Friday, December 20, 2002

TIA has gone to ground The project will now be difficult to track.  Federal database spy site fading. As controversy grows over the Defense Department's shadowy Total Information Awareness project, its virtual presence is steadily decreasing. [CNET News.com] 2:21:22 PM

Monitorying may provide terrorists the key If centralized monitoring of the net is achieved as prescribed by the updated Critical Infrastructure report (see below), then will such monitoring provide the key to brining an otherwise robust, decentralized architecture to its knees? Terrorists on the Net? Who Cares?. A former tech expert for the feds claims in a report that the threat that terrorist-hackers might 'bring the nation to its knees' is overblown. Still, the Chicken Littles keep clucking. By Noah Shachtman. [Wired News] 8:37:53 AM

Who's watching the watchers? Congress has been frustrated in its attempts to monitor the Justice Department as it changes the rules.  Now the Critical Infrastructure committee is weighing in.  Course, we are being told not to read too much into this report. But, ... White House to Propose System for Wide Monitoring of Internet. The Bush administration wants Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable monitoring and, potentially, surveillance of its users. By John Markoff and John Schwartz. [New York Times: Technology] 8:34:57 AM