Can You Hear Me Now?

March 3, 2009 – 1:59 pm

A knowledgeable and inquisitive reader, having joined me in puzzling over the strange “blacklisting” errors we have just experienced here for Asian IPs, thought I might find a certain year-old Slate article interesting. I did indeed. It describes the findings of one Babak Pasdar, a network-security expert who was called in by a major telecommunications firm (Verizon, we are led to believe) to revamp their firewall. In the course of his work he noticed a point of entry, with full access to everything, that was not secured in any way, and was referred to as the “Quantico circuit”. (Quantico, Virginia, is, of course, the home of the FBI academy.) When he suggested closing this vulnerability — a security flaw that was, in his expert opinion, quite extraordinary, and entirely unacceptable — he was told to back off. He has since gone to Congress with his concerns, and has signed an affidavit detailing his observations.

The article is here, and the affidavit is here.

Posted by Malcolm on at 1:59 pm, filed under Politics, Technology. RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.

3 Comments

  1. JK says

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/187612

    “…Among the new disclosures this week was an Oct. 23, 2001, OLC memo that also told the Bush White House it could use the U.S. military to round up terror suspects, storm apartment and office buildings and set up roadblocks inside the United States on the grounds that Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply in the war on terror. The memo, written by conservative law professor John Yoo, also suggested that First Amendment guarantees protecting freedom of speech and the press could be suspended “to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

    Posted March 4, 2009 at 5:23 pm | Permalink
  2. PDG says

    Thanks for the link. Is it paranoia when they are watching you?

    Posted March 5, 2009 at 5:38 pm | Permalink
  3. Malcolm says

    Not at all, Pat. Being paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

    Posted March 5, 2009 at 5:45 pm | Permalink

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*