San Diego District Attorney Issues Warning About Dangerous Spyware She Purchased & Distributed; But Still Stands By It

from the not-the-right-response dept

In a statement, Dumanis spokesman Steve Walker said the program was still a useful tool for parents.



“Our online security experts at the Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team continue to believe the benefits of this software in protecting children from predators and bullies online and providing parents with an effective oversight tool outweigh the limited security concerns about the product, which can be fixed,” Walker said.



Walker said that the District Attorney’s Office still has a few copies of the program left and will give them to families who request it.

Dumanis spent $25,000 from asset forfeiture funds — money and property seized during drug and other prosecutions — on 5,000 copies of the program for public dissemination.

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Yesterday, we wrote about the EFF's investigation into Computer Cop , the dangerous spyware/keylogger that is sold to police departments and other law enforcement folks as a "perfect election and fundraising tool" because the software gets branded with local law enforcement/politicians and they get to hand it out as a tool to "protect your children" by spying on how they use their computers. The software appears to be a very crappy search system and keylogger. Any keylogger is already a dangerous tool, but this one is especially dangerous in that it transmits the log of keystrokesto a server, meaning that all sorts of information, including passwords, credit cards, etc. are transmitted across the internet in the clear. The Computer Cop website looks like it was designed a decade ago and then left to rot (as does its software):The site is so bad that the company'sinspells the city wrong. The company is based in Bohemia, NY, yet the site's own website spells it Bhomeia. Yes, that's more than one letter out of place:All of this should give you a sense of what's going on here. Rather than actually "protecting children," this is a cynical money-grab by a guy who is convincing politicians to use government money to make childrenwhile pretending to "protect the children."Given the powerful expose by the EFF, you'd think that some of the folks who bought into the bogus software and distributed this dangerous spyware to unsuspecting parents might be regretting their decision. Instead, they're... still playing politics. The San Diego District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, didn't apologize. She did release an alert warning about, but then still says the software is generally good and willThere don't appear to be any actual redeeming qualities to the software. It doesn't protect anyone, but rather makes them less safe while giving parents a false sense of security. San Diego (and elsewhere) deserve much better, but apparently they're not going to get it.The "warning" that was sent out just suggests disabling the keylogger part -- and doesn't appear to take any responsibility for purchasing and promoting the software in the past. As for how much money was spent? Apparently San Diego spent $25,000 on the software:Ah, so rather than being directly taxpayer money, it's just money stolen via questionable forfeiture procedures. It's hard to see how that's any better.

Filed Under: bonnie dumanis, computercop, for the children, keylogger, protect the children, san diego, spyware

Companies: computercop, eff