Amnesty Helps Launch

Free Anti-spyware Tool for

Activists
A security researcher has created a free, downloadable tool that journalists and activists can use to scan their
computers and mobile devices for surveillance malware.

Photography credits Darren Perry 2013.

Title: Catch Me If You Can // Made with: Spray cans, Stencils // Parkland Walk, London, 2013

20/11/2014

Detekt was created by Claudio Guarnieri, an

analyst who works at nonprofits The Honeynet Project and of The Shadowserver
Foundation building open source tools to help make the internet a safer place.
Knowing that human rights campaigners and journalists all over the globe are
increasingly at risk of having their activities spied upon and hampered by intrusive
governments, Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Electronic Frontier

Foundation and Privacy International have joined with Guarnieri to get this piece of
software out to their networks. And it couldnt come soon enough.
In the last few years its something were encountering more and more individuals
we work with, human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, are finding these forms of
harassment and repression from governments, Tanya OCarroll, from Amnesty
Internationals Technology and Human Rights team, tells WIRED.co.uk. They are no
longer only threatened with physical tools, but digital ones.
Marek Marczynski, Head of Military, Security and Police at Amnesty International,
adds: Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology
that allows them to read activists and journalists private emails and remotely turn on
their computers camera or microphone to secretly record their activities. They use the
technology in a cowardly attempt to prevent abuses from being exposed.
Detekt is a simple tool that will alert activists to such intrusions so they
can take action. It represents a strike back against governments who
are using information obtained through surveillance to arbitrarily detain,
illegally arrest and even torture human rights defenders and
journalists.
WIRED.co.uk has written extensively about the spyware battlefield the likes of
Amnesty, and those it fights for, are facing. It was in 2011 that Privacy International
demanded the Prime Minister David Cameron answer questions relating to the export
of British surveillance technologies to repressive regimes, including those in Egypt and
Syria during uprisings in both nations. Part of that testimony related specifically to
FinFisher, surveillance software found to be used by Hosni Mubaraks secret police in
Egypt. It can be used to listen in on Skype conversations, extract files from hard
drives, switch on the microphone to record, or the camera to take photos/videos.
Earlier this year Privacy Internationals argument was compounded by a claim it took
to the National Crime Agency, which delivered evidence of an Ethiopian political
refugee living in the UK being illegally targeted from overseas using the British-made
spy software.
Amnesty International and colleagues, recognising that researchers are leading the
way in combatting this problem, reached out to Guarnieri to help bring the tools that
fight oppression and censorship to its vast global network of human rights activists.
The original cartoon:

New tool for spy victims to detect government

surveillance

Detekt is the first tool to be made available to the public that detects major known
surveillance spyware, some of which is used

20 November 2014
A new tool to enable journalists and human rights defenders to scan their computers
for known surveillance spyware has been released today by Amnesty International and

a coalition of human rights and technology organizations.

Detekt is the first tool to be made available to the public that detects major known
surveillance spyware, some of which is used by governments, in computers.
Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology that
allows them to read activists and journalists private emails and remotely turn on their
computers camera or microphone to secretly record their activities. They use the
technology in a cowardly attempt to prevent abuses from being exposed, said Marek
Marczynski, Head of Military, Security and Police at Amnesty International.
Detekt is a simple tool that will alert activists to such intrusions so they can take
action. It represents a strike back against governments who are using information
obtained through surveillance to arbitrarily detain, illegally arrest and even torture
human rights defenders and journalists.
Developed by security researcher Claudio Guarnieri, Detekt is being launched in
partnership with Amnesty International,Digitale Gesellschaft, Electronic Frontier
Foundation andPrivacy International.
The adoption and trade in communication surveillance technologies has grown
exponentially in recent years.
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports, of which Amnesty
International is a member, estimates the annual global trade in surveillance
technologies to be worth US$5 billion, and growing.
Some surveillance technology is widely available on the internet; while other more
sophisticated alternatives are developed by private companies based in developed
countries and sold to state law enforcement and intelligence agencies in countries that
persistently commit human rights violations.
FinFisher, a German firm that used to be part of UK-based Gamma International,
developed the spyware FinSpy which can be used to monitor Skype conversations,
extract files from hard drives, record microphone use and emails, and even take
screenshots and photos using a devices camera.
According to research carried out by Citizen Lab and information published by
Wikileaks, Finfisher was used to spy on prominent human rights lawyers and activists
in Bahrain.
Amnesty International is urging governments to establish strict trade controls requiring
national authorities to assess the risk that the surveillance equipment would be used
to violate human rights before authorizing the transfer.
Detekt is a great tool which can help activists stay safe but ultimately, the only way to
prevent these technologies from being used to violate or abuse human rights is to
establish and enforce strict controls on their use and trade," said Marek Marczynski.
Amnesty International will use its networks to help activists across the world learn
about Detekt and scan their devices for signs of spyware. It will also engage in testing
with its local partners and networks who are considered at high-risk of being targeted
by such spyware.
Posted by Thavam