German government plans to spy on citizens using trojan e-mails.

Oracle

The German government plans to spy on terror suspects by deploying malicious e-mails containing trojans: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6973018.stm This is a worrying development, it sets a dangerous precedent for state snooping. It also demonstrates a new low for what governments are willing to do in the name of surveillance on citizens. Who will be spied on next?

Martyr

the very fact that they announced it to the press is laughable enough - if thats all terror suspects have to worry about, they can sleep easy.

i see your point, maybe the "monitor terrorists" is an excuse to monitor people in general.

Black Swan

The only thing that's news in this report is that the German's are admitting to it. Government snooping on citizens has been going on as long as human history. Precedent? The Germans are just keeping up with the Jones's (Bush was busted snooping on millions of his private citizen's emails a couple of years ago).

CptSternn

The FBI admitted it's doing the same thing as we speak just a few weeks ago (see the link in the AV thread).

Whats worse - anti-virus manufacturers are working with them to make viruses that will avoid detection.

Oracle

I assume the governments that are using these emails would need the cooperation of the anti-virus/anti-spyware companies, otherwise their software would detect the trojans in the emails. That's a further cause for concern, puts a big question mark over the reputation and integrity of these companies, not to mention their commitment to computer security.

Black Swan

CptSternn wrote:

Whats worse - anti-virus manufacturers are working with them to make viruses that will avoid detection.

Not viruses, but rather spyware, and yes, I read an article a few months ago in WIRED magazine that said all USA security software corporations were cooperating with the government in this way. Not sure if overseas security outfits were doing the same? I use Kaspersky (Russian) and LavaSoft Ad-Aware SE (Sweden), so I am not sure about them. Anyone know?

Martyr

Anyone know?

i don't know, but my first guess is, should someone find a particular piece of suspicious software running on their system - that they couldn't identify (lets say tony the gangster) and he submits it to an AV company for closer inspection..

The response of the company upon recognising it as fedware, would be to simply ignore it.
don't take a signature of the file, or the code in it, don't update the databases to include it for future detection, do nothing.

OR, possibly included with some of the regular updates most people receive, tonys updates would contain additional "plugin" code to capture his key strokes and email them back to some predefined address, all of course, authorized / ignored by the ips/av installed.

its open to abuse, but criminals are more tech savvy these days, and employing strong encryption to hide their activities..and well, the authorities have to do something, you can't blame them for that, can you?

Black Swan

Average Joe wrote:

its open to abuse, but criminals are more tech savvy these days, and employing strong encryption to hide their activities..and well, the authorities have to do something, you can't blame them for that, can you?

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a case against the Bush Administration for spying on millions of US citizens (without the necessary court order required by the US Constitution/Amendments). Now who are the criminals?:rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

It's called google desktop

The royal mail was given a monopoly on mail delivery so the King could read all the private mail.

Using an open source AV might help, BUT if it's part of a windows update it will get on. Remember the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY and I'm sure the German government is a big enough customer to get some patches for it.

What about easter eggs http://www.eeggs.com/items/29841.html the practice of shipping "extra" code unknown to the use has a long history.

CptSternn

Thats another reason I don't use ZoneAlarm or any Checkpoint products like FW1.

In fact, the company I used to work for replaced FW1 with Cisco PIX devices after having a chat with some of the tech support lads.

All those products are made in israel. They got caught back in the '90's putting backdoors in their PBX systems allowing security forces to easedrop on any companies using their PBX systems. When it came up in court (british security forces were using these systems and found israeli security forces tapping their lines), the courts ruled israeli companies could legally put backdoors in all of their products because such security was needed to protect their nation.

When asked about this, Checkpoint reps refused to comment. So we dropped them as our firewall solution provider.

CNet news did interviews with many AV companies after that Wired article came out. Many AV companies refused to comment, others used sly wording to avoid the answers (i.e. 'we don't spy on our customers, we do comply with government mandates though).

Bottom line is: if your AV product is made in America, it's safe to say uncle sam is monitoring you and the AV companies are allowing backdoors in your system as well.

Until they get caught redhanded, they won't say boo about it. Then they will write some retro-active law making their actions legal, like we saw in israel and as we saw with the current line tapping fiasco in the states.

Oracle

Ironically just 2 years ago the German Federal Police Agency (the BKA) issued a warning about a fake email "allegedly sent by the BKA" that "probably" contained the Sober worm. The warning says the email is not from the BKA.

It's interesting though that the email informs the recipient the information stored in his or her computer has been seized as "evidence" and that an investigation of the recipient is being opened. But the BKA does advise recipients to delete the email and to run a virus scanner. The online Press Release even contains a handy link to go to the German Federal Office for Information Security (the BSI) for more information, and a free virus scanner.