Vincent Arnold

Commentary: This is very illuminating. As we have discovered over the past weeks, the FBI has used unlawful methods to spy on American citizens. In this instance, spyware was installed on a suspect’s computer system that logged his keystrokes, once it was realized that his communications were being encrypted. They received a search warrant to obtain any information  relevant to the case. Regardless, I for one believe that I have every right on earth to secure my communications from anyone if I choose to do so. There is no assumption of privacy in anything I do. It is up to me to ensure. Once information is given to corporations or the government, there should be no expectation, period. He should have used a laptop.

In a case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger to record the typing of a suspect who used encryption to scramble his communications.

But would that government spyware used in that investigation actually be detected by security software? Or would security companies intentionally fail to report it?

To answer that question, CNET News.com performed the following survey. We asked three questions of 13 security companies, ranging from tiny ones to corporations like Microsoft and IBM, and the results are below.

When there is no answer listed for a specific question, the company chose not to answer it. In some cases we followed up with additional questions. We began the survey last Tuesday and asked the final questions on Monday.

Full article and source: CNet

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Attack Vector.