The controversial Internet surveillance tool known as Carnivore has been renamed DCS1000, a name devoid of any negative associations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday.

"With upgrades come new names," said Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman. The old name of a flesh-eating predator had conjured up "unfortunate" images for many people, he added.

The system in question is specialized software installed on an Internet service provider's network under federal wiretap authority. Used in criminal and national security cases, it is capable of keeping tabs on a suspect's email, instant messages, and Web surfing activities.

Privacy and civil-rights advocates have argued that the system violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Former Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an independent review of its inner workings after a stir in Congress.

The name change was to have been rolled out in conjunction with an internal Justice Department review to be presented to Attorney General John Ashcroft soon, an FBI official said. But the change was leaked to a trade publication, Government Computer News.

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"Had it not been called Carnivore, it probably wouldn't have stirred as much controversy," Bresson said. He added that the new alpha-numeric "doesn't stand for anything."

In response, critics contend that the FBI was kidding itself if it thought a name change alone would allay fears. They consider the system ripe for abuse, largely because of the way it scans data to find its court-authorized target.

"It's not the name that worries people," said David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has sued the FBI and the Justice Department for the source code and other data about the spy tool formerly known as Carnivore. "It's the way this system works."

Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, added: "If it prowls like a wolf, howls like a wolf, and has the voracious appetite of a wolf, it's still a carnivore."

For very different reasons, the new name fell flat with Naseem Javed, the New York-based author of Naming for Power, a book about business naming, and Domain Wars, a book about cyberspace names.

The FBI should have seized the opportunity to name the system in a "friendly way," as would any company seeking to score points with the public, Javed said.

"I think they had a bad name to begin with," he continued, adding that DCS1000 was worse because combinations of letters and numbers sow confusion.

"They need a proper name branding so they can roll this out as a readily identifiable tool for law enforcement," he said. Javed declined to rename the wiretapping system on the spot, however, saying it would take him weeks to come up with a good name.

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