Comcast hires spies for feds and tracking users
By Leslie Poston
Thanks to the Computer Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) from May 2007, companies like Comcast have more latitude to spy on users for both the government and themselves. They are using this latitude now to hire someone whose sole purpose will be to spy on Comcast users.
Other internet and telecommunications providers, like AT&T, have caught intense flak for spying on users without their knowledge. The language of CALEA does not give law enforcement or, by extension, internet service providers, license to snoop on users without cause. It simply states that internet service providers must have an infrastructure in place to allow federal wiretapping and tracking if needed and warranted.
This falls under a blatant abuse of this law, in my opinion. It also comes close on the heels of Comcast’s FCC woes from throttling of torrent users, news that they are happy to use FISA against their users for a small fee of $1000 USD, and right after news that they have limited file sharing by use of hacker type tactics such as Sandvine.
The job posting was listed on Brassring as an engineer position for National Security Operations with the company. It requires an advanced degree and a familiarity with black hat practices, IT infrastructure and CALEA, among other things. Lock up your files, folks, it’s about to get bumpy for Comcast subscribers everywhere (and that is a lot of internet users, as Comcast is the second largest internet provider in the country).
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on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
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June 1st, 2008
Your link to brassring is dead. I think your beef should really be directed at the law itself. Every ISP is complying with federal warrants, AT&T has a far worse track record in this regard…