Spyware Removal?

Greetings

I heard a rumour a while back claiming that some of the major security
vendors had intimated that they would ignore Federal-inspired spyware if
their programmes should happen to come accross these. The notable exception
I believe was Sophos.

What I would like to ask the readers of this forum is firstly, whether there
is any substance to the above rumour;

and secondly, if so, whether there are any stand-alone removal tools that
would indeed detect and remove such spyware programmes.

Thanks

Nick B.
RSA

Nicholas Badenhorst wrote:

> and secondly, if so, whether there are any stand-alone removal tools that
> would indeed detect and remove such spyware programmes.

"This only way to clean a compromised system is to flatten and rebuild."

*geez*, is it that hard to understand?

"Nicholas Badenhorst" <nickbaden@absamail.co.za> wrote in
news:EIWdnUM8ddy6_HjZnZ2dnUVZ_uWdnZ2d@is.co.za:

> Greetings
>
> I heard a rumour a while back claiming that some of the major security
> vendors had intimated that they would ignore Federal-inspired spyware
> if their programmes should happen to come accross these. The notable
> exception I believe was Sophos.
>
> What I would like to ask the readers of this forum is firstly, whether
> there is any substance to the above rumour;
>
> and secondly, if so, whether there are any stand-alone removal tools
> that would indeed detect and remove such spyware programmes.
>
> Thanks
>
> Nick B.
> RSA


I am reasonably confident that, being Russian, Kaspersky (arguably the best
anti-virus) will not be so accommodating to USian TLAs. And there are
other non-USian vendors as well (and for specialty products such as anti-
Trojans, rootkits, spyware as well as for generic antivirus).

Regards,