more on cell phone bugging

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jonathan Zittrain <[email protected]>
Date: December 5, 2006 5:24:50 PM EST
To: [email protected]
Subject: more on cell phone bugging

Dave and IP,

If it becomes common practice to individually reprogram cell phones  
on the fly to record phone calls or ambient discussion and pass the  
contents back to the government after a warrant requirement or some  
other administrative procedure has been met, it's a close next step  
to use that procedure to demand that Microsoft, Apple, Symantec,  
McAfee, or any other software supplier that has auto-update  
capabilities and local administrator privileges surreptitiously  
download and install an update on a PC of someone suspected of  
something.  That update would then allow the gov't to explore the  
PC's contents from afar.  I wrote something up on this prospect at  
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=916046>.  ...JZ