FBI sells Spy Cameras.

Hobbes

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> Subject: Spammers hijack FBI software
> I saw this on slashdot the other day, I still can't believe they
> getting away with this!
> (forwards removed)
>

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>FBI's Surveillance system sells Spy Cameras.
>
>Vesterålen, NORWAY (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Internet users
>that are
>being scanned hourly by FBI's Carnivore system are getting the benefit
>of an
>early warning system thanks to a bug in the Government backed spy
>software. A
>mistake in the settings in the current release of Carnivore software, has
>allowed
>ad spammers have to hijack the software for their own ends.
>
>Carnivore which now goes by the less beastly moniker of DCS1000, drawn
>from
>the work it does as a "digital collection system." The investigative
>agency built
>the tool to monitor the Internet communications of suspects under its
>surveillance,
>but the system, housed on computers at Internet service
>providers,
>also can collect e-mail messages from people who are not part
>of an FBI probe.
>
>Exploiting a coding flaw in the DCS communications structure, ingenious
>hackers
>have managed to get Carnivore to point to certain advertising companies.
>Now,
>instead of monitoring the users actions and reporting to back to FBI
>remote servers,
>Carnivore is serving up unwanted ads for such things as the X10
>hidden camera.
>
>Sven Hergensan of Vesterålen, Norway was the first to discover that
>the pop
>up adverts weren't part of his normal browsing. In a phone interview,
>Sven told
>our reporter "I was running a scanner on a link into a search engine
>on my server
>when all of a sudden an X10 advert for spy cameras popped up. At that
>point I knew
>something was odd, and after enabling a packet sniffer and doing some
>in depth examination,
>I found signature references to the Carnivore spec were broadcasting out
>to the
>advertising site".
>
>Hergensan suggested that if you see a pop-up advert appear for X10 then
>there is a
>very good chance that Carnivore has been monitoring your traffic and will
>continue to do
>so until you take actions to stop it. To ensure that your system is no
>longer being
>monitored, it is wise to both end your connection to your ISP and reboot
>your machine.
>
>InterAdWorks, the advertising company in question, refused to answer any
>of our questions
>or Mr. Hergensan's allegations. X10 also refused to comment on the incident
>except to say
>that they were in no way responsible for the pop-up ads.
>
>A spokesman for the FBI's Cybercrime Unit, told us, "We are taking this prank
>very seriously
>and since it is an ongoing investigation, we have no comments at this time".

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