[IP] en of story F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [suresh@hserus.net]
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 9:16 AM
To: David Farber
Cc: EEkid@aol.com
Subject: RE: [IP] F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail

Yes - this says it all doesn't it?  No further discussion really required.

<<"This was a technical glitch in an area of evolving tools and technology
and fast-paced investigations," Mr. Kortan said. "We moved quickly to
resolve it and stop it. The system worked exactly the way it's designed.">>

Subpoenas are routine - and in the case of FBI subpoenas we've encountered,
inevitably are about criminals - scam, botnets, assorted other cybercrime.
As a large ISP / email provider for 70 million ++ users, we do have internal
controls in place, and a legal team to review these controls, and custom
tools to provide exactly what is asked for - no more, no less .. so I can
say we haven't screwed up like this before.

But what was the point?  That ISPs shouldn't screw up?  Ideally - yes.
Capacity building is called for, and ISPs do that internally as well as part
of their work in ISP associations, all the time.

Or was the point that FBI shouldn't send ISPs subpoenas in the course of an
investigation?  Not very practical, that ..

There is nothing at all here that suggests that this subpoena was
unwarranted, a warrantless wiretap etc.

A technical error at an ISP, the FBI notices and asks the ISP to stop.
Destroys the rest of the data (if not all of it .. there's enough rules of
evidence to make out a case that whatever was gathered has been tainted).
End of story.

        Srs


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net]
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 5:58 AM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: EEkid@aol.com [EEkid@aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 8:56 AM
> To: dfarber@cs.cmu.edu; David Farber
> Subject: F.B.I. Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/washington/17fisa.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&;
> oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1203342758-D3/2s0YtfwnMQ0ZcvyGEbA
>
>
> " A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from
> an entire computer network - perhaps hundreds of accounts or more -
> instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret
> intelligence court as part of a national security investigation,
> according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
>
> F.B.I. officials blamed an "apparent miscommunication" with the unnamed
> Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a
> small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were
> ultimately destroyed, officials said...."
>
>
>
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>
> -------------------------------------------


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