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Though their intentions are probably noble, I get a niggling feeling when I hear this. To me the FBI's behavior is the equivalent of "Since there have been sev

Though their intentions are probably noble, I get a niggling feeling when I hear this. To me the FBI's behavior is the equivalent of "Since there have been several break-ins in our district and our local police dept. has determined that the internal door locks of business offices in our district are faulty, so we have broken into each business, and fixed the locks ourselves, we have attempted to trace you and notify you if you have publicly available contact info". Noble, yet still chilling.

dx034 6y ago
It's actually not uncommon for police patrols to notify people if they see unsecured property. And that can be hard to do if no one is home and they don't want to alert actual criminals. To enter the property they often need a court order (unless there's an immediate threat), but I've seen efforts by police to drop notes wherever they see unsecured doors or windows that could be targeted for a break-in. Especially if there have been break-ins targeting certain weaknesses (e.g. open windows), police will look for those and alert owners. The problem with a hack is that it can be done within hours on properties everywhere, so just dropping a note won't be fast enough for most. Where there is an equivalent in real-world (i.e. immediate threat of a break-in), police can and will act to secure that property. So I don't see the chilling effect, it's something that (at least in Europe) is common part of preventive policing.
- thombat 6y ago
  Not unlike glaziers boarding up a broken window to prevent intrusion or weather damage (although that also serves as a good opportunity to advertise the services to a newly-discovered prospective customer)
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  >To enter the property they often need a court order Exactly, in this case they got the equivalent of a court order to enter every house and check the locks. Which no judge would be likely to approve if it were actual physical houses. But servers... The weird thing is the warrant authorizing entry into pretty much any computer anywhere. Could they get a warrant to enter any computer anywhere to look for child porn? Or "terrorism" or whatever? Probably not, that's not the way warrants work, except now are they going to?
lima 6y ago
> so we have broken into each business, and fixed the locks ourselves ... which is not what happened. And - "open door" metaphors do not work well for cybersecurity due to an entirely different threat model. These vulnerable machines are globally available for anyone to break into with almost no effort.
deleted 6y ago
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dx034 6y ago

It's actually not uncommon for police patrols to notify people if they see unsecured property. And that can be hard to do if no one is home and they don't want to alert actual criminals. To enter the property they often need a court order (unless there's an immediate threat), but I've seen efforts by police to drop notes wherever they see unsecured doors or windows that could be targeted for a break-in. Especially if there have been break-ins targeting certain weaknesses (e.g. open windows), police will look for those and alert owners. The problem with a hack is that it can be done within hours on properties everywhere, so just dropping a note won't be fast enough for most. Where there is an equivalent in real-world (i.e. immediate threat of a break-in), police can and will act to secure that property. So I don't see the chilling effect, it's something that (at least in Europe) is common part of preventive policing.

thombat 6y ago
Not unlike glaziers boarding up a broken window to prevent intrusion or weather damage (although that also serves as a good opportunity to advertise the services to a newly-discovered prospective customer)
jrochkind1 6y ago
>To enter the property they often need a court order Exactly, in this case they got the equivalent of a court order to enter every house and check the locks. Which no judge would be likely to approve if it were actual physical houses. But servers... The weird thing is the warrant authorizing entry into pretty much any computer anywhere. Could they get a warrant to enter any computer anywhere to look for child porn? Or "terrorism" or whatever? Probably not, that's not the way warrants work, except now are they going to?

lima 6y ago

> so we have broken into each business, and fixed the locks ourselves ... which is not what happened. And - "open door" metaphors do not work well for cybersecurity due to an entirely different threat model. These vulnerable machines are globally available for anyone to break into with almost no effort.

deleted 6y ago

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