Dangerous, Intrusive, Illusive - The Hacking Team

If you are a reader who harbours concern about personal privacy breaches from just about every government on the planet, this writer has no doubt that you will have heard of the Hacking Team.

For those who are not aware, the Hacking Team are an IT company based in Milan, Italy that sell intrusion and surveillance software to governments and law enforcement agencies across the world.

The technology developed by the Hacking Team allows governments to monitor communications of internet users, record Skype and other voice over IP communications, decipher their encrypted files and emails and remotely activate microphones and webcams on targeted computers.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it really is as disturbing as it sounds. These people have developed technology that can be used to spy on you. There is no doubt that having security agencies read though your personal communications or watch you through your own webcam is a disturbing thought. It is an invasion of privacy of the highest order.

However, in the hard worn argument for privacy vs safety, there is light. For this week, Wikileaks has released a database of one million emails from the Hacking Team, revealing in candid detail the hacking company's various nefarious dealings.

The Anonymous Logo

As to whom stole the emails, various clues have pointed to the infamous Anonymous organisation, with some reports indicating that Anonymous activists physically broke into the Hacking Team headquarters in Milan. While this remains unconfirmed, this writer can only say that, whether it is down to Anonymous or not, whoever stole these emails from the Hacking Team has done the public an incredible service.

The Hacking Team emails have been compiled in a database on the Wikileaks website; a link will be provided below.

This writer would encourage any and all readers to go and have a brief scroll through some of the Hacking Team's emails, for it is an incredible opportunity to examine, in uncanny detail, the truly disturbing things that the IT company has done.

From acting as technology based mercenaries for governments in Sudan and Ethiopia to making $800,000 deals with the FBI. The information is there, waiting for you to read through it. For a person cannot make an informed decision, without information.

Again, this writer would urge any readers to take a look at the Wikileaks database of emails and would again like to explicitly thank whoever acquired this emails and gave them to Wikileaks. Whoever they are, they've done the world as a whole an incredible public service and exposed the shading dealings of an untrustworthy company,

The Wikileaks Website
The Hacking Team Database