http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/01/security_firms_compete_to_sell_snoopware_to_repressive_governments/
There are some interesting aspects to this article about the propagation of technology and strategy from the public sector to the private sector and how the profit motive changes things. Its amusing that the subtext of this article is that "it was alright when it was our government spooks doing all this stuff. But its not funny now its for sale to people we don't like...." The other fun subtext is the fairly overt China bashing in a couple of places in the article. If you consider the issue that they have pinpointed these companies in all sorts of countries but take a bit more effort to highlight the Chinese ones... very balanced. Nice work. Is it just that China's a new player on the stage? Is there some sort of acceptance of the dark and secret as long as its British? Anyway... quality journalism...
The more interesting point is firstly just how low the bar has been set for this kind of attack and how its propgating now that the free market is involved. How many movies and books have predicted this? Time to dust off your Mirrorshades people.
I seem to remember predicting that market economics would push the botnet business into the legit-ish sphere while the same thing is happening to these tools and techniques... step 1. Commodify it... step 2. Market it... Step 3. Profit. (Underpants gnome reference...)
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