http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-spyware-orlando-feds-20091120,0,527904,full.story
Feds: Orlando company sells dangerous spyware
By Amy L. Edwards, Orlando Sentinel November 22, 2009
… Now, the Federal Trade Commission is targeting an Orlando company that sells a popular keylogging spyware called RemoteSpy, a product the company says is the best on the market for getting into people's computers without their knowledge or approval.
The FTC's action against CyberSpy Software marks the first time the federal agency has gone after a company selling keylogger spyware to the general public, said Rick Quaresima, the agency's assistant director of the advertising-practices division. [Our first clue! Bob]
… The government violated several provisions of federal law, including selling software that could be "remotely deployed by someone other than the owner or authorized user of a computer" to secretly gather private information. [There's a law against that? What law? Do software publishers violate it by “pushing” updates? Bob]
… The federal agency said RemoteSpy customers were given detailed instructions on how to disguise the spyware as an innocuous file — such as a photo — that could be attached to an e-mail. When the file was opened, the keylogger software would be secretly installed. [Now that suggests why the Feds don't like it, but is it protected speech? Bob]
… The defense also noted in its legal filings that the FTC "has yet to identify any credible victims."
… In the Orlando case, the court has ordered Spence to change some of the company's marketing methods. [Add the words: “Don't do this:” Bob]
Spence still sells the software. But RemoteSpy can't suggest the spyware be covertly installed without consent of the computer's owner.
In a preliminary injunctive order, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell said, "The clandestine remote installation of RemoteSpy on the computer of an unrelated person is fraught with potential abuse." [Isn't that code for “we can't find a law you violate?” Bob]
(Related) Maybe even owning the hardware (and software) isn't enough?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5658
Some Courts Raise Bar on Reading Employee Email
November 22, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Workplace
Dionne Searcey has a piece in the Wall Street Journal describing some court cases on whether employers can read employee email. While it is safest to assume that you will have no privacy and that your boss can access anything you do on their computers, the courts have not always ruled that way, especially if the employer has not been clear with the employees about the policies.
That was what happened in a case earlier this year in New Jersey, when an appeals court ruled that an employee of a home health-care company had a reasonable expectation that email sent on a personal account wouldn’t be read.
And last year, a federal appeals court in San Francisco came down on the side of employee privacy, ruling employers that contract with an outside business to transmit text messages can’t read them unless the worker agrees. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Ontario, Calif., police officers who sued after a wireless provider gave their department transcripts of an officer’s text messages in 2002. The case is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read more in the WSJ.
(Related) Are cell phones illegal?
Make 4 Cool Spy Gadgets With Your Windows Mobile Phone
Nov. 21st, 2009 By Ryan Dube
Sounds like they found the pictures on a public site, but she claims the site was private. Is Facebook liable here? If the insurance company had other evidence, why did they even mention the Facebook photos?
Facebook Photos Lead To Cancellation of Quebec Woman's Insurance
Posted by timothy on Sunday November 22, @07:51AM from the public-option dept.
No. 24601 writes
"A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave, due to a diagnosis of depression, lost her health benefits after her insurance provider found photos of her on Facebook smiling and looking cheerful at parties and out on the beach. Besides all the obvious questions, how did the insurance company access her locked Facebook profile?"
Somewhat nit-picking, but I understand this to say that if they had seen child porn right off, they would have been able to use the evidence, but since they saw only “some pictures” they had no cause to search for “illegal stuff.” (I still think we need a “this guy is too stupid to be allowed to run around free” law.)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5630
Court: TSA went too far in searching luggage
November 21, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Surveillance
FourthAmendment.com brings us news of a court opinion that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees engaged in an unreasonable search of a passenger’s luggage and that the child pornography they uncovered should be suppressed. In United States v. McCarty, the court held:
Despite the testimony indicating that the TSA employees searched the photographs solely to determine if any children were in harm’s way, the government argues that the search was nonetheless proper because Andrade was required to inspect the photographs for sheet explosives. Pl.’s Nov. 3 Suppl. Opp’n 2-6. The court readily accepts that a packet of photographs may cause a dense item alarm and TSA protocol requires the TSA employee to ensure that the photographs do not include any sheet explosives. The testimony, however, does not establish that Andrade and Moniz examined the photographs for sheet explosives — rather, after they noticed the photographs that were initially visible, they inspected the content of additional photographs for the purpose of determining their criminal nature.
Read more on FourthAmendment.com
Eavesdropping and vote changing are two different things. It's easy to fix this, just shield the voting machine.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/22/027229
Brazilian Breaks Secrecy of Brazil's E-Voting Machines With Van Eck Phreaking
Posted by timothy on Saturday November 21, @10:11PM from the old-ways-are-best dept.
After the report last week that Brazil's e-voting machines had withstood the scrutiny of a team of invited hackers, reader ateu writes with news that a hacker has shown that the Linux-based voting machines aren't perfectly safe; he was able to eavesdrop on them (translated from Portuguese) by means of Van Eck phreaking.
This is a consequence of convergence. The functions of simple devices are absorbed into the suite of applications general purpose computers can perform. Note that the phone was absorbed as well.
Ten Things Mobile Phones Will Make Obsolete
Posted by timothy on Saturday November 21, @07:02PM from the try-finding-a-payphone-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes
"recombu.com has an article examining ten things mobile phones will make obsolete, including phone booths, wristwatches and handheld games consoles. It's interesting to see how many devices have been absorbed into mobile phone technology, and it raises the question: are we better off having everything in one device? The author poignantly concludes that while it's great to have so much power at our fingertips, it does mean that some of us will rely on mobile phones for even basic mental tasks, which is great until the battery runs out."
See also Isaac Asimov's The Feeling of Power.
(Related) Read the Asimov short story in the previous article and ask yourself what technology he predicts. SciFi has never been about the toys, but rather the societies that produce or react to them. Too much of what is labeled “science fiction” is in fact “fantasy” – wizards and spells rather than “what if” extrapolations of science.
Has Sci-Fi Run Out of Steam?
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 21, @01:20PM from the what-about-steampunk dept.
Barence writes
"Science fiction has long inspired real-world technology, but are the authors of sci-fi stories finally running out of steam? PC Pro has traced the history of sci-fi's influence on real-world technology, from Jules Verne to Snow Crash, but suggests that writers have run out of ideas when it comes to inspiring tomorrow's products. 'Since Snow Crash, no novel has had quite the same impact on the computing world, and you might argue that sci-fi and hi-tech are drifting further apart,' PC Pro claims. Author Charles Stross tells the magazine that he began writing a sci-fi novel in 2005 and 'made some predictions, thinking that in ten years they'd either be laughable or they'd have come true. The weird bit? Most of them came true already, by 2009.'"
For my Computer Forensics wiki
How To Easily Record & Print Out An Internet User’s Browsing History
Nov. 21st, 2009 By Karl L. Gechlik
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