If you think spyware is just a royal pain in the royal behind as it is, what would you say upon learning one country has authorized law enforcement officers to slip spyware and even Trojan horse programs into suspected crooks' computers?
Australia’s new Surveillance Devices Act gives that country’s law enforcement the go-for-it to use anything from keystroke loggers and tracking programs to practically anything else against the bad guys. But there's one catch: The alleged crooks have to be suspected of crimes carrying at least three years in the joint before the cops may deploy the usually mischievous programs.
Dimension Data national security manager for IT services Neil Campbell told reporters the existing Australian laws required updating because there is confusion when dealing with new technologies. "If the police intercept SMS messages that have not yet been delivered, should that be classified as a telephone interception or as a regular search?" said the former Australian Federal Police computer crime team worker.
"Getting a search warrant is relatively easy – you need to show reasonable grounds that executing the search will provide evidence as to the commission of an offense. But getting an interception warrant is difficult," he said.
The only other problem, Campbell said, might be police trying to slip the programs into the suspected bad guy's computer when the bad guy in question happens to be savvy with security himself. "How do they get it on the machine?" he said. "Do they physically install it?"
