Fergie's Tech Blog

Feds Use Key Logger to Thwart PGP, Hushmail

Declan McCullagh writes on the C|Net News Blog:

A recent court case provides a rare glimpse into how some federal agents deal with encryption: by breaking into a suspect's home or office, implanting keystroke-logging software, and spying on what happens from afar.

An agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration persuaded a federal judge to authorize him to sneak into an Escondido, Calif., office believed to be a front for manufacturing the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy. The DEA received permission to copy the hard drives' contents and inject a keystroke logger into the computers.

That was necessary, according to DEA Agent Greg Coffey, because the suspects were using PGP and the encrypted Web e-mail service Hushmail.com. Coffey asserted that the DEA needed "real-time and meaningful access" to "monitor the keystrokes" for PGP and Hushmail passphrases.

The aggressive surveillance techniques employed by the DEA were part of a case that resulted in a ruling on Friday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which primarily dealt with Internet surveillance through a wiretap conducted on a PacBell (now AT&T) business DSL line used by the defendants.

posted by Fergie @ 7/10/2007 10:01:00 AM