FBI Surveillance records keystrokes

A new FBI surveillance tool used to help monitor suspects that use encryption software. The software, dubbed "Magic Lantern", is a trojan horse sent via an e-mail worm or by exploiting any number of 'well-known vulnerabilities.' Once installed it acts as a keylogger, recording everything the suspect types and delivering it over the Internet to law enforcement. What makes this tool unique is that it actually is installed by breaking into a suspect's computer, as opposed to Carnivore's more passive packet monitoring. As with Carnivore, the Bureau has kept all details of Magic Lantern's functionality under wraps...

Now, why can the FBI exploit known vulnerabilities, record every key you press, exploit those known vulnerabilities, use malicous software that may cause potential damage to my hard drive,
but it's against federal law for me to do so....

Remote_Access_

Remember The Source.

Hahaha, Terr I owe you Positive AntiPoints for that reply :D

But yes, about this "Magic Lantern"...It's not the governments first attempt to 'regulate' or 'hack-on-hackers' approprietly speaking. I honestly think this is another lame attempt by Uncle Sam, I mean come on. We are smart (those of us that hack at least), we will obviously find ways of 'getting around' this problem. And from what i've heard on Tech-TV the Feds made a deal with McAfee to not let Magic Lantern be detected. Now what I'm afraid is going to happen is some random guy is going to somehow get a hold of this Magic Lantern and either:

[list=1][*] Mass distribute it on the internet.[*] Use it for himself[*] Learn how it works using it on his own, borrowed, network. And make a 'cure' as you might call it.[/list=1]

If any of these three things happen then the whole Magic Lantern project will be a flop. And of course McAfee is denying having any conferance with the FBI about this matter.
The thing to remember is, this is the US government were talking about. While what the Feds need to understand is, is that hacking is not only within the US, but within Europe, Asia, Africa, Austrailia, South America, and all of North America too. I have no idea how they will infect just about every home / office user with this program and expect it to work. For keylogging is illegal in most countries, if not all, around the world. Maybe it's only meant for XP users? Since you can d/l pathes, updates, and even programs from M$ without your knowledge (a new feature in XP). Maybe they'll just bribe (or force) Gates to insert the Magic Lantern into the next update. Who knows?

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=131026

As Conf1rm3d_K1ll pointed out, we've discussed a lot of this before. I would be very surprised if something like "Magic Lantern" did not exist (and equivalents in other parts of the world). Lets assume for the sake of argument that the feds did make an agreement for McAfee/MS/whoever to allow for this virus to go undetected.
Personally, I can't think of a better way for a company to commit commercial suicide - would you continue to use an AV scanner (or any other product) from a company that did not detect viruses/worms/trojans which its competitors picked up on? So you would need to bribe every AV company which the FBI would find almost impossible. Even if that somehow happened, it would be picked up and details would be posted on the net.
As has been pointed out, the net also exists in other parts of the world where the US has little or no influence. For example all of the Western European governments (except for the UK) are opposed to Echelon, Carnivore etc. This is not because they are anti American, but because they object to their citizens being spied on by a foreign power.

It wont work..

Why?
Because it can affect international computers

thus making it a security risk internationally..
These other countries will not like this.. and it will be detectable..

Plus... to connect to law enforcement it has to go over networks.. and a simple Sniffer will fix that..

[QUOTE]Originally posted by evilseed
It wont work..

Why?
Because it can affect international computers

thus making it a security risk internationally..
These other countries will not like this.. and it will be detectable..

Plus... to connect to law enforcement it has to go over networks.. and a simple Sniffer will fix that.. [/QUOTE

oh they can do it. and they probably will. EU already have the ENFOPOL project up and running... it's Echelon's right hand, the NSA control the EU too!!! or at least that's how the future might be... check out: http://home.cyberarmy.com/zion1459/enfopol.htm for more info on ENFOPOL.
i don't ever think that EU is gonna go public with their surveillance system (at least not 100%), and it would be easy for them to hide it from the rest of us... (that's the really sick thing about it)

Remote_Access_ if you post one more thing in your name i i i i i i.....
will set a whole group of script kiddies with their how do i hack hotmail questions

Ok, read my other post. I just wrote it today. It's in General Chit Chat and the topic is Credit Where It's Due. Go read it and please dont send in the script kiddies. :cry:

Remote_Access_

There is not much point in continuing this discussion, but zion1459 probably does have a point. In my post I specifically referred to "foreign powers" - what foreign means depends on which part of the world you live/reside in. Most governments consider that is acceptable to read their own citizens emails, but get unhappy when an outside power tries to do the same thing. I think to say that NSA controls the EU is an overstatement (can you see France/Germany agreeing to that?).
From a practical point of view, if for some reason you don't believe the independent information on PGP, then use something else that makes you feel happy.