A patent awarded to Microsoft for a technology it calls "Legal Intercept" may indicate the company is seeking exclusive rights to intercept a wide variety of personal electronic communications and send them to government agencies seeking to spy on you.
A Gizmodo article on the patent points out that Microsoft appears to be trying to patent Skype spying but Skype is only one of many technologies that Microsoft's new stealth software will give the government the ability to spy on.
The patent specifically names instant messaging, video conferencing software, and even meeting software as technologies that can be intercepted.
Even more broadly, "Legal Intercept" has the ability to target just about any electronic device you can think of, with Microsoft defining the "computer" that the agent can target as:
"[P]ersonal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microcontroller-based systems, set-top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, gaming devices, printers, appliances including set-top, media center, or other appliances, automobile-embedded or attached computing devices, other mobile devices, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like."
The patent also vaguely defines the "VoIP" communications the agent can intercept as "any packet based communications" extending the definition to include more than traditional VoIP data. In fact, the ambiguous definition used in the patent means "Legal Intercept" can be used to spy on all communications sent over the internet.
"Legal Intercept" does stop with online data either. The patent discusses to providing access to data stored outside of the "computer" as well. Specifically, the patent discusses providing access to "RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile discs (DVDs) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the computer."
In fact, the framework provides government access to "any digital instructions" in the form of "modulated data" that are produced by microcontrollers, which are "the brain" of a variety of high-tech products including automobile engine control systems, implantable medical devices, remote controls, office machines, home appliances, power tools, and even child toys.
Moving forward "Legal Intercept" the government will now have easy access to spy on all of our electronics devices from our home computers, printers, gaming devices, and automobile systems to our printers, home appliances, remote controls and any offline data storage devices that get connected to network enabled computer systems.
The full US patent application is available on the US Patent office web site.
While some may accept such intrusive government spying such a powerful tool raises both privacy concerns and fears of civil liberties abuse. Concerns which are magnified when considered in the context of the United State government's track record of abusing the 4th amendment rights of citizens, which is supposed to protect citizens against illegal search and seizure.
Without no possible way to guarantee proper oversight of the utilization of the tool, "Legal Intercept" taps may soon become synonymous with the government's illegal wiretap programming. In the hands of the wrong people the tool can easily be used to oppress political dissidents and ultimately move the world even closer to a 1984 style Orwellian nightmare.
Perhaps the name "Legal Intercept" will soon become doublespeak for "Illegal Intercept".
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