PJC Journal – Original » 2007 » July

Jul

When the good guys become the bad guys – meet 'Police spyware'

IanPJ Main Page 1 comment

It's well known that organizations with nefarious and often criminal
goals support and distribute malware and spyware that allows them to
snoop on and/or manipulate people's computers. However, what is less
well-known is that some of the people behind spyware are ostensibly the
“good guys”—law enforcement officers who install the software on
suspects' computers to assist them with their investigations.

The existence of “policeware” is not well-known, but the US government
has used this sort of software before. In 2001, federal agents obtained
permission from a judge to enter a suspect's home and install keylogging software
on his computer. The rationale for this unusual mode of investigation
was to get around encryption software such as PGP and the web e-mail
service, Hushmail, that the suspect was using. More recently, FBI
agents used a virus to bust a bomb threat hoaxer.

So, given the fact that federal investigators and possibly other law
enforcement personnel are using spyware to monitor suspect's computers,
what happens when said suspects run antispyware programs?

A fascinating CNET survey of top antispyware vendors found that of 13 software companies, all of them stated that it is currently their
policy to detect police spyware. When asked if they had ever received a
court order to stop detecting police spyware, nine of the companies
denied having received such a request. Computer Associates said they
were not sure, and both Microsoft and McAfee declined to comment on the
question.

Sounds good, right? Notably, a few companies admitted that they would
whitelist policeware if it were requested, including the maker of
ZoneAlarm, a popular firewall app. More interesting, CNET said that
when asked flat-out if they would whitelist for the police when asked,
the question was sometimes ignored.

The issue of checking for police spyware has come up before. After the
Hushmail incident, an article was released about the FBI developing a
new form of spyware delivered as a virus called Magic Lantern that could be installed on users' computers without a agent having to be physically present at the computer. According to an Associated Press article
from 2001, McAfee Corporation contacted the FBI after the Magic Lantern
story broke to “ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the
bureau's snooping software and alert a criminal subject.” McAfee later denied that such contact had taken place.

The issue of whether or not the government should be allowed to
electronically snoop in this way is a contentious one. Many people
would agree that if a search warrant has been previously obtained for a
suspect's house as part of a criminal investigation, the installation
of snooping software would be an acceptable extension of that search.

However, the recent NSA wiretapping scandal
shows that the federal government is not always going to bother
obtaining search warrants in the first place, and considers casting a
wide net of surveillance to be an acceptable method of
counter-terrorism, despite the fact that it is of dubious value as such.
As for court orders to anti-spyware companies to not detect policeware,
no such orders have been confirmed and Kevin Bankston, an attorney with
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET that “the government
would be pushing the boundaries of the law if it attempted to obtain
such an order.” However, this too could be circumvented by using the
Wiretap Act.

If such an order is given to stop detecting federal government
snoopware, savvy criminals could simply turn to open-source software
such as ClamAV and OpenAntiVirus.org that can be audited to see that
there are no backdoors or workarounds installed at the request of the
government. (source)

I dont know what the law says about this kind of 'malware' in the UK, or even if there is a law that covers it. This needs further investigation one thinks.

Who's watching YOU in Britain today

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Database State – why there's never enough money for NHS care

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When the people of Britain pay their taxes, they expect basic services in return. A well funded and managed NHS, a Police force that polices rather than politics, and the right equipment for our servicemen and women when they are asked to put their lives on the line.

What does this Government do. Wastes it all on IT, useless IT projects that no one wants.

To spy on all of us.

The ID Card Scheme, current cost £5.5 billion and rising by the day.
Biometric Passports – current costs £4 billion and rising by the day.
London Heathrow Terminal 5 – costs unknown, but designed to spy on everyone with biometrics built in to the design.

In case you didn’t know, fingerprint can be spoofed:

And even if it worked 100%, that doesn’t make it RIGHT, but I'm sure the kids in this vid will make sure that in time everything will get charged to the Headteacher's account…

To spy on our drivers in London

Anti-terrorist police could face a massive bill for storing up to five
years of data from London's congestion charge cameras and automatic number
plate recognition system reports Computer Weekly.

The Home Office last week gave the Metropolitan Police
permission for routine real-time access to Transport for London's
(TfL) 1,500
CCTV cameras to track terrorist suspects' vehicles throughout the city
centre.

Home Office and police spokespeople declined to say
how much the scheme would cost, but CCTV experts said collecting all the data
from TfL's network and car
tracking tags (yes, they are trying out tracking) could require up to 8.8
exabyes of storage, and drive the bill as
high as £1.75bn.

