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Encryption & You!
New Spy-ware the government is planning to give away.

According to a recent published report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you know the mighty FBI, have been working on a fancy new form of spy-software. They are also planning on giving it away for FREE!

The only thing you have to do is get on the FBI list of people they think are committing crimes. Now, that is weird or what!

Magic Lantern is the name of the software and it is a program that records each keystroke made on a target computer. This squealer transmits that information back to the FBI headquarters.

The beauty of it all is that it doesn't have to break into your office or house to get your computer to talk. The Magic Lantern is and veils itself as miscellaneous code. Magic Lantern is intended to surpass one of the most difficult hurdles the FBI has when eavesdropping encryption.

As you may or may not know, encrypted e-mail is almost impossible to read without a key to unscramble the code The key is protected by a password. Without the key, the e-mail is total gibberish.

Now, how does this Magic Lantern does it's trick?

Magic Lantern doesn't try to decipher e-mail at all. What it does is record the key strokes as they are typed. With the recorded characters the FBI can obtain a suspect's password and then the encryption key.

Now, how do they use the key is not really certain. Many folks will argue that such software can be invaluable in cases of National Security. We all know that using this software in other cases is inevitable. As a matter of fact, evidence received with a keystroke logging device already has been used in the trial of suspected Philadelphia Mobster Nicodemo Scarfo.

When Scarfo's Attorneys demanded to see how the FBI secured the evidence, the bureau refused to disclose their collection techniques. The Newark federal Judge sided with the FBI obviously. The government can collect evidence using a plethora of secret techniques and they then can refuse to disclose how they collect it.

Most of these new powers can be found in the USA Patriot Act. The law gives the Justice Department much more freedom to record e-mail information. One provision forces judges to issue an order for address logging-recording the addresses to which a suspect sends messages and from which the suspect gets messages.

The Patriot Act also makes it easier to get what amounts to an e-mail wire tap. Boy, allowing the FBI to read messages it's pretty creepy in some ways even if it is for national defense. I just hope that they can actually do something about all the viagra and penis enlargement e-mails I get.

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