computer "security" firms collude with government

[pvn]

http://www.politechbot.com/2007/07/1...ecurity-firms/

[ QUOTE ]
2. Is it your policy to alert the user to the presence of any spyware or
keystroke logger, even if it is installed by a police or intelligence
agency in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge?

...

The short answer is that we received "No" answers from all 13 companies
to the second question.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone care to speculate why such a policy has been uniformily adopted?

[pvn]

Whoops, a correction has been issued:

http://www.politechbot.com/2007/07/1...n-on-security/

[ QUOTE ]
And we received 13 responses saying YES, it was their policy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Free Market FTW, in spite of government intervention!

[elwoodblues]

So you first posted hoping to see some government conspiracy wherein they are coercing these private companies, then find out that the initial article was wrong and you change it to "See the free market works." Just curious, would you have said the free market was working well if the article had gone uncorrected?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
So you first posted hoping to see some government conspiracy wherein they are coercing these private companies, then find out that the initial article was wrong and you change it to "See the free market works." Just curious, would you have said the free market was working well if the article had gone uncorrected?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I would have said (and basically implied) that government intervention was distorting the incentives these companies have to provide a product that actually monitors the security of the purchaser's PC.

My comment on the correction was flippantly ironic.

However, if you read the article, you'll note that at least some of the companies surveyed clammed up when asked if they've "received such a court order signed by a judge requiring you to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in terms of not
detecting government-installed spyware or delivering government spyware to your users?"

So regardless of their overt policy, you don't have much in the way of assurances when using proprietary software.

Open source FTW.