RE: CRIME FBI's "Magic Lantern" and McAfee Antivirus

From: Kuo, Jimmy (Jimmy_Kuo@private)
Date: Sat Nov 24 2001 - 21:47:31 PST

  • Next message: Crispin Cowan: "Re: CRIME FBI's "Magic Lantern" and McAfee Antivirus"

    >This article 
    >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1436-2001Nov22.html 
    >(which is mostly about the FBI's "Magic Lantern" crypto key 
    >sniffing mail virus) also mentions that McAfee Antivirus will NOT 
    >detect and report Magic Lantern, 
    
    This piece of "truth" is fabricated.
    
    >now highlighted on Slashdot 
    >http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/24/2324241&mode=thread 
    ><http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/24/2324241&mode=thread>
    
    >Civil liberties issues aside, this would seem to present a serious 
    >security issue. Attackers *other* than the FBI could pirate the 
    >Magic Lantern Virus, and use it to obtain private keys. Look for 
    >Magic Toolkits at a warez site near you :-)
    
    >Jimmy: I expect that you did not make this decision, but can you 
    >comment on it? How does McAffee plan to keep the Magic Lantern 
    >back door from becoming a wide-open virus transport protocol?
    
    By detecting its presence if we ever encounter it.
    
    >Thanks
    
    You're welcome.  Probably not the answer you thought you would get, huh?
    
    Jimmy
    
    PS.  From the *rumored* description, it sounds like a trojan, not a virus.
    No one outside of people that are possibly developing it would know for
    sure.  The whole report is on a rumored product!
    
    PPS.  How would we know if a password stealing trojan that is handed to us
    by one of our users is this "Magic Lantern" thing?  You think the FBI would
    come and tell us, "He's under investigation!  So, don't tell on us,
    pleeeeeease!"  Or maybe it has "Copyright FBI" inside so we'll know when we
    see it.  :-)
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun May 26 2002 - 11:32:51 PDT