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FBI Used Spyware for Online Search

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the not-surprised-here dept.

juct writes "The FBI has used PC spyware for the first time to reveal the identity of an offender who sent bomb threats to a high school in Washington state. According to heise Security, a declaration from the FBI official who applied for the search warrant describes the mode of operation of the spyware which the FBI is using under the abbreviation CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier)."

2 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Are the editors boycotting reading /. again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yet another dupe! (From yesterday!)

  2. Re:How long will it be before... by chriddy · · Score: 2, Informative
    From the search warrant request:

    Because the FBI cannot predict whether any particular formulation of a CIPAV to be used will cause a person(s) controlling the activating computer to activate a CIPAV, I request [...] to continue using additional CIPAVs [...] until a CIPAV has been activated.
    Read "activate"="double-click on attachment". So much for the FBI exploting secret security holes that are otherwise unknown or actually paying OS vendors to install backdoors and security software vendors to not detect their spyware. Looks very much as if it's just a plain old trojan...