Erstellt am: 21. 11. 2014 - 11:03 Uhr
Today's Webtip: Detekt
The last couple of years have been pretty weird. Many of the worst fears of digital rights and privacy activists have been proven true, and things that used to sit pretty comfortably in the conspiracy theory corner are now in the "well, that's just the way things are" spotlight.
Edward Snowdens revelations might not have been news for people who were accused of wearing tinfoil hats, but they did provide a lot of concrete information that hadn't been available before. They also brought online surveillance into mainstream media and provided an impulse for more people to jump on the privacy bandwagon.
Although it feels like fighting a losing battle, there are at least a few defensive weapons coming into existence. The most recent is called Detekt.
Detekt
Detekt is a tool for Windows computers that tracks down known government surveillance software and alerts users to their presence on their system. The goal was to provide human rights activists and journalists with a way to find out if their systems had been compromised and to be able to take the necessary precautions.
The software was developed in a cooperation between Amnesty International, Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The software is unfortunately not the solution to the problem of global government surveillance, and is limited by current knowledge of software that is being used. But it is something, and that is a whole lot better than nothing.