[VOIPSEC] Soft phone as trojan horse

[Palanisamy, Kandasamy (Kandasamy)]

As for using the microphone to eavesdrop, there is a news item (in Digg)
that
reports that Google might turn on and listen to microphones on PCS to
target
ads based on what they hear in the background. Looks like eavesdropping
on PCs using
microphones goes beyond softphones.

Kand

Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 06:54:51 +0800
From: "mailinglist" <mailinglist at pbxnsip.com>
Subject: Re: [VOIPSEC] Soft phone as trojan horse
To: "'Michael Slavitch'" <slavitch at gmail.com>
Cc: voipsec at voipsa.org
Message-ID: <mailman.8.1157540404.8710.voipsec_voipsa.org at voipsa.org>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

I think the difference is that it is much easier to locate a specific
user by the telephone number. And it is easier to keep the attack
undiscovered, some people do use netstat from time to time to see what's
going on and they say "ah thats my soft phone/IM client, it'll be ok".

Plus it might become a new feature to include the microphone in the
attack.
If you are scared about the CIA and their anti terror laws, you better
be much more scared about your soft phone listening to you even when
your PC is just idle. Who knows, maybe skype/yahoo/MSN & Co are already
part of the anti terror program...

But you are right, it is really scary if you think about what is running
on a PC today. It is not a new topic.


Christian