A state-sanctioned trojan in your computer

According to today's SonntagsZeitung (a Swiss Sunday paper), Swiss law enforcement agencies, both at Federal and Cantonal level, are considering using a software developed by the firm ERA IT Solutions to eavesdrop on Skype and other VoIP calls.

The software - a "trojan" installed on the eavesdropping target's computer - could be planted by policemen, "or sent to the machine by the Internet providers, hidden in the usual data stream", writes the paper. The software would record and report back to a central server the content of VoIP calls and other communications emanating from that computer, and could also be used to turn on remotely their built-in microphones.

In Switzerland this would be unlawful: the law that regulates the surveillance of telecom and postal traffic, adopted in 2002, does not cover Internet telephony. And the very idea that Internet providers may be asked to covertly send trojan programs to their customers' computers is unacceptable. "The project is kept secret in order to avoid a public debate", writes the newspaper in an ironic twist - after its article, goodbye secrecy.

And let's open the debate. Listening in to telephone conversations has become a thriving activity in recent years. Governments, law enforcement agencies and private corporations have discovered that it's an easy way to gather information about individuals and organizations that can be use to charge, indict, embarrass or blackmail them. The US government has extended phone tapping beyond the law and the constitution, unwarranted listening to domestic conversations with the usual excuse of fighting terrorism (the largest blanket ever manufactured). Greece and Italy are engulfed in eavesdropping scandals. In Greece, even the Prime Minister's phone was tapped. In Italy, a secret cell inside the main operator Telecom Italia has for years gathered wiretap information, independently and out of any control, to such an extent that they had direct connections with foreign secret service agencies, including apparently the CIA. In Italy still, generous use of judge-mandated phone interceptions (the laziest way to conduct an investigation) has produced miles of transcripts, mostly legally irrelevant but which, leaked to the press, have been used to discredit top bankers, football players, TV entertainers, entrepreneurs and investors, and even the son of the last King of Italy.

It's not uncommon to be talking with an Italian on the phone these days and be told: "let's take this offline and discuss it when we next meet"; many people now use fix and cell phones with the assumption that they are being overheard. That's a sign that a society of surveillance is moving forward in fact as well as in the consciousness of people. It's not a nice nor reassuring sighting. Over time, that translates into social  mistrust. Putting trojans on somebody's computer is the kind of things Internet pirates and identity thieves do. That the state may consider sanctioning this practice and even mandate Internet providers to plant them is outrageous.