EU wants to trojan PCs for remote search?

A rather worrying, but also amusing story appeared on the Register the other day saying that the EU is looking at the possibility of using torjan remote searches on people's computers in order to tackle cyber-crime.

As El Reg notes, there are practical problems with trying to do this however much politicians might want to.

For starters, infecting the PC of a target of an investigation is hit and miss. Malware is not a precision weapon, and that raises the possibility that samples of the malware might fall into the hands of cybercrooks.

Even if a target does get infected there's a good chance any security software they've installed will detect the malware. Any security vendor who agreed to turn a blind eye to state-sanctioned Trojans would risk compromising their reputation, as amply illustrated by the Magic Lantern controversy in the US a few years back.

Absolutely.