Governments used crime-fighting software to suppress dissent
31 Aug 2012
Google engineer Morgan Marquis-Boire and PhD student Bill Marczak have uncovered an elusive surveillance tool from Bahrain in use across five continents.
They found that the off-the-shelf software was in widespread use by governments with questionable records on human rights. Though the software was supposedly sold for use only in criminal investigations, the two have found evidence that it was being used to target political dissidents.
The software turned out something from a spy film as it can grab images of computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes. According to the duo they discovered mobile versions of the spyware customised for all major mobile phones.
However, what makes the software especially sophisticated is its detection avoidance capability, which allows it to give antivirus software made by Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, F-Secure and others the slip.
The software, identified as FinSpy, is among the more elusive spyware tools sold in the growing market of off-the-shelf computer surveillance technologies which gives governments a sophisticated plug-in monitoring operation. It has now been linked to servers in over a dozen countries, including Turkmenistan, Brunei and Bahrain, although the use of the software is not acknowledged by any government no government acknowledges using the software for surveillance purposes.
According to Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies, the company behind the annual surveillance show, ISS World, the market for such technologies had grown to $5 billion a year from "nothing 10 years ago.
