abusable products with legit uses

["Dave Aronson (SecBasics)" <sfbasics2dave () davearonson com>]

cc [mailto:cc () belfordhk com] writes:

> I find it a little 'strange' that the
> government should be cracking down on this type of thing.  There
> are certainly a lot of products under the sun that fit the
> description of "<product x> can be used for both lawful and
> unlawful purposes".   Wouldn't this open a larger can of
> worms, so to speak?
>
> Or am I just misreading this whole thing?

Whether or not you are misreading the government's intentions specifically about keyloggers, the larger can (about 
abusable products) has been open for a long time.  Whe a large proportion of something's use, *as perceived by the 
general public*, is criminal, overly dangerous, or at least somehow distasteful, and the average person does not use or 
enjoy it themselves, there is a strong tendency for the general public to want it tightly regulated, or even banned.  
I'm sure we can all think of our own favorite example.  (Let's skip the long, useless, heated political threads that 
most of our own favorite examples would probably spawn.)

Now back to keyloggers.  The *marketing*, at least as far as I've seen (mainly via spam, adding to the distaste 
factor), is usually aimed at those who suspect their spouses of cheating, and will therefore (the makers hope) spy on 
them without permission.  The *reporting* is almost always about spying on someone without permission (usually having 
installed it via a trojan horse), and worse yet then using the information thus gained for fraudulent purposes.  Thus 
the *public perception* is probably that they're nothing but a tool for fraudsters and those willing to intrude on 
people's privacy based on suspicions.  (Let's skip the debate over whether there should be any such privacy in a 
marriage.)  The *reality* is probably far tamer, but I have no hard data.  Anybody?  At least there definitely are 
*some* legit uses for them, such as law enforcement, employee monitoring (again, let's skip the debate over how much 
privacy there *should* be), etc.

-Dave