Bugging devices Re: Other ethical questions (was: Re: [SAGE] Ethicalquestion - to disclose or not to disclose)

[John Costello <cos@indeterminate.net>]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2006, Brad Knowles wrote:
> At 2:30 PM -0500 12/9/06, Stephen Potter wrote:
> >  Consider this similar situation.  You come home and find a large package
> >  on your doorstep with no easily seen markings as to who it is from or for
> > [snippity, because Stephen's note led into ...]

> Okay, so lets take a real-world situation that has recently happened to us.
> 
> A package arrives on our doorstep from FedEx.  It has our street 
> address on it, but the recipient name is someone else.  The sender's 
> [snipped speculation that the device could be bugged, which triggered]
> [a lengthy flame war that I avoided]

I have to admit that I was skeptical about the 
bugged-device-arriving-via-FedEx scenario, but I stayed out of the 
topic.  

The recent news that a group of U.S. contractors had bugged coins has made 
me a touch less skeptical. 

<http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/defense-contractors-warned-about-spy/20070111092409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001>

Damned strange, all this.

My favorite bit from the article is "the case of a female foreign spy who
seduced her American boyfriend to steal his computer passwords."

That makes for a fun pick-up line at bars.

Cheers,

John