how the FBI is watching the net

some details of the FBI's net surveilance technique have been made public last Friday at the Search & Seizure in the Digital Age symposium held at Stanford University's law school.
basically, this is what they are doing:

- if there is a badguy they want to watch, they get a court order and if the Internet Service Provider can tell which IP address the badguy is on, they watch a whole block of IP's.

every time you sign on the internet, you get an IP address. this comes from your ISP, and with always-on connections, rarely changes. but if someone with the same ISP is being bad, the FBI will watch a whole set of IP's to make sure they get 'em. and by watch, i mean record all net activity. email, web requests, etc.

source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6154457.html

now THIS is fucked up. what fun!

apparently, cell phone companies can place software on your phone, without you knowing, that will activate and transmit your microphone! 'they' can listen in whenever the fuck they want.

this is done by using the auto-update feature of some newer phones (nextel, razr). when it updates, they flash the bug onto your phone and make you a walking microphone for The Man.

this was recently done, with reasonable evidence, to convict some criminal.

but now we know that it does and can happen.
privacy and unlawful search are the issues here. i just realized the other day of the widespread proliferation of video cameras and microphones in today's toys. maybe all the talk of implants and RFID and other tracking methods of the sort are a sort of distraction to the real threat:

cellular phones.

They can already record all communications and pinpoint your location with your phone.
now They show us that They can possibly stream & record audio/video from your phone at anytime without your knowledge.
all that seems to be missing is using your phone as money. i'm sure this goes on somewhere in the world, but i'm too lazy to search for it.

have a nice night!

link: news.com.com article