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FBI's 'Unprecedented' Hacking Campaign Targeted Over a Thousand Computers
- api 11y agoI don't have a huge problem with this. The site was clearly only for child porn, so signing up is equivalent to, say, willingly trying to hire a hit man or plotting a robbery. I actually think this is a good example of digital police work, as opposed to utterly indiscriminate dragnets and trying to ban or backdoor crypto. This targeted a specific criminal activity and people clearly linking themselves to it. It was not indiscriminate. It also shows that police work is absolutely possible in a world with crypto, proving the anti-crypto doomsday rhetoric wrong.
- Nutmog 11y agoIn another story a while ago, somebody ran a fake child porn site to see who would sign up. I think they found that some of their applicants were law enforcement and researchers. So no, signing up isn't already committing a crime.
- api 11y agoLaw enforcement officers and researchers could file for their case to be dismissed by providing evidence of their reason for accessing the material. This is an argument for privacy around criminal charges since even being charged with CP can ruin someone's reputation. Many civilized countries have this. But this is a separate issue.
- dexwiz 11y agoI don't really understand the outrage. This is like bank thieves protesting the use of a dye pack. Or addicts complaing that cops sit outside their dealers house. People's didn't stumble on to this site, they searched it out. It sounds like the FBI infected computers that visited the site. They didnt release malware to the world to randomly scan for illegal content. Child pornagraphy is a particularly heinous crime is today's society. So don't ever expect the courts to be lienent.
- davorb 11y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong (I'm not from the US), but I cannot for the life of me see how it could be legal for the FBI to break into people's computers. When you have a police force that sees itself as above the law, then you have a very big problem.
- jonnybgood 11y ago> I cannot for the life of me see how it could be legal for the FBI to break into people's computers. They got a warrant. It's exactly what they're suppose to do.
- davorb 11y ago> They got a warrant. I understand that they got a warrant for the server, but can it really be so broad so that it gives them the legal right to hack into any computer that visits the site?
- adventured 11y agoA warrant approach without a very narrow, extremely well defined scope, completely destroys the original point of warrants. From the article: > But Fieman said that the warrant “effectively authorizes an unlimited number of searches, against unidentified targets, anywhere in the world.” That blatantly isn't a warrant. It's a new form of unlimited government surveillance and hacking. Half the comments on here are falling for the all-too-obvious: but it's for a good cause, spin. Hey, just leave your doors unlocked, and invite in the police to search every inch of your home and electronics any time they like, we'll catch far more criminals that way.
- jonnybgood 11y ago> That blatantly isn't a warrant. You're telling me your opinion. I would like to know how you don't think it's a warrant by the definition of the law.
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- throwawayhdhe 11y agoIt would be great if moderator's actually came out and policed government clap trap accounts. But my experience is mods allow government sock puppet and ban any those who criticize government.
- moistgorilla 11y agoI'm trying to understand how this was overreaching. They legally had access to the server that this website was hosted on, then they simply logged the real ip addresses that visited the website once they had access to the server. By accessing the content on the server the FBI possess aren't they voluntarily giving up their IP. Even if it's inadvertent? I don't see how they are unjustly violating someone's privacy in this situation.
- hollerith 11y ago>they simply logged the real ip addresses that visited the website once they had access to the server. Not so: one of the primary purposes of TOR is to hide the user's IP address.
- bcook 11y agoIIRC, with the Freedom Hosting bust the FBI compromised the Hidden Services server, then used a browser javascript exploit to leak the real IPs of those who connected. So, your quoted text is very plausible. Tor is intended to be anonymous, but not absolutely.
- hollerith 11y agoWe're talking past each other. The way I interpreted the text I quoted, if the FBI needed to make use of a javascript exploit, then they're doing more than "simply logging". Context is important when interpreting text. The context of the quoted text included the question of whether the judge knew, when he or she issued the warrant, that the FBI would try to break into all the computers being used to sign into the site.
- belorn 11y agoThe article describes how they had acquired a security vulnerability for Firefox, which they then exploited to create malware that infected computers that accessed the site.
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- throwaway8348 11y agoHow can they run a child porn server? How is that legal?
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- throwaway8348 11y agoBut it must be illegal in those countries as well, right? Don't they have an obligation to tell the local law enforcement? An what about the victims of this abuse? How is that right, even if there's a legal loophole?
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- umanwizard 11y agoThe article directly contradicts you. "Instead, the FBI ran Playpen from its own servers in Newington, Virginia"
- tristanj 11y agoOops, I'm commenting on the wrong story. I assumed this was an update to the Freedom Hosting sting of 2013, when this was an entirely new sting. They have so many similarities that I mixed the two. Thanks for pointing this out.
