SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Move over, Napster! Move over, Wrapster! These programs are about to become yesterday's news. History repeated itself last night at midnight as TappedPlanet (tappedplanet.com), the leading Internet surveillance entity, released Tapster, its automatic sniffing and surreptitious copying killer app. According to experts who have examined the system, all computers accessing certain sites will have their files--e-mail, passwords, song lists, bomb recipes, abortion clinic appointments, whatever--automatically copied to host computers running the Tapster software. Using Napster-like capabilities, this Fort Meade, MD startup company and its band of young pranksters is unveiling a system which competitors in Russia, Iraq, China, and Uganda are scrambling to keep up with. Rumors are flying tonight in cyberspace that this Tapster capability was initially developed as part of the snoopware for a certain large operating system company in Redmond, Washington, as part of its "online registration" system. Source close to TappedPlanet confirm that this source code was transferred to TP as part of an antitrust agreement to be announced next week. "Basically, any computer hooked up to the Net can have all of its files copied to Tapster's central computers. In return, we provide an MP3 song for the user's troubles," said Tapster CEO Dagny Reno-Freeh, daughter of FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno. Civil liberties groups were not quite so enthusiastic about the unveiling of Tapster. "This just expands the government's powers another notch," said Digital Liberties and Liberal Causes chairman Dark Blotenberg."However," he added, "the DLLC is prepared to work with TappedPlanet to fashion a reasonable compromise if it will help advance the agenda of Democrats."
