FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant (vice.com)

Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard: In January, Motherboard reported on the FBI's "unprecedented" hacking operation, in which the agency, using a single warrant, deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger. In all, the FBI obtained over 8,000 IP addresses, and hacked computers in 120 different countries, according to a transcript from a recent evidentiary hearing in a related case. The figures illustrate the largest ever known law enforcement hacking campaign to date, and starkly demonstrate what the future of policing crime on the dark web may look like. This news comes as the US is preparing to usher in changes that would allow magistrate judges to authorize the mass hacking of computers, wherever in the world they may be located.

Comments

Can journalistic websites do basic editing?

[El Cubano]

deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger.

several orders of magnitude... really?

• base: 1,000
• 1-order: 10,000
• 2-order: 100,000
• 3-order: 1,000,000

Am I to believe that the FBI hacked over 1,000,000 computers? Oh wait, that's not at all what happened. Why is it that journalists and journalistic websites (people and organizations whose entire livelihood depends upon the written word) can't even perform the most basic of editing reviews? Were I an editor, such a clearly hyperbolic and improperly used statement would never have made it to publication.

Note that my gripe is not with the /. editor, but with Motherboard.