Will Security Firms Detect Police Spyware?

[TopHosts NewsMan]

cnet-declan writes "A recent appeals court case dealt with **** Enforcement Administration agents using a key logger to investigate a suspect using PGP and Hushmail. That invites the obvious question: Will security companies ever intentionally overlook police spyware? There were somewhat-muddled reports in 2001 that Symantec and McAfee would do just that, so over at News.com we figured we'd do a survey of the top 13 security firms. We asked them if it is their policy to detect policeware. Notably, Check Point said it would 'afford law enforcement' the courtesy of whitelisting if requested. We've also posted the full results, with the companies' complete answers. Another question we asked is if they have ever received a court order requiring them to overlook police key loggers or spyware. Symantec, IBM, Kaspersky, and others said no. Only Microsoft and McAfee refused to answer."Read more of this story at Slashdot.




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[Tomas Fulvio]

A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet.Most of the companies surveyed, which covered the range from tiny firms to Symantec and IBM, said they never had received such a court order. The full list of companies surveyed: AVG/Grisoft, Computer Associates, Check Point, eEye, IBM, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Microsoft, Sana Security, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro and Websense. Only McAfee and Microsoft flatly declined to answer that question.Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives.