Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge requiring you to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in terms of not detecting government-installed spyware or delivering government spyware to your users?
Cassidy: (Editor's note: No answer to the last question by Monday evening in the US, although we didn't give CA that much time to respond to it.)
eEye
Response from Marc Maiffret, eEye Digital Security's co-founder and chief technology officer (who also has a regular podcast talking about security). eEye products include a network security scanner and a network traffic analyser.
Has eEye ever had any discussions with any government agency about not detecting spyware or keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency?
Maiffret: eEye has never had any discussions with any government agencies about not detecting any sort of malware, including spyware, keystroke loggers, etc.
Is it eEye's policy to alert the user to the presence of any spyware or keystroke logger, even if it is installed by a police or intelligence agency?
Maiffret: Our customers are paying us for a service, to protect them from all forms of malicious code. It is not up to us to do law enforcement's job for them so we do not, and will not, make any exceptions for law enforcement malware or other tools.
As soon as a company, like we have seen with McAfee, starts making exceptions to their protection products, they can no longer guarantee a sound and safe product for their customers. We will not play that game.
Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge requiring you to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in terms of not detecting government-installed spyware or delivering government spyware to your users?
Maiffret: No
IBM
Response from Angela Frechette, spokeswoman for IBM Internet Security Systems. IBM sells a wide array of consumer and enterprise security products, including mail filters and the Proventia desktop security software that has antispyware features.
Have you ever had any discussions with any government agency, not counting conversations related to a lawful court order signed by a judge, about not detecting spyware or keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency?
Frechette: No, IBM Internet Security Systems has not had discussions of this kind.
Is it your policy to alert the user to the presence of any spyware or keystroke logger, even if it is installed by a police or intelligence agency in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge?
Frechette: Yes, it is IBM Internet Security Systems' policy to alert customers of any malicious programs/activities on their machines.
Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge requiring you to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in terms of not detecting government-installed spyware or delivering government spyware to your users?
Frechette: IBM Internet Security Systems has never received such a court order.
Kaspersky Lab
Response from Randy Drawas, vice president of marketing at Kaspersky Lab, with offices in Massachusetts and Moscow. Last year, CNET Reviews awarded Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6 an Editor's Choice award.
Have you ever had any discussions with any government agency, not counting conversations related to a lawful court order signed by a judge, about not detecting spyware or keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency?
Drawas: No.
Is it your policy to alert the user to the presence of any spyware or keystroke logger, even if it is installed by a police or intelligence agency in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge?
Drawas: Yes. While part of our product's technology relies on static signatures to detect known malware, signature detection is only one of several detection methodologies in Kaspersky products. Our products, as with many other commercial anti-malware software, implement proactive detection methodologies -- statistical analysis, heuristics, emulation, and so on. These methodologies, unlike signature detection, do not "know" what they are detecting; they only know they've detected a form of malware. This is basically to say that detection of malware written specifically for purposes of law-enforcement is something that we cannot control. If our product detects a piece of malware, it detects it.
Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge requiring you to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in terms of not detecting government-installed spyware or delivering government spyware to your users?
Drawas: The answer is no, not to date.
14%
7%
I may well be completely wrong here but it is my sincere feeling/position that while the Internet was apparently first concieved in the US,that doesn't give the US government any right to claim ownership.Nor any other government either..I abhor the arrogance and self-centredness of the US laying claim to anything and everything with their "Our way or the highway" attitudes.The Internet is there for everyone to use that pays for the service and we ought to be able to go where we wish,do what we wish with confidence and the protections we pay for from on-line security firms.I've never visited any of the available porn sites and don't intend to,never done any gambling or anything else that I feel is distasteful,including the thousands of chatrooms.Being nearly 70 and having had a computer since 1981 before there was an Internet,it is ghastly to me that any "government" could/would have/seize the right to SPY on any of my activities.To me,most all of the problems throughout the world today,including the Internet are all laying at the feet of the disgusting US Administration.If they would stick to their own shores,mind their own damned business,we would not BE in the terrible situations we're in today..