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The FBI Has a Trojan To Watch You
G_of_the_J writes "A man who had cut 18 cables affecting Verizon and Comcast was blackmailing them. He had demanded bank accounts be set up and information be provided on web sites that he specified. Although he used anonymous access to get to the web sites, the FBI had planted a trojan which was downloaded to his computer. The trojan then sent his IP address and other information to the FBI."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_Internet_Protocol_Address_Verifier
... if he was stupid enough to visit the "private" website they created for him with such a lax security setup that his computer willingly installed the FBI's trojan.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There is one important aspect missing from the summary. The FBI got a warrant first. It's not an extension of illegal wiretapping.
He can spoof ips yet he can't install software to detect unwanted outbound traffic?
Idiot.
I don't know... Seems to me like another reason not to cut 18 cables and not know how to hide your identity.
About the party responsible for infiltrating government and military computers.
In case you've been living in Richard B. Cheney's spider-hole, this F.B.I. system is called Ghostnet.
Yours Seditiously,
Kilgore Trout
... reason to not use Microsoft products.
What makes you think they don't have a variant for Linux? User stupidity (i.e: bad/no security) isn't unique to Windows. Off the top of my head, if they are relying on the web as an infection vector combined with user stupidity, why not write it into a Firefox extension?
Yeah, it wouldn't get your typical /. geek, but most criminals aren't known for their foresight or intelligence. "Oh, the private website with the bank account information needs me to install this software! Ok, what could possibly go wrong?"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"This website requires additional ActiveX components to be installed."
Hmm...
*click*
...
Oops.
I am the lawn!
So we can assume that the right to keep and bear arms can include the use of trojans for personal reasons. Perhaps the Fed would like to tax and license the use of trojans. Only after an approved trojan safety course has been passed, of course. Other permits would be required to use a trojan outside of ones home and some public venues could ban the use of trojans in their facilities.
Requiring a permit to use trojans outside of the home wouldn't seem consistent with the Democrats position on sex education ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What incredible insight.
Greta: He knocked over another ATM. This time at knife point. He needs your legal advice.
Fletcher: [picking up phone and shouting] Stop breaking the law, asshole!
Whale
If you get a call from someone who refuses to identify themselves asking you if you'd be willing to edit a couple hidden configuration files and restart your system, then you have the Linux version.
Something is seriously wrong when you have to explicitly state, "The FBI did not commit any crimes in this story." When I read the summary, I felt that the warrant was implied, but with everything that has happened, I also feel that you are completely justified to think that that info was missing.
I think it's an interesting story, but sure ... if a warrant was obtained first, the FBI actually did this the RIGHT way, and that makes me happy.
That's how law enforcement is supposed to work. Sometimes it seems like we completely forget that, these days, with all the stories of "the law" just doing whatever they please, secretly.
Actually, the FBI can't tell the difference between a criminal and a suspected criminal. In the U.S., it takes a jury (or a guilty plea) to do that.
I think your point though is that it's not a violation of someone's rights if the FBI has reasonable evidence *before* they install the Trojan, and it appears they did in this case (because they had a warrant).
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Nice ideas. Here is all I had: Demand that the info be in ASCII text, and download it with wget.
"What makes you think they don't have a variant for Linux? User stupidity (i.e: bad/no security) isn't unique to Windows."
This is an excellent statement. Stupidity knows no bounds. Its also dangerous to assume that the FBI doesn't know what it is doing. When I worked in law enforcement, the FBI computer crimes agents I knew were well versed in operating systems other than Windows. The two I worked with most often had a solid knowledge of Linux and Cisco IOS.
Or am i just a European speaking to an American ; ).
No, just an asshole acting smugly superior.
Don't you watch the movies? They would've backtraced his IP address through their firewall with a Visual Basic program within seconds. You need to bounce around the world through at LEAST 15 anonymizing proxies for that to work and give you a minute or two of time to taunt them before you disconnect at the last minute just as the blue blipping blob on their VB.Net trace program is about to pinpoint your location in North America as the program starts zooming in on your location with Google Maps.
Click! All they know is you're in the northeast, but you told them that already right before you disconnected when you said you were calling them from a payphone across the street. When they rush out of their building all they find is an empty payphone with an acoustic coupler attached to the handset and interfaced to some kind of prepaid cell phone. You put down your binoculars that you've been using to watch the situation from the 5th floor of your hotel down the street and press a button on your computer which detonates the C4 conveniently hidden behind the payphone. Did they really think a silly god damn Windows spyware program was going to take you down so easily?
> Reason for requested leave: Starting an evil empire
Trust me, it's not as great as it sounds. The overhead is a lot more than you expect. Everyone figures they'll just steal a couple nuclear warheads and they're in business, but they never think about the essentials. Do you know how much toilet paper your evil lair will go through in a week? Even though you have the contribution jar next to the coffee maker, no one ever pitches in unless you happen to be standing there. With the downturn in the economy, you don't have the same staffing issues as you normally do, but finding decent henchmen is always a chore. The ones you do find are all, "We want dental!", "We need flex time!", "Respect me as an equal!", and "Oh God, no, save me, IT BURNS!!!" I mean, come on, what am I your mommy?
You go through all that, then in the middle of one of your best speeches, some moron running around in a tuxedo blows it all up with a can of hairspray and a laser beam built into a wristwatch.
Seriously.