In a statement to Parliament, minister of state for
security, counter-terrorism, crime and policing Tony McNulty said the Met
needed bulk number plate data from TfL's camera network in London
“specifically for terrorism intelligence purposes and to prevent and
investigate such offences”.

A TfL spokesman said it keeps camera data for seven days. “I don't know how the police plan to
keep it for five years,” he said.

To Spy on our Kids

Then there is the ContactPoint database set to contain
information and carers' contact details for every child in England will cost £41
million (US$84 million) a year to run on top of its £224 million implementation
costs, the government has admitted.

Capgemini was awarded the £40 million, seven-year contract
to set up and manage the ContactPoint database and online directory earlier
this week.

But children's minister Kevin Brennan has revealed that the
ongoing costs of the database — accessible to more than 330,000 education,
health, social care and youth justice professionals — will dwarf the contract
price.

ContactPoint will contain basic identifying information
about all children in England
from birth until age 18, along with contact details for their parents or carers
and for professionals providing support services to them.

Brennan confirmed that the total costs of implementing the system
are estimated at £224 million, with £28.4 million already spent on the project
in 2006-07 and a further £11.2 million in the first three months of 2007-08.

Running costs thereafter are estimated to be #41 million per
year. (source)

Sharing your personal data

The National Audit Office has come up with a price tag short
of the highest estimates for England's
NHS National Programme for IT

IIt has made the estimate in compiling a report on the programme, published on 16 June 2006.

This contrasts with estimates of about £20bn from some sources, but is well
above the levels previously stated by Connecting for
Health (CfH), the agency in charge of running the programme.

The NPfIT is due to cost between £6.2bn and £31bn according to some reports,
but the NHS is facing funding pressures. The survey's results also come against
the backdrop of a 28-hour failure of the NHS data spine – the backbone of the
NPfIT.

The Medix
survey brought responses from 1,329 doctors – about 1.5% of the total in England.
Only 1% of those who responded rated progress in the NPfIT as good or
excellent. Seventy five per cent of GPs and 63% of other doctors rated progress
as poor or unacceptable.

We now know for the first time that the £6.2bn
announced as the cost of the project over 10 years is wrong. NAO analysis
indicates that this is only half the story and that a figure of £12.4bn is
nearer the mark. And the NHS Care Records Service, making information about
patients available nationally to clinicians, will be rolled out in GPs'
surgeries two years late.

And planning to share your data even more….

Drawn up by the ICT for Health Unit, the European Commission
Recommendation is directed at achieving a European health
information space by the end of 2015. The consultation document suggests that
rising healthcare costs and the increasing cross-border dimension of
healthcare, brought about by greater citizen mobility, now makes the need for
cooperative action “indispensable”.
But at what cost.

The recommendation also invites member states to consider
what needs to be done on the political,
legal, organisational, application and technical fronts to join up systems.

While accepting that the activities outlined may also be
relevant to high priority applications like e-prescribing, the document warns
that interoperability in this area may involve additional “regulatory, infrastructural and market
challenges”.

We don’t want this shite. We just want our tax money spent
on Health Care, drugs, nurses and the ordinary things that matter.

Do you feel a database state coming on. Can you see the rise of Joe Stalin all over again…..

NuLab – Destroying Britain
from the inside out.

Here we go again, a new home secretary a new request for 90 days

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Here we go again, a new home secretary, a new request for 90 days detention without charge.

It has only been 14 days since the current 28 day detention was debated in parliament, with warnings that it should be seen as an 'exceptional power'.

Already the longest period in the western world of detention without charge, it would appear that the Police are again seizing the chance of influencing a new Home Secretary.

We have said, the politicians have all said, and given numerous chances, for the Police to prove beyond reasonable doubt why 90 days is essential, and they have consistently failed to do so.

There are dark forces at hand here, it can be the only answer as to why the ACPO keep playing in the political arena and are looking for more authoritarian and police state powers.

If this Home Secretary is not strong enough to keep the ACPO in the box, then she is definitely in the wrong job.

NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.

Brown to create 'order for the people'

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In true socialist style Gordon Brown (our very own version of Joe Stalin) has announced plans to “pay tribute to the people who
represent the very best of Britain” every 24 July and to encourage more
public service and social action.

Is he planning to initiate a soviet style order for the people.

Order Of Honour.
????? “??????”.
Orden “Pocheta”.

This order conferred on citizens of the U.S.S.R. for “outstanding
achievements in production, scientific research and social, cultural
and other forms of social activity”.

And perhaps for those Labour Party Donors, who will now be denied a peerage, perhaps he can create a special order

Hero Of Socialist Labour.
????? ????????????????? ?????
Geroj Sotsialisticheskogo Truda

NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.

