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NSA Patents The Ability To Spy On You Via The Internet
from the think-they'll-start-suing-people? dept
While the NSA is well known for being quite advanced technically speaking, you don't often associate them with patents. You get the feeling that the NSA prefers to keep its technical know-how as closely-guarded internal secrets. However, perhaps they're branching out a bit. They've patented a geo-location system that tries to pinpoint where you are based on your IP address. Others are already doing the same thing, but it's not clear if they violate this patent. Still, you have to wonder what the NSA is going to do with the patent. If others start figuring out your location, are they going to sue for patent infringement?
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A ping here, a ping there
Sounds to me that all they are doing is pinging network stations and network endpoints, taking the smallest number and using a mathematical equation to determine the geographical whereabouts of said network stations and endpoints. How is this patentable? Or more importantly, how is this different from the IP Locator at geobytes? Just wondering.
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They took down Al Capone for Tax Evasion...
I suspect they may try to prosecute deliberate attempts at anonymizing or obscuring a node on the network. If the technique used requires information specific to the patent or reverse engineering, they might try bludgeoning folks with IP laws along the lines of the DMCA.
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Re: A ping here, a ping there
The patent might have been granted tuesday, but it was filed December 29, 2000. So, this technology has been around for a while now. That is why you see it just about everywhere these days.
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Revenue
Maybe they see it as a revenue-generating mechanism? Think about it: foreign governments and dictatorships, corporations and organizations. A penny per ping? =P
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No Subject Given
Wouldn't that give them the ability to track who, what, when, and where illegal downloads are taking place?
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Discard
Maybe this is naive, but most networks are now discarding all anonymous traffic, ping included. How does this affect the algorithms they are using?
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Re: Discard
I don't see how a ICMP Echo (more commonly known as Ping) packet is anonymous, because an ICMP Reply packet has to travel back. Therefore, both destination and source IP addresses are in a ping packet.
It is possible that ICMP Echo and Reply packets get blocked at some routers, but not because they're anonymous.
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Re: Discard
He means anonymous as connections that didn't originate from with the local network or connections that aren't in the TCP-established state.
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