As promised, NetEqualizer is now offering the utilities
necessary to meet requirements set forth this month
by CALEA, or the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act. This law oversees
telecommunication security and has now been
expanded to Internet security. There are some fairly
harsh federal penalties for noncompliance that
became effective May 1.
In the spirit of protecting our nation, the mission is not
to make life miserable and expensive for operators
and thwart communications, but rather to give the FBI
and homeland security tools to wire tap (if we can
borrow the term) Internet conversation on a moment's
notice. We suspect it would be a rare occurrence for a
small WISP to receive a warrant to comply, but it would
be potentially devastating to security should the
means to monitor conversation not be available.
The following Q&A will address NetEqualizer's
capabilities in reference to CALEA compliance.
1. Functionally, what does the Netequalizer
CALEA release provide?
We provide a network probe with the following
capabilities:
- It will allow an ISP or other operator to comply with
a basic warrant for information about a user by
capturing and sending IP communications in real time
to a third party.
- Communication may be captured by headers or
headers and content.
2. In what format is the data portion sent to a
law enforcement agency?
We will provide basic descriptive tags
identifying headers, data, and time stamps, along with
HEX or ASCII representation of content data.
3. Do you meet the standards of the receiving
law enforcement agency?
The law and specifications on "how" to deliver
to a law enforcement agency are somewhat
ambiguous. The FBI has created some detailed
specifications, but the reality is that there are some
40,000 law enforcement agencies and they are given
autonomy on how they receive data. We do provide
samples on how to receive NetEqualizer-captured
data on a third party server, but are unable to
guarantee definite compliance with any specific
agency.
4. Does the NetEqualizer do any analysis of
the data?
No. We are only providing a probe
function.
5. Is the NetEqualizer release fully CALEA
compliant?
Although the law (see CALEA sections 103 and
107(a)(2)) is fairly specific on what needs to be
done, the how is not addressed to any level of detail to
which we can engineer our solution. Many people are
following the ATIS specification which was put forth by
the FBI, and we have read and attempted to comply
with the probe portion of that specification. But, the
reality is that there is no one agency given the authority
to test a solution and bless it as compliant. So, if
faced with a warrant for information, the law
enforcement agency in charge may indeed want
something in slightly different formats. If this is the
case, there may be additional consulting.
As best we can tell at this time, there is no one
government agency that can fully declare our
technology CALEA compliant. However, we do pledge
to work with our customers should they be faced with
a warrant for information to adjust and even customize
our solution; however additional fees may
apply.
For more information on NetEqualizer and CALEA,
visit our extended Q&A page at http://
www.netequalizer.com/caleafaq.php. Additional
information on CALEA itself can be found at
http://www.askcalea.org.
