Lover Spy, Spying on Lovers

SAN
FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) — A company calling itself Lover Spy
has begun offering a way for jealous lovers — and anyone
else — to spy
on the computer activity of their mates by sending an electronic greeting,
the equivalent of a thinking-of-you card, that doubles as a bugging device.

"Lover
Spy is being used today by private investigators worldwide, spouses
and parents who want to protect their children."

"You don’t need physical access to the computer," said Richard
Smith, an independent privacy and security researcher in Boston. "It
makes it so you can spy on anybody you want."

"That would be a felony," said Mark Rasch, former head of the
U.S. Department of Justice’s computer crime unit and chief security counsel
for security company Solutionary. "Loading a program onto someone
else’s computer without their authorization is patently illegal."

from CNN