Police Are Buying Access To Hacked Website Data 41
Some companies are selling government agencies access to data stolen from websites in the hope that it can generate investigative leads, with the data including passwords, email addresses, IP addresses, and more. Motherboard reports: Motherboard obtained webinar slides by a company called SpyCloud presented to prospective customers. In that webinar, the company claimed to "empower investigators from law enforcement agencies and enterprises around the world to more quickly and efficiently bring malicious actors to justice." The slides were shared by a source who was concerned about law enforcement agencies buying access to hacked data. SpyCloud confirmed the slides were authentic to Motherboard. "We're turning the criminals' data against them, or at least we're empowering law enforcement to do that," Dave Endler, co-founder and chief product officer of SpyCloud, told Motherboard in a phone call.
The sale highlights a somewhat novel use of breached data, and signals how data ordinarily associated with the commercial sector can be repurposed by law enforcement too. But it also raises questions about whether law enforcement agencies should be leveraging information originally stolen by hackers. By buying products from SpyCloud, law enforcement would also be obtaining access to hacked data on people who are not associated with any crimes -- the vast majority of people affected by data breaches are not criminals -- and would not need to follow the usual mechanisms of sending a legal request to a company to obtain user data.
The sale highlights a somewhat novel use of breached data, and signals how data ordinarily associated with the commercial sector can be repurposed by law enforcement too. But it also raises questions about whether law enforcement agencies should be leveraging information originally stolen by hackers. By buying products from SpyCloud, law enforcement would also be obtaining access to hacked data on people who are not associated with any crimes -- the vast majority of people affected by data breaches are not criminals -- and would not need to follow the usual mechanisms of sending a legal request to a company to obtain user data.
Possession of stolen goods? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Possession of stolen goods? (Score:4, Funny)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Did you just suggest that those who enforce the law, should also fully abide by it?
TV cops have to break the law to get the bad guy. Yes, we even have to write this shit into fictional crime now. THAT is how normal corruption is.
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It's a cycle where media feeds back into the justice system (c.f. the supreme court citing Jack Bauer vis a vis torture being justified)
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Consider this, those private for profit corporations are now supplying information to junk yard law enforcers who do not believe in law and justice, do you think any fucks are giving how accurate the data is before they launch shot first, no knock raids. Consider those corporations could they be swatting individuals they are paid to swat by supplying false information to junk yard law enforcers to trigger lethal raids.
Does anyone warrant the accuracy of the information, do they pay per person informed on a
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There have been several major cop shows where the "good guys" have committed outright murder and it's apparently just no big deal. Sometimes watching them makes you feel like you're taking part in some sort of bizarre social experiment.
Trust (Score:4, Insightful)
If you trust your police, then you want them to have that data so that they can try to catch the people responsible for the leaks. But if you don't, then you don't want them to have that data, because they could misuse it.
Re:Trust (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Trust (Score:4)
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This has always been one of the tricky questions with paid informants - are the police paying people to commit crimes and also letting crimes happen by failing to pursue the crimes of the informants? At one end of the spectrum, you have petty criminals who are going to be criminals no matter what, who may provide information on much more serious criminals. At the other end of the spectrum, you have Whitey Bulger, being protected by the FBI while he committed multiple murders and the FBI took down his oppone
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If you trust your police, then you want them to have that data so that they can try to catch the people responsible for the leaks. But if you don't, then you don't want them to have that data, because they could misuse it.
Police should have relevant data, and they should have to prove what is relevant or not. That is why warrants are specific and do not merely read "arrest anyone at XX address."
And "trust" has jack shit to do with this, unless you trust the fact that decades of police data will be stolen by better criminals eventually. Even if you trust the police, you shouldn't trust those who are targeting them. Any database that grows that big will become a target, and there's no way in hell you're going to convince la
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That was a long way to say you don't trust the police.
Mind you, I agree.
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That was a long way to say you don't trust the police.
