From the September 2008 Scientific American Magazine | 9 comments

Internet Eavesdropping: A Brave New World of Wiretapping ( Preview )

As telephone conversations have moved to the Internet, so have those who want to listen in. But the technology needed to do so would entail a dangerous expansion of the government's surveillance powers

By Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau

Key Concepts

The advent of computer-based telephone switches and the Internet has made it more difficult for the government to monitor the communications of criminals, spies and terrorists.
Federal agencies want Internet companies to comply with the same wiretapping requirements that apply to telecommunications carriers. This proposal, though, may stifle Internet innovation.
Furthermore, the new surveillance facilities might be misused by overzealous government officials or hijacked by terrorists or spies interested in monitoring U.S. communications.

More to Explore

Sidebar
A History of Listening In
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Wiretapping Then and Now: Surveillance Gets Complicated
Sidebar
Geography of Wiretapping

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As long as people have engaged in private conversations, eavesdroppers have tried to listen in. When important matters were discussed in parlors, people slipped in under the eaves—literally within the “eavesdrop”—to hear what was being said. When conversations moved to telephones, the wires were tapped. And now that so much human activity takes place in cyberspace, spies have infiltrated that realm as well.

Unlike earlier, physical frontiers, cyberspace is a human construct. The rules, designs and investments we make in cyberspace will shape the ways espionage, privacy and security will interact. Today there is a clear movement to give intelligence activities a privileged position, building in the capacity of authorities to intercept cyberspace communications. The advantages of this trend for fighting crime and terrorism are obvious.

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