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Verisign Offers Wiretapping Services

Posted by michael on from the suddenly-there-came-a-tapping dept.

LinuxDeckard writes "According to this article at FindLaw, VeriSign will soon be offering its 'NetDiscovery' wire tapping services for a monthly fee. NetDiscovery will allow Telecoms to comply with court ordered wire taps." Verisign's press release is informative. This appears to be tapping of voice calls rather than internet usage. I assume it would work something like this: telecom company gets a wiretap notification from the FBI or local police; it routes all calls to/from $TARGET through a Verisign switch; Verisign does the tapping and reporting to the tappers. If you think this doesn't affect you, keep in mind that under the PATRIOT Act the barrier for wiretapping is set very low indeed.

9 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. 1984 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is like, so 1984.

    When why will they stop trampling on our rights? When the private sector offers wiretapping, then the terrorists have already won.

    1. Re:1984 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, when you get your hands chopped of for stealing and women gets stoned to death because someone had raped them, then the terrorists have won.

  2. Verisign - just acting wisely by pinkUZI · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's not give Verisign a hard time - they're just trying to make a buck by filling a need that is currently out there. If you really have a problem with this, you should focus on the politics that allow wire tapping in the first place and then consider taking an active role in government by contacting your Senator or Representative.

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    1. Re:Verisign - just acting wisely by eXtro · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, Verisign deserves a hard time over this. In fact, if enough people find this objectionable they deserve to go out of business. Just because something happens to be legal doesn't mean that I can't find it morally or politically objectionable. Corporations have a lot more political clout than citizens, even when they use eff.org, since they can afford to hand out more large bags of cash. Part of the defense against enabling unjust wiretaps is to make it financially harmful for a company to support them.

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  3. The Irony by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is ironic that one of the sleaziest, untrustworthy companies on the internet expects people to buy "trust" in the form of digital certification from them. I suggest people remember that next time they need a certificate and instead turn to one of their competitors.

  4. Security by mericet · · Score: 2, Insightful
    That might be a good or bad thing, depending how you look at it:

    If any small telco needs to create a secure repository, some will not be as secure as others... and privacy might be more compromised that it should according to the wiretap order (i.e. hackers accessing the wiretapped phone calls...)

    OTOH, this is a kind of single point of failure I do not entirely like...

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  5. This is truly bizarre by xyzzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would Verisign get into such an unrelated business as this? They're not a telecom company! If CALEA-compliance is too expensive for the telcos, I can't believe that Verisign is better positioned. This is totally unrelated to their business model!

  6. Re:not so terrible? by mericet · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Can't people think on their own? Saying that something isn't prohibited by the constitution doesn't make it right nor wrong. It doesn't say anything.

    The only question where the constitution is silent is whether the restriction of rights (in this case privacy) is the lesser of two evils (the other evil being not catching the 'not so law abiding'). Is it? Do we believe it to be so? Is the potential for abuse of power justified? Does the end justify the means?

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  7. Ideally .... by Tranvisor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ideally this is good. Wiretaps are a needed part of law-enforcement. You have evidence against a suspect, you go to a judge, show him the evidence and he makes a informed decison on the matter. Wiretaps, traditionally, were pretty hard to get.

    The part where this breaks down is the recent Patriot act (damn I hate calling it that), where a FBI agent hands a judge a list of 5,000 names and says "I think that these people might be terrorists, gimme a wiretap."

    "Do you have any evidence Mr. FBI agent?"

    "What do you care Mr. Judge? US law says you have to let me spy on these people, even if I don't have any tangible evidence. Just don't mind my wife's name hidden in the list."

    "Ok, here's your signature." (Thinking to himself: Man I wish my job was more than fulfilling the function of a rubber stamp.)

    Without the aforementioned act, this would be semi-good news. With that act, more peoples privacy will now likely be senselessly violated. Oh, well.