No, the problem is more complex than you make it. I could actually have 100% trust in the police to not abuse data they hold, and follow the law. Being concerned about a criminal stealing the data from the police, has little or nothing to do with corruption in law enforcement, and is a completely separate but related problem.
Your original statement was rather single-faceted, and only addressed part of the problem with law enforcement collecting data en masse.
Mind you, I agree.
Cool. With what exactly, I'm not sure. But co
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This whole article is dumb because anyone, literally anyone, who wants that data already has it.
Going onto the "dark web" is not hard. Buying stolen records is not hard either, its a credit card swipe away. Anyone who actually wants to buy your personal data can do so for about 50 bucks.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/... [digitaltrends.com]
Trade secrets? (Score:3)
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Possibly chain of evidence problems? How do they know it's real and not a frame-up?
Negotiating with terrorists? (Score:3)
But really, who without a tinfoil hat would have seen THIS coming?
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Man, what in the WORLD was that sound??!
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So criminals with badges... (Score:3)
Cops that act like criminals should be fired.
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Re:So criminals with badges... (Score:4, Insightful)
What about when a cop confiscates illegal shit?
In this case, they did not "confiscate" the stolen information. They paid for it, supplying profit to the criminals and incentivizing future crime.
At that point he is in possession of illegal shit and should be fired?
They obtained, through criminal means, information that they would have never been allowed to collect with a legal warrant.
They should be fired. Their supervisors should be fired. The politicians that allowed this to happen should be named and shamed and hopefully voted out of office.
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In this case, they did not "confiscate" the stolen information. They paid for it, supplying profit to the criminals and incentivizing future crime.
hmm. That gives me an idea...
If I am elected, we will get the illegal drugs off the street. We will buy out the inventory of every drug dealer in the city, no matter the cost! By creating a near infinite demand, we will force supplies in the city to zero! It doesn't matter if their supplies are impure or counterfeit. We'll buy it all! And we'll keep buying until they get tired of producing and selling!
Suppose it works even better for data than for tangible goods?
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So all undercover cops? What about when a cop confiscates illegal shit? At that point he is in possession of illegal shit and should be fired?
Straw .... man .... much?
None of that is breaking the law or abusing it. Confiscating illegal shit is not breaking the law, in fact you'll find there are laws expressly permitting the police to confiscate illegal shit (or other items that are non-faecal in nature). Similarly there are some very strict rules regarding what undercover officers can and cannot do. However, police shooting people for no reason is breaking the law, the law about murder. Pushing an old man over in the street, breaking his skull
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Cops that act like criminals should be fired.
I'll go one further. Cops that act like criminals should be prosecuted (provided that by "act[ing] like criminals" we mean committing criminal acts and not just attitude and demeanor, which could still be firing offenses). Police are permitted to do certain things that would be considered assault, theft, kidnapping, murder, etc. if they weren't police, but only in specific, narrowly defined circumstances. Outside of the lawful course of their official duties those things are still crimes. And, let's face it
Contributing to organized crime? (Score:3)
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Unethical pigs? (Score:3)
Unethical pigs? That can't be, they always uphold the law, they never steal, torture, or murder!
(They always do those things. They're the biggest and most dangerous street gang in the country.)
Don't they need a search warrant? (Score:2)
Sounds like they are wading into legal spaghetti
BlueLeaks (Score:1)
Well, it's good the police did it (Score:2)
Else it would be illegal.
Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
If usage of information from hacks by law enforcement is legitimate, then the usage of information from hacks by for instance Wikileaks would be legitimate too.
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Any difference from paying a snitch? (Score:2)
Since the beginnings of organized and enforced legal systems, informers have always been a key cog in the machine. Even today, people end up in jail because someone else lied, and got paid for the lie. Outside of scale, I'm not convinced there is a legal, or moral, difference between paying a street snitch for information that may or may not be true and paying a data harvesting company for information that may or may not be true.