I'm trying to finish up the ports of kismet and spectool_gtk and package them into a .deb file, but they must run as root.

Kismet is less of a problem since it must run in an Xterm, but spectool_gtk doesn't need to, but in order to access the USB hardware to talk directly with the WiSpy interface, it must run as root, or some other mechanism to allow access.

I couldn't find any way to do this by searching google or the maemo site.

Or is this a function of the .desktop or other config file the launcher uses?

not sure what has to be done, but the GUI app would need an entry in the /etc/sudoers file.

'cat something | visudo' or some some such hoodoo voodoo