eavesdrop

Eavesdropping is the act of secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent, as defined by Black's Law Dictionary.^[1] This is commonly thought to be unethical and there is an old adage that eavesdroppers seldom hear anything good of themselves.^[2]

History

Ancient Anglo-Saxon law punished eavesdroppers, who skulked in the eavesdrip of another's home, with a fine; the eavesdrip was also sometimes called the eavesdrop. Eavesdrop also means a small low visibility hole near the entrance to a building (generally under the eaves) which would allow the occupants to listen in on the conversation of people awaiting admission to the house. Typically this would allow the occupant to be prepared for unfriendly visitors.

Early telephone systems shared party lines which would allow the sharing subscribers to listen to each others conversations. This was a common practice in rural America which resulted in many incidents and feuds.^[2]

Techniques

"Belly-buster" hand-audio listening devices. After assembly, the base of the drill was held firmly against the stomach while the handle was cranked manually. This kit came with several drill bits and accessories.

Eavesdropping can also be done over telephone lines (wiretapping), email, instant messaging, and other methods of communication considered private (If a message is publicly broadcast, witnessing it does not count as eavesdropping.). VoIP communications software is also vulnerable to electronic eavesdropping by via malware infections such as Trojan.Peskyspy.

In ancient China, it is said that to prevent eavesdropping when discussing important matters, soldiers would instead draw the characters on hands or papers. This is where the superstition of the "black dot" on a piece of paper comes from.^{[citation needed]}

Origin

Hampton Court Palace outside London was the palace of King Henry VIII of England. In the eaves of its Great Hall, small faces are carved into the oak beams which lean at an angle of 45 degrees to the ground. These are known as 'Eaves Droppers'. Henry was known to be a strong ruler and often put spies in crowds of people to listen in to conversations. He wanted his staff (who slept in the Great Hall between banquets and would lie on straw looking up at the eaves) to know that he or his people would be listening at all times.

See also

Look up eavesdropping in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Computer surveillance
• ECHELON
• Espionage
• Magic (cryptography)
• Man-in-the-middle attack
• Katz v. United States (1967)
• NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (December 2005-2006)
• Opportunistic encryption
• Privacy
• Secure communication
• Surveillance
• Telephone tapping
• Fiber tapping
• Ultra
• Keystroke logging

References