FBI Confirms Magic Lantern Existence

The_THOMAS (and many others) writes: "A day after major anti-virus firms waffle on their support for 'Magic Lantern', and nine days after Thomas C Greene of The Register tried to throw cold water on it's existence, the FBI Confirms the 'Magic Lantern' Project Exist. Welcome to a Brave New World!"

Re:Congratulations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Two "interesting" in the time it took to write my reply! Wow ... it was a better troll than I originally realised.

You're my new hero!

BORRRRING!

[cscx]

You know, this Magic Lantern thing will sure make life boring. Whatever happened to the good ole days when the feds actually had to sneak in your house and plant a bug inside your coffeemaker (like in all those cool 80s action movies)? Man the feds are sure getting lazy.

Re:"Welcome to a Brave New World!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you male or female?

Oh goodie!

[loraksus]

So now the FBI will be able to catch terrorists even better!
What this country needs is more power and oversight by police agencies - East Germany had it right when "smell samples" were collected in jars so dogs could hunt down disenters.
Of course, this will mean nothing to civil rights because as we all know that the FBI is a trust worthy organization that would never do things that would jeopardize our civil rights by installing key loggers via internet virus (because that would not exactly be targeted eh?.

The FBI is also trust worthy, they would never, for example, abuse the justice system by, say using RICO (anti-organized crime) laws to punish pesky protesting environmentalists, or arbitrarily ask nearly all muslim students in the USA to come in for interviews (and chase them down if they don't come by) - or even threaten to reveal that a person charged with a crime is gay (and cause his suicide)

And they would never do anything like compile a list of "persons of interest" and maintain a dossier on each person in the USA that has been charged (not convicted) of a crime), as well as all immigrants in the USA (they did a mighty fine fucking job lately eh?)

Don't worry, the FBI will protect you in the future because of their new powers!

BTW, would it be in a anti-virus company's best interest to reveal that their software has programmed defects? I dunno. . .

Re:They can get us Linux users too

[Tony-A]

Anything that looks like it came from Microsoft, by any of Microsoft's certificates, will be blindly accepted. Personally, I never trust anything from Microsoft. "Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation" sounds too much like "Always trust the fox in the chickencoop".

Re:What about your compiler?

[_xen]

While that post was sarcastic, it brings up another question: do you trust your compiler?

Not until I've finished checking every last line of code in the compiler source ... and in the source of the one I use to compile that ... and ... :o

Foreign troubles

[the grace of R'hllor]

Exactly what I'm moderately worried about. Why should the US FBI be able to check my computer, just because I use a (likely) American (otherwise British) version of Windows on my PC?

Can I sue the US Government for privacy infractions and computer crimes if I find this program on my PC? Can my government sue the US Government for the same?

all I have to be thankful for is that my sychophantic Prime Minister has been licking Dubwya's scrotum so much lately that Australians are probably far down the list of suitable intelligence targets.

Don't worry, noone will ever accuse Australians of having any intelligence to target.

*rimshot*

and then...

[archen]

[fbi.exe has preformed an illegal operation]

dammit, how many times do I have to reinstall this thing before it works?!