geekosystem

Gamma International makes commercial spyware that governments and other entities use for various spy stuff. One of the reasons Gamma's software works is that it disguises itself as Mozilla's Firefox browser so that the people being spied upon don't delete it. That's clever, but Mozilla would like them to knock it off. Mozilla's even sent a cease and desist letter to Gamma.

If you spend eight years working undercover in order to infiltrate an environmental movement, things are bound to get hairy. It's a complicated process to live a lie, and returning to the real world after everything's said and done is even more difficult. Mark Kennedy, known during his undercover operation as Mark Stone, found this out for himself at the beginning of last year. Now the disgraced former police officer is taking things a step further. He's suing the Metropolitan Police for damages between £50,000 and £100,000 -- or $80,070 and $160,140 -- for failing to prevent him from falling in love. Seriously.

This February, parents of Lower Marion high school students brought suit against the school district for covertly spying on students using the webcameras of school issued MacBooks.  The LMSD said that the cameras, equipped with remote access software, were simply a security feature to be used in the case that the laptops were stolen or misplaced.  Parents say that they were never informed about this possible use of the cameras, and that some were activated without the computer being reported lost.  Michael and Holly Robbins found out about the cameras when pictures from their son's computer were used as evidence in disciplinary action against him. Now comes the information that the webcams took "thousands" of secret pictures of students in their homes.