[asterisk-biz] CALEA

Alexander Lopez Alex.Lopez at OpSys.com
Tue Mar 6 08:20:39 MST 2007


What I think is the general thought here and should not be sidelined is
that if a Government wants information and you do not give it to them,
even thought you may be 150% in the right but they will and can make
your life almost impossible. 

It is better to have a plan even if YOU feel that you are exempt.
(Non-US company, Users are elsewhere, media does not touch me, Etc.) It
is much better to give them something even if it not 100% of what they
ask for but it does the job. You have helped them and a happy Fed is a
Fed that goes away......


> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Rubenstein
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 9:38 AM
> To: Trixter aka Bret McDanel
> Cc: Asterisk-Biz
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] CALEA
> 
> 	If your business is, say, a NY corporation, but your servers are
in,
> say, Canada, are these CALEA requirements enforceable? What if your
> business is an Ontario corp, or Yukon, or Iranian? Is there some combo
> of foreign corp/servers that CALEA can't reach?
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2007-03-06 at 13:15 +0000, Trixter aka Bret McDanel wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 3/6/07, Matt <mhoppes at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >                 CALEA support is generally more than just log files,
> >                 thge government likes those log files in specific
> >                 formats, they like the recordings done such that
they
> >                 can tell which leg of the call
> >
> >         To that I'd say touch noogies.. here's a comma delimited
> >         version with headers :)
> >
> > that may work, however in my experience if you upset the government
> > they will spend years doing everything they can to 'get even'.
Often
> > spanning more than a decade.  They also work it so that even if they
> > lose in court they still win.
> >
> > If its not a problem to convert it and play nice, why not - and its
> > unlikely that anyone on this list will ever receive a title III
> > warrant anyway given how few are issued.
> >
> >
> >
> >                 noise occured on (for background analysis), often
they
> >                 have a stereo recording where left channel is A leg,
> >                 right channel is B leg, I have seen mp3 as well as
> >                 regular CD audio for that.
> >
> >         I still don't see why the system can't do this out of the
box?
> >
> > I never said it couldnt, I was addressing a specific persons
comments
> > with mine.
> >
> >
> >                 CALEA support also means being able to record
without
> >                 alerting the user, since there is a
> >
> >         Again.. by DEFAULT Asterisk doesn't alert the user when
> >         recording begins.
> >
> > reinviting the media off to the real provider (if you do that)
except
> > when recording is happening is a grey area, and that is what I was
> > addressing.  It causes a change that can be observed by the person
> > being recorded and the government can argue that is notification,
> > whether or not its a valid interpretation.  I know that when the
> > government decides something its generally very difficult to change
> > their mind, and generally by the time you do they  already got what
> > they wanted.
> >
> >
> >
> >                 provision against notification.  If you are a
> >                 "interconnected VoIP provider" as defined in the CFR
> >                 (ie 911, USF, etc apply to you) you have to be able
to
> >                 record all calls that go through you, not just the
> >                 pstn ones - this means pc->pc if its through you.  I
> >                 want to clarify before
> >
> >         Again.. Asterisk already acomplishes this.
> >
> > Again, I was addressing a specific persons comments, I never once
> > indicated whether or not asterisk was capable of anything in the
> > original post.  Had you left those comments in it would have been
> > easier to reference, but you omitted them so it requires someone
going
> > to the archives to see that I really was only addressing the persons
> > comments who said 'here is a log file'.
> >
> >
> >
> >         We have a call center and we record every single call that
> >         comes through there.... granted the caller DOES know.. but
> >         only because we tell them in a message.
> >
> > Many do, and with some of the mixing apps you can create a single
wav
> > with left/right channel representing the a/b legs of the calls.  I
do
> > not know that a/b leg seperation is reqired but it is desirable, and
> > if you read transcripts of wiretaps (written by the agents typically
> > littered with opinions of the agents written as fact) you will see
> > that they do make notes of background voices that are audible
> > corelating it with which side of the call it came from.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         On a side note..... am I expempt from CALEA if all I handle
> >         are CDR records... and I issue re-invites for ALL traffic?
> >         That is.. if someone from me makes an outbound call and I
> >         terminate IP.. if I connect my terminator directly to my
> >         client... does that absolve me? (I certainly don't intend to
> >         do that.. but an interesting thought).
> >
> > that is a grey area which I tried to address earlier.  Its unclear
> > what the governments position will be and any position statement you
> > get can change at will.  Further, changing from reinviting
everything
> > to not for recorded calls is grey as to whether or not it qualifies
as
> > notification to the end user.  The original laws were written in the
> > 80s (1984 iirc) and as a result they didnt take into account
anything
> > but traditional phone systems where you had to handle the media as
> > well as the signalling.
> >
> > The reason its grey on reinvites is that there is a provision in the
> > calea statutes that exempts entities where its not technically
> > feasable to record.  If you dont have the capacity to handle
> > reinvites, or cant do it in a way that doesnt alert the customer you
> > might qualify.  Then again the government can say  you arent in
> > compliance and the fine is something like $10k/day/switch (which
they
> > would likely assess as per asterisk box).  IIRC you dont have to be
> > served to be in violation and subject to the fine, although they
> > shouldnt be able to know until you are and cant comply.
> >
> > There is also a bit of time you have to enable a warrant, but that
is
> > measured in days not weeks.  So if you are served, you dont want to
> > scramble to write a bunch of CALEA hooks in and all, you should have
a
> > plan ahead of time just in case.
> >
> > Also note, calea generally doesnt cover stuff that isnt covered by a
> > title III warrant (of which only about 3500 are issued annually
anyway
> > for 300M people and billions of minutes of calls).  But the patriot
> > act changed it to allow for tapping a person not just a specific
line.
> > So 1 warrant can now cover multiple lines.  title III warrants have
to
> > go for judicial review regularly, I believe every month, and
> > extensions have to be granted or it expires.  Common grounds for
> > extensions are 'the suspect is aware of our tapping efforts', so
> > tipping your hand just gives cause to prolong your recording, which
if
> > you dont generally do that does have an impact on your capacity
since
> > it is extra cycles running on your system.
> >
> > Stuff calea doesnt cover, nor do title III warrants are things like
> > business records, which CDR data qualifies as.  Business records
> > (according to the federal rules of criminal procedure as well as
civil
> > procedure) are generally anything the business uses in its day to
day
> > operations.  Subpoenas are all that are required on that, unless the
> > company wants to voluntarially give them up, which it can do should
it
> > choose to.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
> > Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
> > http://www.trxtel.com the VoIP provider that pays you!
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> 
> (C) Matthew Rubenstein
> 
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