Carnivore
Carnivores are animals that eat a diet consisting mostly of meat. Also, the word could refer to the
mammals of the Order Carnivora, many (but not all) of which fit the first definition.
See also
Carnivore is a name given to a system implemented by the FBI that is analogous to wire tapping except in this case, it is email that is being tapped instead of telephone conversations. It is a form of policeware.
US Government officials will confirm or deny little about the physical or logical workings of Carnivore, but there are some basic facts that are generally agreed upon:
In order to be affected, a computer must be physically installed at an ISP or other location where it can "sniff" traffic on a LAN segment to look for email messages in transit. The technology itself is nothing really special — using a standard packet sniffer and some fairly straightforward filtering (such as a Perl script), one could easily duplicate this functionality. Getting the cooperation of the ISPs or the owner of the LAN onto which Carnivore is to be placed can either be voluntary or by court order; however, once a system is in place it is not allowed to simply capture every email that passes through the system — they must get a warrant or court order naming specific people or email addresses that may be monitored. When an email passes through that matches the filtering criteria mandated by the warrant, the message is logged along with information on the date, time, origin and destination. This logging is most likely relayed in real-time to the FBI but the details are not currently known. All other traffic would presumably be dropped without logging or capture.
There is much speculation and concern regarding the implementation, usage, and possible abuses of Carnivore. Free speech advocates and others interested in civil rights are concerned over the potential for misuse.
Assistant FBI Director Magic Lantern, the FBI's keystroke logging tool.
