FBI Spyware - Should We Worry?

By now most of us have read the news reports referencing how the FBI was able to track down a person who was sending bomb threats to a school. I think we all agree because of the unfortunate incidents that have occurred at our schools, no threat, no matter how minor can be ignored. I believe we also will all agree that law enforcement should be able to use all available tools to track down the perpetrators. For those who have children in school I know you want them protected no matter what the cost.

So as I read through various news accounts, blogs and some forum postings, I noticed a pattern developing. The perpetrator was being described as a ‘hoaxster’ and a ‘prankster’. Though it turned out that the offender was in fact a 16 year old youth, this was a little more serious than throwing water balloons at cars. Apparently the court felt the same since he was sentenced to 90 days in juvenile detention. But what is disturbing is our attitude. Not about whether the juvenile should of been tried, not about how the FBI caught him, but all of the attention turned to whether our anti-virus and spyware programs would catch the FBI’s software.

There were even some who did entire articles on contacting software vendors asking if they were working with the FBI and if their software was purposely avoiding detecting this spyware. Does anyone really think any vendor would admit to this? The most likely scenario is that who ever the FBI has employed, has developed a program that just may wiggle its way through any defenses so as to not alert the bad guy[s].

Do any of us really believe that there is any operating system or any software that will protect our systems 100% of the time?

What do you think? Have the anti-virus and spyware vendors conspired with the FBI or not?

Comments welcome.

[tags]fbi, spyware, software, anti-virus, spyware, [/tags]