In just another example of how much things have changed since the Cold War, the US government is looking to pass a law to make it easier to collect information on people using the internet. The software programs these plans are aimed at relate to sites that offer encryption or allow peer to peer traffic.
From the Times article –
James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and … “(t)hey basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
Unfortunately for the folks trying to intercept this information, the cat is out of the internet bag. The technology changes so rapidly and there are so many ways to use the web to pass information unobtrusively, it does seem like a losing battle.