Graham Cluley Sophos Anti-Virus
Recently there have been media reports about the FBI's use of software to monitor the activity of suspected criminals and terrorists. These so-called `e-bugs' (with codenames such as Magic Lantern) capture the keystrokes of remote computer users in a similar way to the Trojan horses dropped by worms like Badtrans.
There have been suggestions in the media that some anti-virus companies may work in co-operation with the FBI, and deliberately not detect such Trojan horses.
This paper examines whether non-detection of e-bugs makes sense and whether customers have a legitimate requirement to be informed if they are being `e-bugged'.
This paper makes the case that using 'e-bugs' to spy on suspected criminals and terrorists is fraught with dangers, as there is no way of ensuring that the code will not be adapted by its recipients for illegal use.
