FBI Agent Posing As Journalist To Deliver Malware To Suspect Was Fine, Says DOJ (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In 2007, an FBI agent impersonated an Associated Press journalist in order to deliver malware to a criminal suspect and find out his location. According to a newly published report from the Department of Justice, the operation was in line with the FBI's undercover policies at the time. Journalistic organizations had expressed concern that the tactic could undermine reporters' and media institutions' credibility. The case concerned a Seattle teenager suspected of sending bomb threats against a local school. FBI Special Agent Mason Grant got in touch with the teen over email, pretending to be an AP journalist. After some back and forth, Grant sent the suspect a fake article which, when clicked, grabbed his real IP address. Armed with this information, the FBI identified and arrested the suspect. The Associated Press, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and other journalistic organizations condemned the move. They pointed out that an FBI agent posing as a reporter could create distrust between legitimate journalists and sources, and also raised issues with the way the malware was distributed through a fake news story. The new Department of Justice report noted that, today, this activity would require greater authorization, under an interim policy on impersonating members of the media that was adopted by the FBI this June. Now, for the agency to pretend to be a journalist as part of an undercover operation, an application must be made by the head of an FBI field office to the agency's main headquarters, reviewed by the Undercover Review Committee, and then approved by the deputy director, after discussion with the deputy attorney general.

Comments

Intent

[Anonymous Coward]

They pointed out that an FBI agent posing as a reporter could create distrust between legitimate journalists and sources...

This is a feature.

Re:Intent

[DaHat]

And the fault of the Republicans apparently: http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/1...

Why do I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I think that if he journalist impersonated an FBI agent, the DOJ's opinion would be very different?

Re:Why do I think

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why do I think that if he journalist impersonated an FBI agent, the DOJ's opinion would be very different?

Rules are for thee, not for me. Back to work, subject.

Re:Why do I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Because impersonating law enforcement is a crime and impersonating journalists isn't?

Re:Why do I think

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Rules are for thee, not for me. Back to work, subject.

That's a bit harsh IMHO. Impersonating a federal agent is a crime that has been on the books for a long time and with a substantial body of case law to support it. In this case, as a search was performed it's clearly illegal. (Interestingly it's not the impersonation as such that's a problem, otherwise it'd be difficult to make the X-files, but how you use it. Gaining anything of value, or performing a search are clearly out of bounds.)

Note that this rule is there (mainly) to protect the public from fraudsters, not to protect the government.

Journalists are, however, not a protected group in this sense. There are no laws on the books, and that's probably also for the best, lest every blogger in the land be hauled before the magistrate for "impersonating a journalist". So the lack of protection is arguably to the benefit of the freedom of the press.

Now, impersonating a journalist for law enforcement purposes may be ill advised, no argument there, but but clearly not illegal. It's also noteworthy that the rules have since changed to make this practice less available.

A link that grabbed an IP address?

[Sowelu]

That's not malware. That's basically any webserver ever made. There's even URL shorteners that can redirect somewhere while grabbing the IP address of someone who passes through. It's sneaky but not even remotely illegal for anyone.

Re: A link that grabbed an IP address?

[phantomfive]

It wasn't on his computer (apparently). If you click on any link anywhere, the owner of the web server will get your IP address. That is how the internet works.

Re: A link that grabbed an IP address?

[jcochran]

It's pretty obvious that you don't understand.

FBI -> Gave URL of fake article to suspect.
Suspect -> Clicked on URL.
Web server hosting fake article logged IP address of requester , then sent article to suspect using the IP that was just logged.

Note: ANY WEB SERVER WOULD HAVE DONE THE EXACT SAME THING. The FBI agent could have sent the URL of a real news article and on the log of that web server, the suspect's IP address would have been recorded. However, there would also have been a lot of other IP addresses recorded as well from other people who also looked at the news article rendering the issue into a needle in a pile needles search. The advantage of the fake article is that the only person who would request that article would be the suspect since the general public would have been unaware of the article and the URL to said article. No malware involved. Just a normal everyday web server with an URL known only to the FBI and given to the suspect. Suspect tricked into accessing the page and thereby giving his IP address to the FBI. They could have even make it so the web page didn't exist and having a 404 error sent back to the suspect. It would have had the exact same effect, but might have made the suspect cautious or aware that something unusual was going on.

Re: A link that grabbed an IP address?

[rtb61]

No it is not about the software, it is about the fraudulent misrepresentation as being from a specific existing organisation that is criminal. Say for example, I pretend to be from your company, to engage with a violent crime gang. Now something goes wrong and that crime gang wants revenge. You and you employees have no idea what is going on, until a company picnic happens and that crime gang turns up for revenge, and shoot up you family and employees all without any warning, ha, ha, tough luck for you whilst the slimy shit bag agent stays perfectly safe.

The crime is not in the software hack, the crime is in the fraudulent misrepresentation and placing of innocent citizens at risk. Like perhaps the next Associated Press Journalist who turns up to interview someone but gets shot in the face instead because they believed he was am undercover operative (not that shooting an undercover operative is ever acceptable, except with a camera and their photo published all over the internet).

Under cover can only ever be fake people and fake organisations, they can never be allowed to pose as other people, from other organisation and in the slimiest most cowardly shit bag fashion imaginable, place those other organisations and people at extreme risk.

Credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Journalistic organizations had expressed concern that the tactic could undermine reporters' and media institutions' credibility. "
I think they do a good enough job of doing that themselves these days.

undermined?

[bloodhawk]

"Journalistic organizations had expressed concern that the tactic could undermine reporters' and media institutions' credibility." Seriously? you have to have some credibility and integrity before it can be undermined.

Re:undermined?

[reboot246]

Amen! The media has reached its lowest level of trust ever, according to the most recent poll.

Anybody who blindly trusts any media outlet is beyond stupid.

That's bad...

[darkpixel2k]

Don't do that.

For the same reason why when the cops asked if they could 'borrow' our ambulance to serve a high-risk search warrant because they wanted to catch the suspect unaware...the suspects will start shooting real ambulances.

Re:That's bad...

[david_thornley]

The hunt for Osama wound up seriously hurting efforts to eliminate polio, because nobody in that part of the world counts on doctors and nurses to not be working for the CIA.