Cory Doctorow at 4:00 pm Wed, Oct 1, 2014
Law enforcement agencies have been buying and distributing Computercop, advising citizens that the software is the “first step” for protecting their kids; one sheriff bought copies for every family in the county.
But Computercop isn’t security software — quite the opposite; it’s classic malware. The software, made in New York by a company that markets to law enforcement, is a badly designed keylogger that stores thingstyped into the keyboard — potentially everything typed on the family PC — passwords, sensitive communications, banking logins, and more, all stored on the hard drive, either in the clear, or with weak, easily broken encryption. And Computercop users are encouraged to configure the software to email dumps from the keylogger to their accounts (to spy on their children’s activity), so that all those keystrokes are vulnerable to interception by anyone between….