Slashdot Mirror
Swiss to Use Spyware to Listen to VoIP
An anonymous reader writes "Heise Security is reporting that the Swiss Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications is entertaining the idea of utilizing the 'Superintendant Trojan', a spyware program designed to allow eavesdropping on VoIP conversations. According to ERA IT Solutions, the creator of the software, it will only be distributed to investigation agencies in the hopes of keeping it out of the hands of malicious hackers since firewalls apparently 'do not present a problem' for the software."
Two things stand out right away. Point one:
the 'Superintendant Trojan', a spyware program designed to allow eavesdropping on VoIP conversations
Ok, so it's spyware. It sneaks onto a system and installs itself. Gotcha. That moves us to point two:
it will only be distributed to investigation agencies in the hopes of keeping it out of the hands of malicious hackers
Ok. Got it. So to sum up, what they're saying is that they don't want anyone to get it, but they need to install it on a target's system in order for it to work. And a target would be someone the law was interested in who was computer literate. Like, say....hackers, for instance.
I love things that are broken by design.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I wonder why they don't just do it all on the ISP's end if they are going to be responcable for infecting users anyway.
It's only a matter of time before people figure out what's going on and start using it in every kind of malware. AV/firewalls will need to detect it. If not I imagine this is just a windows thing. The idea of anyone being able to remotely enable mics and webcams is enough to make me switch to a new OS if I thought this was something that could not be detected and blocked/filtered.
And the better question is why not? Provided that there is sufficient judicial oversight, why shouldn't VOIP coversations of suspected criminals be monitored?
Well, I haven't argued anywhere that they shouldn't be monitored. It's not the judicial oversight that worries me. It's the technical oversight.
Let me clarify my objections a bit. In order for this hack to work, some authorized person has to sneak something onto your system. And as soon as it's on your system....it's on your system. You have it. If you find it and can figure out what it is, nothing is stopping you from using it on other people. In short, it's only a matter of time until the hackers DO get it. And then they'll be listening in on VOIP.
To summarize the summary, this is wildly irresponsible. I can't believe people smart enough to write this software are dumb enough to think they can contain it. Absolute morons, I'd call them.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
There are dozens of commercial keyloggers and remote admin type apps out there. "Firewalls do not present a problem" to any of these, nor most of the other tools. I'm assuming here that they mean incoming firewalls, not restrictive bidirectional firewalls which block unknown outbound connections. The fact that this makes use of webcams and microphones is nothing new, Back Orifice did this a decade or so ago. None of the antispyware or antivirus vendors mark the commercial tools as malicious, because they assume (wrongly) that whoever put the tool there had a right to do so. I guess the only thing that is new here is that the company is distributing only to law enforcement. That might not even be new, since I'm sure the espionage community has some exclusively licensed tools at its disposal. If you want to get paranoid about something, be worried that your credit card info is in the hands of somebody in former Soviet countries or that some ransomware has taken over your PC. Trust me, the Swiss are not your biggest problem out there.
Thankfully I have nothing to hide. But if I did: .EXE? .DLL's.
:). This virus, at that time, was not known my Norton, McAfee, or Clam-AV. Thankfully my Windows workstation _is_ a work-hourse and I do have heuristic type scanning turned on for everything it ever touches.
:). Sure -- you could capture the OTHER END of the call probably much easier.
:)
Thankfully my main GUI is a Mac. I wonder how LittleSnitch would handle a
Thankfully my networks are Linux and BSD based. They don't like
Thankfully my VoIP is handled by a Sipure non-PC based box. It doesn't allow / nor has needed updates.
Thankfully the one place I do use Windows for now (work) will be replaced with a Mac in short time.
I do have to wonder if and how heuristic type scans and/or zonealarm tweaked all the way up would react to this type of software. Recently there was a "new" virus that showed up (one week ago today) on the email (Linux) server which my workstation immediately flagged as suspicious before even reading the body of the message (which was supposedly from the email admin [myself]
As for the firewall, well, trust me, you have no idea HOW I configure it and what I do (or don't) allow out under normal circumstances. VoIP? Only from authorized IP's and MAC address' -- and only to specific OpenVMS servers (which REALLY hate to run Windows software and are even harder to infect
Thankfully, I have nothing to hide.
Um, if you are free/opensource hacker in the US, you don't have to care about the laws/law_enforcement in Switzerland, generally. You can circumvent this all you want.
Now, if you were a corporation, there may be additional considerations, but only if you have a branch of your business operating there.
Me with my TA behind my router I think I have less to worry about.
Me with my terminal adapter which happens to be integrated with my router,
I think I have plenty to worry about. Who says its firmware is not rigged?
Who says they can't upload a patch to it or otherwise tamper with it??
On the other hand, why do these shitheads need to tamper with someones
machine if they can just pick off the conversation directly from the wires
at the provider (unless they're using encryption)??!
1.intrusion of privacy
2.administration of law outside legal jurisdiction
3.stealing computing time
4.stealing bandwidth from us who need it.
5.intellectual property compromise
wrong.fuckers.misguided.immoral.
lets reverse engineer this and use it on them! see how they fucking like it.
another bunch of politicians that decide our everyday freedoms.