Asylum need for Iraqis who work for British troops UPDATE

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Update: Davide Simonetti has set up this petition. Please sign if you’d be so kind.

Dan Hardie has
suggested petitioning members of parliament on the matter of Iraqis who
have worked for the British forces in Southern Iraq who now fine
themselves in increasing danger. It seems that, now they’ve done their
bit, they’re on their own, thanks. We’re turning them away and they
have to make for the borders in the hope of reaching safety in
neighbouring countries.

Here’s some guidelines and pointers for writing to your MP.

***

Since British troops occupied Southern Iraq in the spring of 2003,
thousands of Iraqi citizens have worked for the British Army, the
Coalition Provisional Authority (South) and for contractors serving UK
forces. There is now considerable evidence that their lives, and the
lives of their families, are at risk: some former workers for the
British have been murdered, and many others have fled to neighbouring
countries or gone into hiding in Basra.

The British Government, for whom they were ultimately working, has
not offered them the right of asylum in the UK. This is morally
unacceptable. It is also unnecessary, since we are well able to
accommodate several thousand Iraqi refugees, most of whom already speak
English and all of whom have already worked for our country.

The most detailed recent report, by Jonathan Miller of Channel Four News,
notes the murder of 17 translators in one single incident in Basra. It
cites the cases of hundreds of others who have fled to a refugee
existence in nearby Middle Eastern countries or are in hiding in Iraq.
The British Government response has come from the Home Office, which
has suggested that Iraqis put at risk by their work for British troops
‘register with the UN refugee agency’. Other reports provide supporting
detail: Iraqis are being targeted for murder because they have worked
for British forces. (See here and here.)

Marie Colvin’s report for the Times of April 8 speaks of desperate
former workers for the British Army being turned away from the British
embassy in Syria by staff who had orders not to admit any Iraqis. These
brave men and women have testimonials written by British officers
stating that they are at risk from jihadi violence: and yet we are
still refusing to admit them to the United Kingdom.

If you feel that this is unacceptable and that Britain should
prevent Iraqis from being murdered for the ‘crime’ of working for
British troops, could you please write to your MP and ask him or her to
press the Government for action. You can use the excellent website ‘Write to Them‘ or post a letter yourself.

Please be courteous when writing to your MP. It would be a good idea
to read the reports above, and cite relevant facts. We would suggest
that your letter could contain the following points:

It is morally unacceptable that Britain should abandon people who
are at risk because they worked for British soldiers and diplomats.
This country will be shamed if any more Iraqis are murdered for the ‘crime’ of having supported UK forces.
Iraqis who worked for British forces should not be told to leave
Iraq and throw themselves on the mercy of United Nations relief
agencies in Arab countries: these agencies are already being
overwhelmed by the outflow of Iraqi refugees, and Iraqi refugees who
have worked for British diplomats or troops may well be targeted by
local jihadists.
There is plentiful evidence that armed groups in Iraq kill the
families of those they consider ‘enemies’: for this reason we must
extend the right of asylum to the families of those who worked for us.
It is entirely practical for this country’s troops in Iraq, and its
embassies in neighbouring countries, to take in Iraqis who have worked
for us and fly them to the UK. Indeed, there is already considerable
anger among British servicemen that Iraqis are being abandoned in this
way.
This country is large enough and rich enough to accommodate several
thousand Iraqi refugees. Denmark has already given asylum to all 200
Iraqis who worked for its smaller occupying force.
It does not matter what your MP’s views (or what your views) are on
the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. People who risked their
lives for this country’s soldiers are now being abandoned by the
British Government. Their lives can and must be saved by their being
granted the right of asylum in this country.
This policy should be implemented regardless of whether British
soldiers stay in Iraq or are soon withdrawn. But it must be introduced
soon: applications for asylum cannot be processed in a lengthy fashion,
as the security situation in Basra is deteriorating rapidly, and delay
is likely to lead to further killings of Iraqis who worked for British
troops.

***

It is best that those of us deciding to write a letter do so in a personal fashion – form letters and mass-mailouts are frowned upon by our elected representatives and often end up in the bin.

Dan suggests tagging five other bloggers to pass the message on but
I’d like to instead ask that anybody reading this post on their own
blogs and write a letter themselves. Feel free to cut and paste this
copy into blogs or into emails to non-blogging friends who might also
write to their MP.

Update: And there’s this:

The United States ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Cocker, has
called for all Iraqis working for the US government to be granted
refugee status in recognition of the dangers they face.

HatTip Chicken Yoghurt

Update: Davide Simonetti has set up this petition. Please sign if you’d be so kind.