“Police and Justice Forces need to have more possibilities to track and trace persons who are frequently searching the internet for child-porn, or use the internet to spread this. Investigators should have options to tap into a suspect’s computer more easily. To get this result, the punishment for these crimes should be raised from 6 to 8 years."

This proposal is made by the Dutch minister of Justice, Donner. He uses information from research done by the Dutch Forensic Institute which shows that the personal data of those people that continuously download and spread child-porn is easily retrievable. Donner thinks that the investigating teams can operate and act much faster if they are allowed to put technical aids in suspects' computers as they will then be able to get a clear overview of all communication to and from this computer.

Needless to say that this sounds a lot like Spyware combined with or without Rootkit technology. And as such the proposed solution suffers from a severe glitch. Almost all security products will detect the installation or behavior of spyware (like Norman’s Sandbox technology would) or detect the rogue outgoing connection (as Norman Personal Firewall would). An outgoing connection is necessary as the spyware needs to send the evidence somewhere.

In no time, such dedicated spyware would normally be added to the detection-schemes of all major security vendors, and thus alarming the end-user (the suspect) about his actions.

A better approach would perhaps be to log all connections at the ISPs and install an old-fashioned hidden camera monitoring the keyboard to record passwords in case of encrypted communications.

Of course, all these approaches raise a more delicate question: Where does it end?
Before you know it, the government has become the Big Brother that is watching you, storing all information obtained by spyware and other monitoring devices, as online bank-records, connections, emails, browsing habits, potential tax evasion, etc.