- omginternets 11y agoThe same way they can sell you an illegal gun and arrest you. This is nothing new and nothing shady from a judicial perspective (barring entrapment, of course).
- danbmil99 11y agoOK, we shed no tears for patrons of child abuse. The issue is that once we allow a state agency to trample the 4th amendment for an admittedly noble cause, we open the door to these techniques being used to dragnet for violators of any laws, just or not. Why wouldn't the judges who signed these warrants sign similar warrants to catch suspected terrorists? What about people who visit sites that allegedlly support terrorism? What about sites that support illegal activity such as Marijuana cultivation and use? Online piracy? Trading in technology that subverts copyright protection? Welcome to the slippery slope...
- stephengillie 11y agoSpeaking of slippery slopes, this "hack" probably falls under the broader meaning of the term. They probably put some kind of Flash banner on the page, and caught all the people with improperly-configured systems.
- mjevans 11y agoIE, systems that run arbitrary code by default...
- jacquesm 11y ago> IE Indeed :)
- belorn 11y agoIt was a javascript vulnerability, CVE-2013-1690. After free of a DocumentViewerImpl object, triggered via an specially crafted web page using onreadystatechange events and the window.stop() API, you could execute arbitrary code. http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/fbi-tor-exploit/ http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/fbi-tor-exploit/
- Buge 11y agoThat was the 2013 instance. The FBI did it again in 2015 and that's what this article is about. The article specifically says it's probably different than the 2013 instance.
- Nutmog 11y agoWhy do people have so much resentment for child porn users? The only harm they're doing is participating in a market in which other participants abuse people. It's equivalent to hating drug users for indirectly funding murderous Mexican drug gangs. Sure it's a bit bad, but HN commenters seem to be much happier with drug users than child porn users. There's also the fact that child-abuse porn is lumped in the same basket as harmless pictures of naked children. The latter in itself it harmless - many parents take photos of their children in the bath, etc. But somehow it transforms from good to worse-than-bad if someone gets sexual pleasure from it.
- rurounijones 11y agoChildren were, presumably, not harmed during the making of $DRUG.
- jacquesm 11y agoThe drug wars kill 1000's of people, including children used to transport the drugs as expendable mules. Nice and small to go through tunnels, you see. But that's a consequence of the illegality of the drugs, not a consequence of the additions or the drug itself. It could be done without.
- jacquesm 11y agoAs a parent I can very much see why 'child porn users' should be on the receiving end of some discipline. The market they create is what eventually causes the problem, there is no way that their urges will not lead to trouble unless they keep themselves in check (and I'm sure plenty do). As far as the 'hating drug users' bit goes, I don't particularly like drug users, but to me they're less of a problem than the people that make the drug laws in the first place. Drug addicts are patients just as child porn consumers are patients but in the case of the drug addicts there exists a possible world where their addiction does not have to lead to murderous Mexican drug gangs. I don't see a way in which a child porn consumer gets to have his/her kicks without having to abuse a child and that's why for me the two are different. > The latter in itself it harmless - many parents take photos of their children in the bath, etc. But somehow it transforms from good to worse-than-bad if someone gets sexual pleasure from it. This is the law being abused and it is a pity that this is the case. But when normal people use the world child porn they are most likely not talking about parents taking pictures of their children in the bath. If that is your view of what child porn constitutes then I'm really happy for you. Run a site where you can upload videos for a while and do the reviewing, then we'll have this talk again.
- vilda 11y agoIf FBI was running the service from their premises, wasn't FBI the distributor of child pornography?
- omginternets 11y agoNo, in the same way that the FBI can set up sting operations where they sell drugs/guns/contraband to willing participants. There are things the government can legally do which the private citizen cannot.
- throwaway8348 11y agoOnly this time people are suffering and I haven't heard of any law enforcement selling people to hunt human traffickers. There must be moral limits or not? This is terrible!
- omginternets 11y ago>selling people You say that like it's even remotely comparable or germaine. A big fat red herring is what this is. Returning to the point, you may not like it, but the law says it's legal to set up sting operations by serving child pornography. The ethics are certainly debatable, but you have your answer as to why it's being done: CP is a commodity, not a physical person, and that's fair game for law-enforcement in the same way as guns, drugs and blood-diamonds are fair game.
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- junto 11y agoMost countries with mature legal frameworks frown upon entrapment and do not allow it's use in law enforcement, but then again most countries don't have a political system based on the individual with the most donations and corporate backing becoming president either.