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New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:57 am
by MachineGhost
Detekt is the first tool to be made available to the public that detects major known surveillance spyware, some of which is used by governments, in computers and mobile devices.

http://www.amnesty.nl/nieuwsportaal/per ... rveillance

Download: https://resistsurveillance.org/

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:26 am
by Pointedstick
Simonjester wrote: interesting...  anyone have firsthand experience trying it yet?
i read a few articles about it but haven't seen any computer techie reviews or opinions yet....
sadly my paranoid lizard brain sees some cool product like this being marketed to freedom fighters and activists, and my first thought is "honeypot"
My paranoid lizard brain did the same thing. "Here, install this unknown piece of software on your computer to see if any malicious pieces of software have been installed on your computer!"

Sounds a little like, "type your credit card number here to see if it's been stolen!" ::)

I'd be cautious until it gets a track record and reputation for working and not being an example of what it purports to protect you from (i.e. what government does).

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:28 am
by Benko
I need to thank this board for helping me become properly suspicious.  Those were my first thoughts as well.

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:47 am
by Mountaineer
Benko wrote: I need to thank this board for helping me become properly suspicious.  Those were my first thoughts as well.
Plus another ????

  mountaineer

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:17 pm
by MachineGhost
Sheesh, talk about paranoia.

I ran it.  No issues.

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:37 pm
by MachineGhost
Simonjester wrote:
MachineGhost wrote: Sheesh, talk about paranoia.

I ran it.  No issues.
how do you know?  you could be generating government reports about how you ran it and reported to this forum you had no issues as we speak  ;D

now my reptile brain is wondering which covert agency you work for....  ;D

i actually love the idea of checking for spyware... i will still probably wait till the computer geeks look at the software (is it open source?) and report back and provide a review on on it...
Jeeze, do you people not know how to recognize legitimate websites or use Internet security?  I have a IP blocker, a firewall and and an anti-virus all running live in real time (all top rated, not the commercial marketing fiction garbage).  Plus I can sandbox any suspicious application upon running and anything suspicious not on a whitelist is sandboxed as untrusted with no access automatically.  And I can do an offline scan for malware with two other products.  I just ran them now and no issues with Detekt.

But hey, I'm from the government and I'm here to help!

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:41 pm
by Mountaineer
Simonjester wrote:
MachineGhost wrote:

Jeeze, do you people not know how to recognize legitimate websites or use Internet security?  I have a IP blocker, a firewall and and an anti-virus all running live in real time (all top rated, not the commercial marketing fiction garbage).  Plus I can sandbox any suspicious application upon running and anything suspicious not on a whitelist is untrusted and sandboxed automatically.  And I can do an offline scan for malware with two other products.  I just ran it now and no issues with Detekt.

But hey, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
this is supposed to protect against high tech attacks using "zero day"
A flaw in a piece of software or hardware that was previously unknown to the maker of the product. Until the manufacturers hear of the flaw and fix it, attackers can use it for their own purposes.
"zero day"  are capable of getting around the standard protections provided by anti malware etc (not sure if it can get past a sand box) so if this was installing a zero day type spyware, the type it is supposed to be checking for, standard security precautions wouldn't catch it..
"But hey, I'm from the government and I'm here to help"
posting the name of the JFK hit man doesn't exactly help make the case that you  aren't a government disinformation officer  ;D
I'm thinking alien, and which planet's government?  Time travel possibility?  Definitely from a wormhole.  :o

... Mountaineer

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:55 pm
by Mountaineer
Simonjester wrote:
Mountaineer wrote:
I'm thinking alien, and which planet's government?  Time travel possibility?  Definitely from a wormhole.  :o

... Mountaineer
not to mention the moniker "machineghost", that alone has computer infiltration written all over it.. ;)
Oh my gosh!  Now I know why his avatar keeps popping up on my screensaver!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thanks for the tip.  ;)

... Mountaineer

Re: New Tool to Detect Government Surveillance

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:26 pm
by MachineGhost
Simonjester wrote: i did a little more reading and detekt is "open source".. so if there is anything wrong with it it will likely be reported not to long after its release, i still haven't found any geek reviews yet... but i expect within a few weeks it will be well checked out and feel safe enough to calm my paranoia and let me try it out.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you.