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Didn't you guys write an OS X rootkit back in the day? Although I can see the line between that and this, I find it worringly thin. Throw in a leaked IRC log j

Didn't you guys write an OS X rootkit back in the day? Although I can see the line between that and this, I find it worringly thin. Throw in a leaked IRC log joking about using it for criminal purposes and an overzealous prosecutor, and you'd probably be done. Not to mention, it's idiotic to spend resources on prosecuting this guy. His life is effectively over, as he can now only ever use his skills for illegitimate work. Nobody will hire him. Since he was no longer an active accessory to crime and had already spent several years focused on legitimate work, society was far better off allowing him to continue on that path. He probably even more than made up for it by enabling hospitals to treat patients with the wannacry thing. Instead, we have thrown all that away so some prosecutor can put a notch on his belt and brag about taking down something insignificant because he couldn't get anybody that really mattered. Who, by the way, has a long line of other sellers and is still looting bank accounts.

tptacek 9y ago
This logic makes sense if you suck the concept of "intent" out of criminal law. Otherwise, not so much. But also, please don't corner me into defending the prosecution here. I get that it's easy to do that; just make absurd statements about how law enforcement works, as other people in this thread have done, and I'll probably take the bait. But really, I have no idea who any of these people are. I don't work in the part of this field that gives a shit about "the Kronos banking malware", I didn't follow "MalwareTechBlog" on Twitter, I'm faintly allergic to the concept of any twitter account with "Malware" in the name, and more than anything else I think that anyone who would write PHP code to help plant HTML trojans across a botnet needs to set the bar a little higher for themselves. I do not have a strong opinion about whether this person should be prosecuted.

tptacek 9y ago

This logic makes sense if you suck the concept of "intent" out of criminal law. Otherwise, not so much. But also, please don't corner me into defending the prosecution here. I get that it's easy to do that; just make absurd statements about how law enforcement works, as other people in this thread have done, and I'll probably take the bait. But really, I have no idea who any of these people are. I don't work in the part of this field that gives a shit about "the Kronos banking malware", I didn't follow "MalwareTechBlog" on Twitter, I'm faintly allergic to the concept of any twitter account with "Malware" in the name, and more than anything else I think that anyone who would write PHP code to help plant HTML trojans across a botnet needs to set the bar a little higher for themselves. I do not have a strong opinion about whether this person should be prosecuted.