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Coder of Swiss Wiretapping Trojan Speaks Out
Lars Sobiraj writes "Ruben Unteregger has worked for a long time as a software-engineer for the Swiss company ERA IT Solutions. His job there was to code malware that would invade PCs of private users, and allow the wiretapping of VoIP calls — in particular, calls made through Skype. In the German-speaking areas of the country, the Trojans were called 'Bundestrojaner' because the Swiss government was involved with their development and use. Unfortunately, Unteregger has to remain silent about the customers of the company. Last night, he published the source code of his Skype-Trojan under the GPL."
This is government we're talking about. "Reasonably Informed" and "Politician"/"Government Bureaucrat" are mutually exclusive. Anywho, if the swiss politicians are anything like we have stateside, the trojan that they voted for doesn't need to stay secret forever, just until after the next election. That's the problem with politics, very few successful politicians thing or act long term because thinking long term means making painful decisions that will most likely get them voted out of office for the next feel-good guy. So you have all of these feel-good guys with 2,4, or 6 year attention spans and as long as the world doesn't end in that time period, they're pleased as punch.
The guys who voted on this or approved it will probably say "That was last term/fiscal year, this is this term/fiscal year! Lets go have a beer!" and be done with it, as if they are magically not guilty of voting this monster into existence.