In the past few days, I’ve been reading more and more rumors about Skype containing a kind of back door, with which they could be allowing governments and other agencies to listen in on your conversations. (Slashdot, Heise, Winfuture.de (german))
Opinions on this topic seem to span from “Who cares, I have nothing to hide…” to “Those guys deserve to be drawn and quartered!”. I hate to sound like a defeatist, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think there’s much anyone can do about it. The starting shots for this kind of thing were fired long ago - almost seven years, to be more exact. By now, most western governments will be making sure that they can tap into as many forms of communication as possible. The more popular IM and VoIP programs are an obvious target. And who’s really surprised?
Ever since 9/11, governments all over the world have been using international terrorism as an excuse to do just about anything, including gross invasions of privacy. The most laughable scheme of all being the US Patriot Act. The name itself is nothing more than a ridiculously obvious appeal to american patriotism, because patriotism is a good thing right? So hey, the patriot act must be good too! And if you don’t like it, well then you probably hate America!
So will the tapping of VoIP calls really turn out to be an effective weapon against terrorism? I doubt it. Although terrorists obviously need to communicate in order to achieve their goals, I really don’t think they’re sitting in front of their computers shouting “Allāhu Akbar! Death to the infidels!” in a Skype conference call. Does anyone honestly think that any government is stupid enough to think they can catch terrorists by listening to millions of conversations, filtering eMails for key words or tracking people who search for info on terrorism or genocide? I hope not, because the idea is totally ludicrous. So what could they really be doing? Well, let’s look at the facts shall we?
Using terrorism as an excuse, many governments are now legitimately reading private eMails, listening to private phone calls and even tracking peoples movements using mobile phones and GPS devices. More and more personal data is being stored about each and every one of us, just in case someone turns out to be a terrorist. Soon everyone will be required to have their fingerprints stored on their passports, essentially meaning the western governments will be able to build up a huge database containing personal and biometric data on every single citizen alive. It’s not inconcievable that some time in the near future, the movements, conversations and activities of every single person will become fully transparent.
At best, the entire population is being placed under general suspicion in the hopes of catching one or two really dumb terrorists, effectively sacrificing freedom for a false sense of security. At worst, we’re being brainwashed into happily accepting a new world order that has complete control over our lives - or something like that. Well, that’s my opinion anyway.
