Slashdot Mirror
Deutsche Telekom Secretly Tracked Phone Calls
Dekortage writes "German telephone giant Deutsche Telekom has admitted to secretly tracking the phone calls between board members and journalists, in an effort to identify media leaks about internal affairs. As noted by the German Journalists' Association, 'This company has special access to the records of its customers.... That means it has a special obligation to be trustworthy.' DT denies having eavesdropped; it merely tracked the calls dialed."
Having done phone call analysis for the government, this is hardly a viable solution. Multiple calls from a pay phone would stick out like a sore thumb in this day and age.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Actually, if you know that you are subject of surveillance, you have a whole arsenal of methods to evade from it. It you aren't, and that's the sneaky little problem with it, you are an open book.
Oh, and they did not only monitor outgoing calls in the company HQ. They tracked all phone calls they were servicing in the whole country and then ran searches against business and private phone numbers of known journalists and employees. So not even at home you were secure.