Resistance is digital. Human rights charity Amnesty International is one of several organizations behind the release of a free, open source anti-surveillance tool called Detekt.
Other partners include Privacy International and digital privacy rights organizations the EFF and Germany’s Digitale Gesellschaft. The tool itself was developed by Berlin-based security researcher Claudio Guarnieri.
Detekt has been designed for Windows PC users to scan their machines for “known surveillance spyware” that its makers warn is used to “target and monitor human rights defenders and journalists around the world”.
Given that security is always an arms race, you can be sure the surveillance tools that are detectable with Detekt will evolve to not be — and/or be replaced by alternative spyware that’s not on this tool’s radar.
As indeed Detekt’s own makers caution on the website (resistsurveillance.org) set up to promote the tool.
“Please beware that Detekt is a best effort tool,” they write. “While it may have been effective in previous investigations, it does not provide a conclusive guarantee that your computer is not compromised by the spyware it aims to detect. The tool is provided as is, without warranties or guarantees of any kind.”
So Detekt is not a panacea for surveillance. But that’s exactly the point being made here: technology alone can’t cure surveillance — rather it needs political pressure applied on governments to change their data capture practices.\
