Magic Lantern is keystroke logging software created by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
[2] Magic Lantern can reportedly be installed remotely, via an e-mail attachment or by exploiting common operating system vulnerabilities, unlike previous keystroke logger programs used by the FBI.
Sullivan's confidential source said that redacted portions of that document mention "Cyber Knight", a database that sorts and matches data gathered using various Carnivore-like methods from e-mail, chat rooms, instant messages, and Internet phone calls.
[6] The disclosure of the existence of Magic Lantern sparked a debate as to whether anti-virus companies could or should detect the FBI's keystroke logger.
[12] Another reaction from this came from Marc Maiffret, chief technology officer and cofounder of eEye Digital Security who states: "Our customers are paying us for a service, to protect them from all forms of malicious code.
"[14][15] Proponents of Magic Lantern argue the technology would allow law enforcement to efficiently and quickly decrypt messages protected by encryption schemes.