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Originally Posted by Gandalf

Wow dude, sounds like you are paranoid. Not that you shouldn't be... ;)Actually, installing spyware without permission is illegal inside the USA. The trouble is, most users are too stupid to pay attention to the long End User License Agreements (EULA)

You're ignorant of the facts. I'm not talking about bull**** EULAs put out by corporations on proprietary software. I'm talking about the US government coming over to your house (for whatever reason -- maybe they think you're a criminal) -- or injecting spyware executables inside downloads -- and installing spyware on your box. They HAVE done this before! There is no permission asked. none. This spyware is not installed to spy on your unencrypted internet traffic -- all of the tubes in the US (and other countries) are already tapped by various federal agencies (NSA, FBI) They install key loggers (spyware) so they can spy on your encrypted communications!

I'm not talking about "ALEX JONES"-type conspiracies either. This is factual information that can be pulled from reliable/main stream news agencies. It has also been defended by the US governments as legitimate: United States v. Scarfo (Key-Logger Case)

Spyware computer searches are illegal in Germany, where people are sensitive about police surveillance due to the history of the Nazis' Gestapo secret police and the former East German Stasi.

So, as you can clearly see from this quote and the above case file, the US government is engaging in practices that are illegal for the Germany government to engage in because those actions are reminiscent of the Nazi Gestapo and East German Stasi. What does that say about the current US Government?

Originally Posted by Gandalf

I just don't think they are that competent to pull something like that off. Have you been to the DMV lately? :D

Yes I've been to the DMV -- but remember it's not run by the federal government. Its run by the state and city governments -- which are too stupid to even decide weather to increase sin taxes or allow more casinos. The FBI and NSA (Federal Agencies in the USA) already have boxes installed at all major data centers that can spy on unencrypted data. The telecommunication companies that allow this to happen might even be immune to any legal actions for assisting the federal government in spying. There's nothing left to pull. It has already happened.

Originally Posted by Gandalf

As for tapping, maybe the German police should check out Peter Cox's SIPtap. Cox has created a program that can be installed via a trojan or at the ISP level and record VoIP conversations as a WAV file. I'm not sure if it would work with Skype or not, but it sounds like this nut may not be so hard to crack after all?

SIPtap is intended only for unencrypted communications. As you can clearly see from the article (if you even bothered to read it) the German government (according to their own statements) isn't capable of spying on encrypted VoIP packets from Skype (which enables encrypted communications on default). Plus SIPtap is only capable of processing data from non-Skype (aka only softwares that use the Session Initiation Protocol) softwares. Skype uses a proprietary (nonstandard, closed) method of communication.


The article isn't speaking of unencrypted communications -- which are already spied on by various governments worldwide (throughly documented-- just look). It's talking about how the German Police are saying that they cannot break Skype's encryption scheme.

My previous comments were related to how the German government is reluctant to engage in some activities (spy-software) that have already been engaged in by the US government. They are even reluctant to engage in actions similar to their previous actions (Java Anon Proxy incident).