More on Magic Lantern, McAfee, Symantec, and FBI

[Declan McCullagh]

At 08:56 AM 11/30/2001 -0500, Will Rodger wrote:
>We also know that virus scanners are remarkably bad at picking up and 
>stopping new malware. If they were any good at all, new viri and Trojans 
>would not spread the way they do.

That's a fair statement, since the average Windows user either doesn't use 
antivirus ware or doesn't keep it updated. But crank up the paranoia dial a 
notch -- the Sep. 11 terrorists weren't exactly stupid -- and that's 
arguably a different story.

>How hard would it be to design a Trojan horse that could get around 
>current scanners?

Not that difficult, I suspect, with even the passive participation (merely 
providing tech info, not redesigning) of the antivirus firms. But the FBI 
would want to guard against two other possibilities: Future antivirus 
software detecting an installed ML, and future antivirus software detecting 
an attempt to install ML.

One wit recommended a way to get a wild version of ML: Create a Hotmail 
account with the appropriate-sounding name, post the appropriately 
suspicious-sounding statements in the appropriate fora, and wait for the 
attachments to come in. :)

-Declan




---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at wasabisystems.com