http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/fbi_spyware

Now, I have to say that I definitely want someone who threatens to bomb someone (or something) to be caught before he or she can commit the act. I also want to emphasize that they did get a warrant. They did the right thing in this case.

I have a sense of uneasiness about this, not because they caught this kid, but because so much of our lives are lived online these days. In the old days, if they had figured out how to make your television report which programs you were watching, it would not have meant much. There were three major networks, that tended to play similar programming at any particular time of the day. So maybe you watched Sonny & Cher instead of Donny & Marie, but it did not tell much about who you were inside.

Nowadays, your computer and network connection bring much of your entertainment. They bring your news and information. They bring your business dealings. They bring your family communications. A malware attack threatens all of that. This is where it becomes a little scary, because you now have to protect yourself against both criminals and crime-fighters. What happens if FBI spyware winds up on a shared computer or winds up infesting non-targeted computers? What happens if someone "captures" the FBI's spyware and deploys it against other people? These are some of the issues that should probably be openly discussed before we allow government agencies to undermine people's computer systems' security.

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Tags: fbi, spyware