Facebook and the CIA

There's a buzz in the blogosphere about ties between In-Q-Tel, a CIA-backed venture capital firm, and Facebook. The story is summarized pretty well in this article in the New Zealand Herald. But, as Loring Wirbel observes on his Icono-Curmudgeon-Clast blog, "it reveals more about the nature of venture capital sleeping with the intelligence community and arch-conservatives in general, than it does about Facebook in particular."

FBI Wiretap Net: Ubiquitous and Vulnerable

Wired News reports on what the Electronic Frontier Foundation has discovered about the FBI wiretapping system known called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network. It's easily deployed with a few mouse clicks to monitor pen-registers and trap-and-traces (a type of surveillance that collects signaling information -- primarily the numbers dialed from a telephone -- but no communications content) as well as the content of phone calls and text messages.

The systems runs on Microsoft Windows, an operating system known for security vulnerabilities, and is configured in such a way to exacerbate them. An internal 2003 audit uncovered numerous security vulnerabilities in DCSNet including:

• Inadequate logging
• Insufficient password management
• Lack of antivirus software (critical when running Windows)
  
• Unlimited numbers of incorrect passwords were allowed without locking the machine (allowing for brute force password cracking)
• Shared logins rather than individual accounts
• The system requires user accounts have administrative privileges in Windows, allowing a hacker who got into the machine to gain complete control

Steven Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor and longtime surveillance expert, observes that "Any time something is tappable there is a risk .... when you start designing a system to be wiretappable, you start to create a new vulnerability. A wiretap is, by definition, a vulnerability from the point of the third party. The question is, can you control it?"

University taps sewers for "rich" web experience

The Australian IT News reports on a unique approach to broadband delivery:

A web connection via the toilet bowl may sound like Google's most recent April Fool, but the University of Aberdeen plans to welcome students back with a high bandwidth internet network connected via the sewers.

The university tapped H2O Networks to provide a high capacity link for the next 10 years, enabling students to access the internet from their halls of residence.

H2O Networks is a deploying dark fibre in the UK's waste water network to enable connectivity to those who have limited access. The network is known as 'fibre via the sewer'.

Garry Wardrope, network services manager at the University of Aberdeen, said: "Making university life as rich as possible for our students is the main aim of everything we do.

Ham radio operators okay with DirecTV BPL

Note: the HomePlug standard can also be used to get broadband service into older tenement buildings via when muni wifi can't go through the walls.

From the American Radio Relay League:

According to the August 15 edition of The Wall Street Journal, "Satellite-television provider DirecTV announced a wholesale agreement today with Current Group to provide high-speed Internet service over electric-power lines," otherwise known as broadband over powerlines (BPL). "Broadband over power line is a new technology that allows customers to plug a modem device the size of a cell phone into an electric outlet and connect a cable from their computer for Internet access that is capable of speeds that are faster than some popular Internet plans from cable and phone companies. Current is building out broadband networks in Cincinnati and Dallas-Fort Worth and is in talks with a number of utilities around the world about a commercial rollout," the Journal said.

ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, said "There is no reason to panic [over this decision]. ARRL's only concern about BPL is the interference potential. In that regard, the approach that Current has taken to date -- limiting its use of the medium-voltage lines to 30-50 MHz and using the HomePlug standard to avoid the HF ham bands on the low-voltage drop -- has been satisfactory. If the FCC mandated what Current has been doing, we would be quite happy."

Sumner continued: "We can be glad that DirecTV chose to align itself with a BPL company that has taken the interference problem seriously and has a good track record of avoiding interference in the amateur bands."

ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, commented, "ARRL and Current have communicated regularly over the past few years. Current has been an early leader in carefully choosing its design to avoid interference to Amateur Radio. They don't operate below 30 MHz on overhead lines at all, and use HomePlug technology, which doesn't use the ham bands, in customers' premises. To date, ARRL has no Amateur Radio interference reports involving Current or HomePlug equipment."