You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Law Enforcement' category.
Declan McCullagh at CNET writes on the use of keyloggers to tap into people’s computers and track their activities.
“A recent court case provides a rare glimpse into how federal agents deal with encryption: By breaking into a suspect’s home or office, implanting keystroke logging software, and spying on what happens from afar.
An agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration persuaded a federal judge to authorize him to sneak into an Escondido, Calif. office believed to be a front for manufacturing the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy. The DEA received permission to copy the hard drives’ contents and inject a keystroke logger into the computers.
That was necessary, according to DEA Agent Greg Coffey, because the suspects were using PGP and the encrypted Web e-mail service Hushmail.com. Coffey claimed that the DEA needed “real-time and meaningful access” to “monitor the keystrokes” for PGP and Hushmail passphrases. “
“A White House task force led by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras on Monday urged Congress to enact a variety of new laws designed to punish identity fraud, even though it is already illegal.
The new national strategy, which spans two volumes and 190 pages, calls for rewriting existing criminal laws to penalize use of malicious spyware and keyloggers, to expand mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain levels of electronic data theft, and to allow identity theft victims to receive monetary compensation not only for their direct financial losses, but also for the time they spent piecing their lives back together. “
Identity thiefs make a living by knowing personal (and confidential) information about their victims so that they may profit by misusing it. However, that makes them the least identifiable people in the world . . . always hiding behind other people’s identities. The bigger the operation, the higher the risk, and it’s coming not only from the authorities, other hacker gangs want to know who their rivals are, in order to “police” the unpoliced territory.
This article on BBC talks about the rise in hijacked PC networks (botnets). “Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response, said online criminals appeared to be adopting more sophisticated means of “self-policing”. He added: “They’re launching denial-of-service attacks on rivals’ servers and posting pictures online of competitors’ faces. . . . It’s ruthless, highly organised and highly evolved.”
