared cameras can't watch you through the 
  walls of your house. They can see you walking down the street 
  day or night, but in your house they can detect the indoor 
  temperature only. 

# Don't lose any sleep over robotic spiders like the ones in the 
  movie Minority Report that detect body heat and breath. Robotics 
  technology is probably a long way from creating tiny creatures 
  that can find their own way around, said Richard Hunter, an analyst 
  at Gartner, in Stamford, Connecticut. 

# Just about anyone can buy a picture taken from space, but they 
  probably couldn't use it to identify you. In pictures from the 
  Ikonos satellite operated by Space Imaging, in Thornton, Colorado, 
  nothing even shows up unless it's about a meter across, according 
  to the company, which typically sells images for uses such as urban 
  and environmental planning. However, military satellites do have 
  a higher resolution. 

# It's unlikely that a clothing store will ever call out an 
  unwelcome greeting to you whenever you walk by. The Tom Cruise 
  character in Minority Report had his face scanned and recognized 
  just when he wanted to be anonymous, running from the police. 
  In reality, turned heads, changing light conditions, and other 
  factors mean that kind of system would have to be reserved for 
  just a handful of avid customers who look right at the camera 
  every time they visit, according to face-recognition experts.  

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/END/

                           -==-
Source: Raiders News Updates - http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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