Are British police looking to follow the FBI lead in secretly spying on folks ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7812353.stmThe Home Office has signed up to an EU strategy against cybercrime that "encourages" police across Europe to remotely access personal computers. The plan has sparked fears that the government is looking to increase police powers to hack into people's computers without a court warrant. UK police already do a "small number" of such operations under existing law.
However, the Home Office said the EU agreement would not affect police behaviour and was not legally binding.
Professor Peter Sommer, a cybercrime expert at the London School of Economics, doubts that the strategy will increase the amount of police hacking. Most anti-virus programs and firewalls will detect surveillance attempts because they are designed to stop the remote access software or Trojan-type viruses that hackers - even police hackers - usually use, he explained.
Prof Sommer also pointed out that evidence gathered from hacking is difficult to defend in court, because prosecutors must prove that it has not been tampered with.
As usual the question often asked at this stage is who polices the police ?
