Verizon's Idea Of FCC Reform: Let Us Decide
Earthlink Not To Blame For Incorrectly Fingering Legit Bank As A Phishing Site

NSA Patents The Ability To Spy On You Via The Internet

Surprises

from the think-they'll-start-suing-people? dept

Wed, Sep 21st 2005 6:23pm — Mike Masnick
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?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

8 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Mousky, 21 Sep 2005 @ 6:50pm

    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.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      StaticVector, 21 Sep 2005 @ 8:50pm

      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.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    will, 21 Sep 2005 @ 7:13pm

    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.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Field, 21 Sep 2005 @ 8:59pm

    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

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    GBM, 21 Sep 2005 @ 9:54pm

    No Subject Given

    Wouldn't that give them the ability to track who, what, when, and where illegal downloads are taking place?

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    iosd, 21 Sep 2005 @ 11:12pm

    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?



    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Joost, 22 Sep 2005 @ 5:35am

      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.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        bman, 24 Sep 2005 @ 12:52pm

        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.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]


Verizon's Idea Of FCC Reform: Let Us Decide
Earthlink Not To Blame For Incorrectly Fingering Legit Bank As A Phishing Site
Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

Friday

19:39 Important Announcement: Techdirt Is Migrating To A New Platform (0)
More arrow

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.