First published: August 2007
There has been debate about whether security software should detect trojans installed by law-enforcement for surveillence purposes sin, at least, 2001, when the "FBI Magic Lantern" trojan made the news. The two issues that arise if security companies deliberately do not detect Police spyware are:
- any trojan used legitimately by the Police could be taken and used by criminals for other purposes
- there would be a risk of law-enforcement mis-using the trojan, silently extending surveillence to larger segments of the population
CNET News has recently asked thirteen security companies about their policies and actions. They have also published the verbatim responses.
