p2pnet.net News:- Italian police planted a major backdoor in a server owned by Inventati and used to host web sites, mailboxes, mailing lists and Net services for NGOs, grassroots activists and public interest associations, says European Digital Rights.
The backdoor was planted a little more than a year ago when Italian Polizia Postale (Postal Police) were investigating the anarchist collective Crocenera, says Austistici/Inventati, according to EDR.
The ISP claimed downtime - caused by the Police putting the server off-line - was due to a power outage, says the report, going on:
The police gained access to the private SSL certificate stored on the server and installed several tools to monitor, intercept and decrypt all the traffic going through the server - not only the traffic that was actually relevant to the investigations.
There is no actual proof that any data (not relevant to the case under investigation) were collected, but the possibility is definitively there.
Austistici/Inventati are furious that police had access to the server for a year, says EDR. Traffic passing through the server from more than 30,000 people could have been intercepted, they say.
Their basic rights to privacy and presumption of innocence until proven guilty, as granted under the Italian constitution, have been violated.
The collective is filing a formal complaint to the Italian Data Protection Authority as a first step while it decides its general legal strategy, says EDR, adding:
The server is still being hosted by ISP Aruba (based in Arezzo, Italy), but Autistici/Inventati has clearly warned everyone that communication going through that server is to be considered highly insecure and they are looking for a new housing provider, says the statement, adding:
Aruba has issued a public press release, stating that it just complied to Italian criminal laws and that it would reserve its right to sue Autistici/Inventati and/or any other interested party for libel and slander.
Meanwhile, "The services offered by our server will NOT be inactivated," promises Inventati.
"At the moment they are working in unsafe conditions, but as soon as possible we will put in action a 'clean' machine and the services will be effective again . Of course, you'll have to change a lot of passwords :)"