McAfee Will Ignore FBI Spyware

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."

Comments

Re:Magic Lantern benefits crackers!

[The Pim]

This program, which is intended to prevent people from getting into your computer, will happily ignore all cracking that takes place through the same loopholes as this so-called Magic Lantern.

It certainly raises the possibility ... but if McAfee is competant, it's only a small one. Magic Lantern is probably going to log information passively, and maybe send it to fbi.gov . It's not going to open up ports with shells attached to them. It's not going to propagate itself. It's not going to mail passwords to leet@haxors.ru . It's basically not going to do anything that a self-respecting malware author wants.

So sure, maybe you could write Amazing Lightbulb, that McAfee can't distinguish from Magic Lantern. But it probably couldn't do anything interesting, because if it tried, McAfee would know it isn't Magic Lantern.

(Ultimately, of course, malware versus anti-malware is an arms race, and a sufficiently clever hack can no doubt evade McAfee. Possibly, Magic Lantern code in McAfee might make it marginally easier; but anyone who's smart enough to evade McAfee can probably do it either way. And in a week or three, McAfee will issue an update, and the next round will begin.)

FWIW, my take is that if court-authorized spyware warrants get the FBI to relax their anti-encryption stance, they're probably a good thing.