What does Carnivore intercept?
Carnivore is used in two ways: as a “content-wiretap” and a “trap-and-trace/pen-register”. It is most often used in the second mode. A telephone “content wiretap” is where law enforcement eavesdrops on the suspect’s telephone calls, recording the oral communications on tape. Carnivore can do similar things for Internet communication: • capture all e-mail messages to and from a specific user’s account • capture all the network traffic to and from a specific user or IP address A less invasive style of wiretapping is the telephone “trap-and-trace,” where police tracks all the caller IDs of inbound telephone calls. For example, if your child has been kidnapped, the FBI will put a trap and trace on your phone in hopes of discovering the telephone number of the kidnappers when they call your for ransom. There is a similar feature known as a “pen-register” that tracks all outbound telephone numbers dialed. If you are a suspected drug dealer, the FBI might perform a virtual stake out where the
