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Government Privacy

FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant (vice.com) 90

Posted by msmash from the too-much-power dept.
Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard: In January, Motherboard reported on the FBI's "unprecedented" hacking operation, in which the agency, using a single warrant, deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger. In all, the FBI obtained over 8,000 IP addresses, and hacked computers in 120 different countries, according to a transcript from a recent evidentiary hearing in a related case. The figures illustrate the largest ever known law enforcement hacking campaign to date, and starkly demonstrate what the future of policing crime on the dark web may look like. This news comes as the US is preparing to usher in changes that would allow magistrate judges to authorize the mass hacking of computers, wherever in the world they may be located.
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FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant More

FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant

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  • They had a warrant!

    At this point, that's already more than could be expected.

    • They had a warrant!

      I can say with confidence that it was not "particularly describing the place to be searched".

  • The FBI, by law, is not permitted to hack computers in other countries.

    If that were true, we wouldn't be in a democracy, but a plutocratic oligopoly pretending to be a democracy, living outside the Rule of Law like a Banana Republic ...

    • If that were true, we wouldn't be in a democracy, but a plutocratic oligopoly pretending to be a democracy, living outside the Rule of Law like a Banana Republic ...

      And this is news, how?

  • OUTER SPACE!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:51PM (#53348655) Homepage

    According to the transcripts, the FBI also hacked OUTER SPACE! (check TFA, it is right there, this isn't a joke)

  • But because the warrant was about CP, nobody will want to stand against it because that would seem like he/she is supporting child abuse as opposed to supporting due-process and proper judicial oversight/responsibility.

  • Can journalistic websites do basic editing? (Score:5, Informative)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Wednesday November 23, 2016 @01:58PM (#53348713)

    deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger.

    several orders of magnitude... really?

    • base: 1,000
    • 1-order: 10,000
    • 2-order: 100,000
    • 3-order: 1,000,000

    Am I to believe that the FBI hacked over 1,000,000 computers? Oh wait, that's not at all what happened. Why is it that journalists and journalistic websites (people and organizations whose entire livelihood depends upon the written word) can't even perform the most basic of editing reviews? Were I an editor, such a clearly hyperbolic and improperly used statement would never have made it to publication.

    Note that my gripe is not with the /. editor, but with Motherboard.

  • We might as well get the practice in while we can.

  • after all, HRClinton said this during the 2016 campaign..."As President, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic, and military responses,"

    glad she didn't win.
    although if this is true i believe the US can't do this without asking all those countries if they can do that.

  • OK (Score:2)

    by no-body ( 127863 )

    Is the US now again at it or still at it - playing World Police?

    Do those laws valid in the US spread out into the whole world?

    Or, the other way around, there are countries where some simple things are penalized with death penalty, would those laws over the wire spread as well to here in the same way and then, when one travels there, applied?

    Seems people got nothing better to do than abusing whatever is available to them without any reflections on consequences...

  • They can claim they were just looking for child porn....
    Of which we know the FBI keeps a huge stash of....

  • Turn the whole internet off and see what we get. Not even a reboot will work. I'm not a Orwellian conspiracy theorist, but it is really down to it isn't it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The world was never really aware of what the GCHQ, NSA and FBI could do to alter or access computers globally.
      That was the great fear of the GCHQ going back years. The question of the US, FBI and NSA using their tracking ability and having years of perfect clandestine methods exposed in open US courts.
      Now that reality of observation and tracking vs interesting people not risking the "internet" is becoming more real.
      For years the NSA, GCHQ and FBI could have watched vast criminal networks online and ga
  • no one at the FBI will get even a slap on the wrist as police states take care of their own. The citizens, not so much.

  • So much for complaints about government inefficiency. They got a lot of mileage out of just one warrant.

    I hear the FBI also economizes in its use of the truth, too. Truth is valuable. They don't use it unless absolutely necessary.

    More efficiency. These guys are wizards!

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