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Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Documents recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveal detailed information about the FBI’s electronic surveillance capabilities. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the FOIA request in 2007 after it was reported that the agency was using “secret spyware.”
The documents show that software called the Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier (CIPAV) was used by the FBI since at least 2001. The software allows the FBI to collect a variety of information from a computer every time it connects to the Internet, including the IP address, Media Access Control (MAC) address, open communication ports, list of the programs running, URLs visited, and more.
It is unclear how the FBI installs the software on a computer, but it is suspected that the spyware exploits a vulnerability in the user’s browser, like other common Internet viruses.
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