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The Guardian Looks At Hacking Team's Client List, Internal Communications
There are lots of small but interesting news bits to take from the data dump made available by Wikileaks of internal documents from the Italian security firm Hacking Team, such as that a police unit investigating major crimes in Florida, according to some of the leaked emails, was interested in purchasing some of the company's surveillance technology. The Guardian has taken a longer look at the company's business and tactics, and outlines many of their actual and potential clients, in particular their government customers, and skewers Hacking Team's claims "that it does not sell to repressive regimes."
Shades of Blue Coat.
Shades of Blue Coat.
which do not pay.
Then congrats, your "inner sense of ethics" is indeed unhealthy. Currently you're arguing that crooks ought to get away with it so that others might avoid some criticism from "having profited off others' crimes".
This kind of thought is exactly how repressive regimes get built.
You can be 100% sure that any "investigations" in Florida will not be directed at learning how Jeb Bush rigged the elections in Florida in 2000 to help his brother become President.
Web search for: Greg Palast Florida 2000
LINK
>why is it acceptable for Guardian to profit from their crime without even a condemnation?
Because there's nothing wrong with profiting from a crime, by using it as the basis of an article, a book, or a movie.
News Corp were profiting from their own crimes - crime they instigated, knew about, conspired to hide, and didn't do anything to stop.
Unless you are a pure legallist about it, surely you can take the circumstances of the article and the differing public interest values into account?
The News Corp hacks, for the most part, were voicemail intercepts on celebrities, crime victims, and their families, used to provide a front-row seat on assorted emotionally moving(and big selling), but effectively mere gossip, stories. The Guardian is taking advantage of the availability of somebody else's hack(that, unlike News Corp, they didn't pay somebody to do) to write an informational piece about a vendor of surveillance technology with a troubling and controversial human rights record. The substance of their story is both a glimpse into how the ugly side of security research works; and specific investigative journalism concerning the discrepancies between what Hacking Team has claimed about their export practices; and what their actual export practices are.
Again, if you adhere to a purely legalist position, and all hacks are illegal and therefore wrong; then there really isn't much to talk about, that's the end of the line. If, however, you concede that there is, at times, a compelling argument in favor of bringing to light things that certain people would rather keep hidden; you can't really expect that such sunshine efforts are going to have the luxury of just interviewing their subjects and receiving a straight answer. Most of the world's decent malfeasance is clandestine, for obvious reasons, so whenever it comes to light that isn't going to be because the people committing it wanted it to.
Friedrich Nietzsche would disagree.
Considering I've only read a few of his works, I don't profess to have his depth of knowledge in matters philosophical; however, to quote him badly "All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."
Ethics has always been a function of knowledge. As knowledge changes, ethics change. One tries to do assign items into right and wrong, but to a knowledgeable person something that seems wrong might be the better solution compared to a non-knowledgeable person's point of view. The one that will be the right point of view will be the one promoted by people in power.
This is the one primary reason everyone should drop the chasing of science through the newspapers / TV / radio and collect the research papers and read them. If you believe in democracy, then don't hand over your democratic power to newspapers / TV / radio. Stop taking the attitude that Scientists are these funny guys who never know anything. Stop taking the attitude that what science believes has no personal impact or value on your life. The last time we aligned science with public understanding was the Enlightenment. An enlightenment from where we stand today would be an impressive thing indeed.
It's 15 years ago..let it go man, just let it go. You've had your guy in the white house for how long now?
What was done to them is exactly what they do to others. They break into people's computers and spy on people. Granted this is legal if authorized by the national government of a foreign country- but I don't believe the local police force has the legal authority to do that.
If you believe in democracy
congrats - you've just made a great argument against it. Maybe one in 10,000 people will bother reading those papers.
Nietzsche had some interesting observations, but nobody pretends he was a rigorous philosopher. Morals are fixed by rules of mutual agreement and are thus invariant even as ethics shimmies to fit current trends. There's not going to be a time when rape, murder, and pillage are morally acceptable even though 'modern' ethicists will tell you it's OK if men with government costumes do it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Is that how primitive your thinking is? That it's about teams? What are you, 16 years old?
Anyone including Republicans who break the LAW on a massive scale belong in prison, not in the white house.
You were contradicting yourself. Knowledge gained thru research, has no ethics, ethics is a man made constraint upon mankind. Ethics is neither good or bad, nor just. And the outcome while"right" is not ethical. Those are all justifications of an outcome. Not proofs of good,bad, or ethics. Legal is another justification, a man-made constraint to obscure a question, but the question whether right or wrong, in the asking, should always determine their should be a answer.
I don't see much difference in this distinction. Had News Corp "merely" relied on the likes of Guccifer — would it have been Ok then? Legally it, probably, would've been, but ethically? Hiring a guccifer is the next step down, of course, but I don't think, it is a major step...
People do this sort of thing for "fame and glory". By providing them with both, Guardian is, effectively, paying them... And making its own profit from the publication — not entirely unlike the resellers of stolen good, who have not done the theft themselves...
