Comcast Is Hiring an Internet Snoop for the Feds

By Noah Shachtman
Wired
Jun. 06, 2008

Wanna tap e-mail, voice and Web traffic for the government? Well, here's your chance. Comcast, the country's second-largest Internet provider, is looking for an engineer to handle "reconnaissance" and "analysis" of "subscriber intelligence" for the company's "National Security Operations."

Day-to-day tasks, the company says in an online job listing, will include "deploy[ing], installing] and remov[ing] strategic and tactical data intercept equipment on a nationwide basis to meet Comcast and Government lawful intercept needs." The person in this "intercept engineering" position will help collect and process traffic on the company's "CDV [Comcast Digital Voice], HSI [High Speed Internet] and Video" services.

Since May 2007, all Internet providers have been required to install gear for easy wiretapping under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Anyone taking this position, Comcast says, will have to be "knowledgeable with ... standards such as CALEA." (The company is all too happy to "intercept its customers' communications" for a fee of a thousand dollars, Secrecy News revealed last year.)

But the person in this job won't just be snooping for the government. He or she will also "perfor[m] diagnosis on data, voice, and video services to detect and respond to fraudulent activity such as theft of service and speed enhancement."

For the better part of a year, there have been rumors that the company kept some sort of bandwidth limit on its customers. Finally, in February, Comcast admitted that it had been "clamping down on subcribers' file-sharing as a way of keeping overall net traffic up.

The job requires a "B.S. Degree in Information Systems Technology, MIS or related field or equivalent years of progressive experience and self-study," a minimum of two years of policy or security engineering experience," as well as the "ability to carry and coordinate delivery of a 50-pound server to support deployments in local market."

If that's too much for you, don't worry. The company is also looking for an administrative assistant in its National Security Operations office. In that position, you'll be able to handle "sensitive incoming Legal subpoenas and other material. Some of this material may be 'Secret/Top Secret' and be classified under applicable Federal Law."