The German state of Bavaria has approved laws that allow the police to plant spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists. While German federal laws restrict the government to infecting computers with email, Bavarian laws allow police to enter a suspect’s home to physically infect the machine. According to The Register, Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann “gave short shrift to [privacy] objections, stating that Bavaria is leading the field in ‘internal security’ in becoming the first German state to approve the plan.”

This step taken by the Bavarian government counters a ruling earlier this year by Judge Hans-Juergen Papier in North Rhine-Westphalia. He opined that under regular circumstances spying on individuals was unconstitutional, and that permission of a judge would be required prior to implementing this type of surveillance during extreme situations.

In 2007, the internet was talking, though not over VOIP, about the Bavarian government looking to monitor and record Skype phone calls. Documents leaked through Wikileaks showed the thrifty Bavarian government haggling to get a better price on the products needed to invade their citizen’s computers.

Adware company Zango has recently struck out in its lawsuits against two anti-spyware software vendors. Zango had used the suits to challenge makers of security software that labeled its products as spyware.

Zango’s suit against PC Tools was dropped last week. Zango’s corporate blog refers to the decision as a result of PC Tools’ modification of its software to warn against Zango software rather than automatically remove it. PC Tools, however, says it modified its software before Zango’s suit was ever filed, and hails Zango’s decision to drop the suit as a vindication.

One day later, a federal judge ruled against Zango in a similar case, this time against Kaspersky Lab. The ruling found that the federal Communications Decency Act, Section 230(c )(2), creates a “safe harbor” for producers of tools used to filter “objectionable content.” The judge noted that in the context of the safe harbor provision, objectionable content is not limited to content that is actually objectionable, but includes material that users and software providers consider to be objectionable. The court granted summary judgment for Kaspersky, effectively ending the case.

In affirming the rights of security software vendors to classify applications based on the vendors’ own guidelines, the Kaspersky ruling sends a clear message that software producers cannot use lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits to challenge security vendors’ decisions.

Security experts who worked together to help win Julie Amero a new trial have now created a blog to educate the public and help other victims of badware in situations like Julie’s. Unfortunately, Julie Amero is not the only apparently innocent person who has been the victim of a lack of understanding about badware in the criminal justice system.

The new blog, The Julie Group, aims to keep watch on new cases, and to help make school districts, employers, and law enforcement more aware of the ways in which badware can undermine a user’s control of her computer.

A former substitute teacher who was convicted in January of exposing students to online pornography has now been granted a new trial.

In October of 2004, Julie Amero was substitute teaching in a Connecticut school when the classroom computer she was using began showing pornographic images. Amero contends that the images were caused by badware infecting the computer. Many security experts have agreed with Amero, citing out of date software on the computer Amero was using along with inadequate protections against badware.

Julie Amero’s case highlights the gap in public knowledge about badware and how to defend computers from infection. If the security experts assembled by Amero’s defense team are correct, the 2004 incident might have been prevented if the classroom computer’s software and anti-virus protections had been up to date.