Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

McAfee Will Ignore FBI Spyware

Posted by chrisd on from the big-brother-tries-on-a-pink-shirt dept.

Drew writes: "The Washington Post is reporting on the FBI's new spyware called 'Magic Lantern.' According to their article, 'At least one antivirus software company, McAfee Corp., contacted the FBI on Wednesday to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software and alert a criminal suspect.' It is ridiculous that the software companies that are supposed to help us protect computers purposefully leave in loopholes for the FBI to operate their spyware."

3 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe Night? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Seems to me that we are getting an unusual number of dupes recently.

    Maybe Taco et al should work out a better way to classify incomming email, and flag the topic as posted or some such.

  2. It sounds like Anthrax story by famazza · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    A long time ago USArmy decided that biological harzadous weapons would be a great idea. Then they developed a deadly biological weapon, they called A-n-t-h-r-a-x.

    Many years later they decided to ban biological weapons, that was a great idea. But this year when the world asked for the end of all the kinds of biological weapons Mr.Bush said NO.

    Six months later he realized that it was a Bad Idea(c). (needless to say why)

    What do you think? Is this Magic Lantern a good idea or a bad idea?

    --

    -=-=-=-=
    I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
  3. Um...what? by waldoj · · Score: 3, Offtopic

    What are you talking about? Anthrax has a documented existence of thousands of years -- presumably it has been around much longer -- having been a problem for the ancients right up until Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine in the 1870s. The microorganism was isolated by Dr. Robert Koch in 1876, who named it Bacillus anthracis after its accepted name of anthrax, from Middle English antrax carbuncle, from Latin anthrax, from Greek, coal, carbuncle. [1] It wasn't until WWI that the US started exploring the use of anthrax as a biological weapon. [2] All that we did was make it more portable. But to say that we developed something new and decided to call it anthrax? That's just silly.

    -Waldo Jaquith

    [1] http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Diction ary&va=anthrax
    [2] http://www.defencejournal.com/dec98/anthrax.htm