by Declan McCullagh

“A recent court case provides a rare glimpse into how some federal agents deal with encryption: by breaking into a suspect’s home or office, implanting keystroke-logging software, and spying on what happens from afar.

An agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration persuaded a federal judge to authorize him to sneak into an Escondido, Calif., office believed to be a front for manufacturing the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy. The DEA received permission to copy the hard drives’ contents and inject a keystroke logger into the computers.”

“That was necessary, according to DEA Agent Greg Coffey, because the suspects were using PGP and the encrypted Web e-mail service Hushmail.com. Coffey asserted that the DEA needed “real-time and meaningful access” to “monitor the keystrokes” for PGP and Hushmail passphrases.”

Note: This is the second known/reported case where the police used keyloggers. Check the following ref. to read the full article.

Ref.

Declan McCullagh. Feds use keylogger to thwart PGP, Hushmail (2007) [cited 2010 Jan 19]; Available from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9741357-7.html