Campaigners disappointed by Carnivore

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released details of its controversial Carnivore email surveillance system, but the information was far from what privacy campaigners wanted.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released details of its controversial Carnivore e-mail surveillance system, but the information was far from what privacy campaigners wanted.

The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) used the US Freedom of Information Act to file a claim to get the source code and other technical details of Carnivore.

But hundreds of the pages which the FBI was forced to release were blacked out for security reasons, with around 150 more withheld completely. The withheld pages are believed to contain much of the source code, claimed EPIC.

The early version of Carnivore was codenamed 'Omnivore' and was based on Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system. The FBI confirms much of the code is vendor-based, but says some is proprietary and should be protected.

The documents released reveal that Omnivore was conceived in February 1997 and was replaced with software which was run on Windows NT-based systems in June 1999.

The documents also reveal the FBI's concern over how to intercept Voice over IP data, but the solutions being considered are blacked out.

EPIC said it was disappointed but not surprised by the lack of information, but it expects more documents to be released in November.

However, the UK Home Office is not expected to release any information about its own monitoring systems.