When FBI Director James Comey took the podium in a recent public forum on “going dark,” all in attendance agreed that Apple iOS 8 encryption and other measures designed to render mobile devices impenetrable will make it far more difficult for law enforcement to gather evidence essential to prosecuting criminals. But the one point no one, including Comey, thought to address: … [Read more...]
MFI-Soft: Chameleon of Russian Lawful Interception
Of the various Russian lawful interception vendors, few are as mysterious as MFI-Soft. Like a phantom or a “Leshy,” the creature of Slavic mythology that can change shape at will, MFI-Soft has time and again shown the ability to vanish then reappear in a new form. In its present shape, the company is among the more prominent players -- some would argue the leader -- in Russia’s … [Read more...]
Lawful Intercept Training – 8 Challenges and 1 Solution
At a recent surveillance trade show, C5IS was struck by the number of foreign law enforcement officers on hand for Lawful Intercept Training. Whole contingents of lawmen were on hand from Africa, the Middle East and Asia for vendor presentations on how to use solutions that ranged from active/passive devices to intrusive software, social media monitoring and beyond. Asked … [Read more...]
Law Enforcement and Tor: Can Anyone Peel Back the Layers?
Nearly a year and a half has passed since the Edward Snowden/NSA revelations prompted widespread interest in Tor and other methods of Web anonymity. Today, nearly 90 percent of Internet users rely on some form of encryption. That includes drug dealers, arms merchants and child pornographers who today openly hawk their wares on Tor without any fear of being identified, let alone … [Read more...]
Raytheon: Driving Big Data Evolution for Local Police
A look at Raytheon’s Big Data solutions for law enforcement agencies shows that local police definitely benefit from leveraging analytics to pursue criminal investigations -- particularly when they share data with other police departments. The most common use of Big Data is to conduct searches for available data on a target: to identify patterns, detect anomalies and … [Read more...]