[Infowarrior] - German police raids for Skype whistleblower

[Richard Forno]

Pirate Party Official Raided after Uncovering State Trojan
Written by Ernesto on September 17, 2008

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-official-raided-after-uncovering-state-trojan-080917/

The spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after  
the party published a leaked document which showed that the government  
uses a homemade “trojan” to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition,  
a server from another party member was seized.

The Pirate Party is known for it’s battle against the ever increasing  
government surveillance on the public. So, when an anonymous  
whistleblower sent them a internal document which showed that the  
government went as far as installing trojans on computers, they didn’t  
hesitate to publish it.

German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be  
illegal according to a criminal law specialist, and went after the  
source. Earlier this week police searched the home of the Pirate Party  
spokesperson where they hoped to find more information. In addition to  
the home search, a server from another party member was seized. The  
server, however, was fully encrypted, so chances are low that it will  
uncover the whistleblower.

In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party  
said: “A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform  
the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is  
highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted  
like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.”

Pirate Parties around the world will continue to speak out against  
these, and other privacy threats. The trojan in question (German) was  
able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted  
websites.