Legal trojan horses?

December 15, 2001

Well, this seems quiet interesting. If not terrifying.

An FBI spokesman confirmed on Wednesday that the U.S. government is working on a controversial Internet spying technology, code-named ``Magic Lantern'', which could be used to eavesdrop on computer communications by suspected criminals.

Magic Lantern reportedly would allow the agency to plant a Trojan horse keystroke logger on a target's PC by sending a computer virus over the Internet, rather than require physical access to the computer as is now the case.

So what does that mean? That when I'm a suspect of some hacking or so (a so called terroristic activity), I can be bombarded by trojan horses that will log everything I do, just to pick those 2 minutes I want to enjoy myself and **** a friends' computer?

Well, In my honest opinion, that's in no way legal. What's mine is, mine is! This tool can be used (and don't tell me it won't be exploited!) to do some serious industrial spionage. How about some genious writing a letter to his girlfriend that he found something really cool? What does anyone (read: legal instances, other firms that uses the exploits) prevent from spying on this guy (whom is for example a biologist, so a possible terrorist because he has the knowledge to make biological weapons).

I don't really know what to do against this except from turning my back (but leaving a pair of eyes ON my back) to Windows, and welcome Linux. That because I think MS will be more than eager to cooperate with those instances, and perhaps receive in return that they won't be punished too hard for being a monopolist. By the way: do you guys know how MUCH spy-things are in windows XP???