Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

The new Cisco stuff will sport something currently in draft form called "lawful interception". What does that mean? It means a router that ISPs can use to segregate and decrypt individual traffic to be provided to law enforcement. This is significant because in the past an ISP could only respond to a law enforcement query with ALL the traffic from X router and thats pretty obfuscated. Now they will be able to respond with exactly and only the traffic for the suspected or requested person.

For many this is a very scary prospect. It doesnt really bother me. People need to understand that the Internet is a public place. Its different than a phone call, its not a one to one connection. Its a diverse interconnected network with lots of conversations happening at once. Its a bustling train station rather than a private meeting between two individuals. Those that want a "private" network need to run a wire, their own wire, between their house and wherever they want the privacy to extend to (and keep it all on private property).

Actually this will help privacy, but again that doesnt really matter on a public network. If a suspected person is under surveillance then just that persons traffic can be monitored, rather than all the traffic at the same ISP (or same router, etc).

For more see the linked news.com article.   Inside Ciscos eavesdropping apparatus: news.com