VoIP users and carriers in the United States have been fretting about CALEA, the federal law that requires carriers to honor eavesdropping subpoenas. Compared to Switzerland, though, CALEA is a walk in the park. There's news that the Swiss will require ISPs to install Trojan Horse software in their clients computers to allow listening in. The "problem," as the Swiss reportedly see it, is that software like Skype encrypts calls before they are transmitted; the only way to listen in is to do so before the call is encrypted. Oh yes: the software apparently can also turn on a computer's mic to capture ambient sound. It's not clear whether this software would be deployed on all computers or just the ones targeted by subpoena. But it's worth remembering that one of the delights of telecommunications in George Orwell's dystopian 1984 was that the televisions could (and did) watch the viewers.
For more information about the Swiss proposal:
- read this article [1] in PCPro
Links:
[1] http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/95394/swiss-look-to-trojan-code-for-voip-tapping.html