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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.

5 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. does not sell to repressive regimes by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    which do not pay.

  2. Re:Profiting from other people's crimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >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.

  3. Re:Profiting from other people's crimes by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Looking into Jeb Bush's crimes against democrac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  5. Cant defense lawyers start using this as an excuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.