DOJ Defends its Use Of Malware / As It Pushes For Great Ability To Hack Computers
DOJ Describes Its Use Of Malware As 'Augmenting Content' As It Pushes For Great Ability To Hack Computers
Over at the Wall Street Journal, there's a good article about the DOJ's push for greater powers to use malware and to hack into computers in pursuit of criminals. The key issue, as the DOJ sees it, is that it normally needs a warrant from a local judge in order to make use of a malware exploit -- and when you're talking about networked computers, it's not always clear what's local. Thus, at least one warrant request for installing malware has been rejected over privacy concerns when the physical location of a computer was unknown (other courts, however, have approved such warrants). Given that, the DOJ is seeking to expand the rules making it easier to use malware (and to use it across multiple computers, rather than just a single computer per warrant).
The article points to a massive 402 page document to the rule making body of the courts, in which it explains how it has used malware to find criminal suspects. Of course, this is the DOJ that we're talking about, so it's not going to come right out and say "hey, here's the malware we used and how we use it." Instead, as noted by the ACLU's Christopher Soghoian, the DOJ hides its description of malware on page 201 (smack dab in the middle of such a giant document) in a single paragraph using some rather incredible language:
As Soghoian notes, if you blink, you might miss it. The DOJ calls its malware insertion man-in-the-middle attack by describing it as "augmenting" the content sought by the user "with some additional computer instructions." That's certainly one way to look at it, but you have to assume that less than technologically savvy judges aren't likely to understand what this means at all.
FULL DOCUMENT Showing the Insertion AT:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140327/11364226712/doj-describes-its-use-malware-as-augmenting-content-as-it-pushes-great-ability-to-hack-computers.shtml
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Thanks KoKo