Slashdot Mirror
25% of US Hackers Are FBI/CIA Informers
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports that the FBI and CIA have 'persuaded' up to 25% of US hackers to 'work' for them. 'In some cases, popular illegal forums used by cyber criminals as marketplaces for stolen identities and credit card numbers have been run by hacker turncoats acting as FBI moles. In others, undercover FBI agents posing as "carders" – hackers specialising in ID theft – have themselves taken over the management of crime forums, using the intelligence gathered to put dozens of people behind bars. ... The best-known example of the phenomenon is Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker who turned informant on Bradley Manning, who is suspected of passing secret documents to WikiLeaks.' What implications does this hold for privacy? Or is it just good work by the authorities?"
As you may have guessed, the estimate appears to be based only on the number of black hats, rather than all hackers.
It's effective work by the authorities. However, if people under FBI or CIA are actively encouraging or facilitating illegal activities that may not have happened otherwise, I may have some heavy objections as to whether it's "good" work.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
In other news 47% of all news articles are speculative bullshit with no grounding in reality. See we can all make up numbers.
They say there are vast, anonymous networks of hackers, yet somehow they know they they've gotten 25% of them to work for the FBI? How do you calculate 25% of an unknown number? Or is there some Hacker registry at 2600 magazine that I'm not aware of (not being a hacker myself, I didn't get an invitation to join).