Greetings,
One way around this is to offer tools free or at low cost to LE and at very high price points to the private sector. End result is that LE is still the primary user.
There's also the issue that many of these "LE only" tools end up in private sector hands due to connections. Hardly a level corporate playing field, but that's not surprising.
-David
There's also the issue that many of these "LE only" tools end up in private sector hands due to connections. Hardly a level corporate playing field, but that's not surprising.
I had that very thing happen in a case that I was working on. The other side, a fairly well known digital forensics firm had access to tools from CMU (Aperio) which was restricted to LE. Part of the problem occurs when LE officers leave for the private sector and take the tools with them.
I suppose that I could have challenged the admission of the evidence on the grounds that it was obtained via software that was unlicensed but as it helped my client, that would have been shooting myself in the foot.