No, in my opinion, most hacks are wrong and therefore illegal (malum in se). Admittedly, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a clear definition. For now I'd say, when a hack uncovers actual malfeasance, it may be acceptable. But this one has not...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
By this logic, it is Ok to kill soldiers (even if you aren't at war with their country) — and profit from discussing, what the killings revealed.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
With the prevalence of systems being broken into by companies, law enforcement, automated systems, etc... Couldn't a person rightfully claim that whatever is on their computer could have been put there by someone else? If 10,000 people had a key to my house, I don't think I could claim that I have full control over it, why couldn't a criminal defendant claim the same thing? I think it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" that someone else may have full control over your computer.
Yes it is. If your government says it is, exactly like what was said.
Maybe the dead soldiers government may have something to say about it, but then they probably have something to say about people hacking them illegally too (regardless of what your government thinks).
Why is it acceptable for the your local news paper or TV news program to profit? You don't think reports on crimes are a good portion of what sell news papers and draws viewers to programs that sell ad time? "If it bleeds it leads" they at least used to say in the industry. On some level we have to allow the news agencies to be economically viable or we won't have them. We still need these organizations and the investigative reporting the provide to have a functioning democracy. Internet bloggers alone don't provide a full substitute for people on the ground discovering new facts and bringing them to light. Now this might be evolving now that every phone practically has a good quality camera, and we have outlets like wikileaks where people can put information they are not supposed to know the capabilities of citizen journalism are expanding.
They we get into your implied question about what are " legitimately secret" secrets. When it comes to government secrets democracy has challenges. How can I know my representatives are not just keeping secrets to serve their interests rather than ones that I would agree need to be kept. Unless at least from time to time there are leaks and I get a true inkling of the sort of secrets they have. People seem to forget that the US government has long hist of keeping secrets to hide its miss deeds and crimes. Many young people today are surprised learn that Nixon actually created most of our modern programs of declassification that have given the public access it never had before. Of course his motives were out of a self serving desire to expose the actions of political rivals, but that proves the point; secrets keep those in power where they are deservedly or otherwise. Given all the abuses by the US that have come to light how would you guess more oppressive regimes behave?
Next, at least traditionally something was deemed to be a crime because it had some harmful real or perceived impact on society. Everyone seems to be essentially agreed that these acts of digital trespass, privacy violations, etc are harmful why should we discard any possible benefit form them by not allowing journalists to publish and use the information? The harms is already done; except when it isnt. That is what brings us to News Corp. Where News Corp crossed the line is their relationship to the crimes became causal. They were not publishing things they learned after some non-associated hacker for whatever their own reasons might have been broke into peoples voice mails and dumped the data someplace. They were effectively paying people to do it. They were inducing the crimes.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Did you even read the article you linked? A logical mind would conclude that the article discusses both Democratic and Republican issues. And please tell me where it says that Jeb Bush rigged the election?
'modern' ethicists
Who is that? Why would you call them ethicists?
Live by the sword...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's... not even wrong.
So like, if such is the standard to which you're playing, you're welcome to that victory. Good day to you Sir.
Morals are fixed
Ok, fixed.
by rules of mutual agreement
Ok, so not fixed since rules and agreements change all the time.
and are thus invariant
wtfamireading.jpg
There's not going to be a time when rape, murder, and pillage are morally acceptable
There's not going to be a time when homosexuality, euthanasia, and working on sunday are morally acceptable
This is where I point out Hacking Teams catch 22. If a government isn't repressive they wouldn't purchase Hacking Teams services.
A few years back someone successfully defending a child pornography related charge because malware on their PC created sufficient doubt regarding the provenance of the images.
I think it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" that someone else may have full control over your computer.
I don't think that's the case. However, forensic analysis of the computer and discovery of actual malware (rather than the strong likelihood of it) probably should suffice to create reasonable doubt.
Of course, if the evidence is an email from you to the terrorist group, or a video of you raping the victim, or account details of multiple offshore accounts in your name, you're going to struggle to claim that the malware did it.
Hmm. Off to write malware that opens offshore bank accounts..
There's not going to be a time when rape, murder, and pillage are morally acceptable
Looks like somebody doesn't know their Holy Bible!
If I understand the paragraph you are "quoting" correctly, (and properly interpreting that you probably read a translation)...
Nietzsche here seems to be saying, in a very long winded way, "Might makes right". I can't quite tell whether or not he was being sarcastic, but from your paraphrase I believe he was. Or rather, it appears that he was being cynical enough to be saying "History is written by the victors, and they will define what will be remembered as the right action." I assume that this was clearer in the original text, but have slept over the required readings in a philosophy class I'm not sure that's true. (OTOH, the most reliable soporific wasn't Nietzsche, who I never had to read, but Leibnitz.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Almost half a terabyte of private documents were posted on its twitter feed by an anonymous hacker
In my days, we had to tweet obfuscated links to stuff because twitter "didn't scale". But now: 0.5 TB / 140 B = 3.57 billion tweets!
The initials RCS are, of course, the initials of a Hacking Team product, Remote Control System, but are also commonly used in software code for the term (WHAT?)
In my days, that would term would have been encoded with the initials WTF.