Slashdot Mirror
US Piles New Charges on Marcus Hutchins (aka MalwareTech) (bleepingcomputer.com)
British cyber-security researcher Marcus Hutchins, who has been credited with stopping the spread of WannaCry, is now facing four more charges related to separate malware he is alleged to have created. BleepingComputer reports: According to court documents, the new charges are for allegedly creating another piece of malware and for lying to the FBI. Hutchins had previously been accused of creating and selling the Kronos banking trojan last year. But in a superseding indictment filed this week, U.S. prosecutors claim Hutchins also coded and sold another piece of malware called the UPAS Kit. According to US prosecutors, UPAS Kit "used a form grabber and web injects to intercept and collect personal information from a protected computer," and "allowed for the unauthorized exfiltration of information from protected computers." The U.S. government claims Hutchins sold this second malware strain in July 2012 to a person going by the online pseudonym of Aurora123, who later infected US users. Hutchins expressed disappointment on the development, tweeting, "Spend months and $100k+ fighting this case, then they go and reset the clock by adding even more bullshit charges like 'lying to the FBI.' We require more minerals." In a subsequent tweet, he requested people to help him with the cost of legal proceedings.
Maybe so?
The driver of a Tesla who fatally crashed in California in March did not have his hands on the steering wheel at the time of the accident, said a preliminary report from the National Traffic Safety Board on Thursday.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
He was a security researcher indeed. The black hat kind.
Spend months and $100k+ fighting this case
He is too rich for his own good. Let it pour.
"Lying to the FBI" is what you get charged with when they can't find anything else.
Hell, they'll even manufacture a claim of "witness tampering" over a one-minute phone call and a text saying "We need to talk".
The "Lying to the FBI" (or other lying to cops) charge is one of the several reasons you Never Talk to Police.
See the above video for a law professor's lecture on many more.
Instead you ALWAYS exercise your Fifth Amendment privilege to remain silent. ESPECIALLY if you're innocent. ANYTHING you tell them "can and will be used against you".
Even if it's true, somebody else may have told them something conflicting - through error or malice - and the police and prosecutors may then decide you're lying. Bingo: Both a criminal charge and the burden of proof switches from them proving you're guilty to you proving you're innocent.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
.. Trump will pardon him too!
Just remember to explicitly invoke your right to remain silent.
http://www.abajournal.com/news...
I don't disagree with you, but this raises a question.
Marcus Hutchins is a UK citizen, facing US justice. Can he legally take the 5th? Does the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution extend to apply to anyone charged under US law, or does it just apply to US citizens charged under US law?
One way to think about this would be to consider the reciprocal. If a US citizen were charged in the UK under UK law, could that citizen claim the right to silence courtesy of the 5th Amendment? I don't think they could. That doesn't mean that Marcus can claim the 5th under US Law.
Very interested if anyone qualified to give a perspective on US law can chip in...
The government has infinite resources to deploy when it decides you have to get 'got'. I've long thought that we need a new form of Miranda in which if you're involved in a civil or criminal matter vs the government and you prevail, you get all your legal fees reimbursed, aka "loser pays". That's the only chance there is of leveling the playing field.
The Constitution applies to all people on US soil, not just citizens.
He should have never come to the US... the US is known for kidnapping people that make it uncomfortable. North Korean/Iranian tactics right here on US soil.
No surprise there, of course.
I would extend to him, but the mor important question was did he âoetalkâ before being properly read his Miranda rights?
People seem to forget that what you say BEFORE the Miranda warning can and will be used against you.
Just donâ(TM)t talk to police at all.
The US constitution is the set of rules to which the US government is bound. It has nothing to do with citizenship and does not bind foreign governments. I UK citizen in a US court can plead the 5th; and a US citizen in a UK court cannot.
England also has a 'right to remain silent'. But they can hold your silence against you, if you later claim a defense you didn't speak about during initial interrogation.
Not an English shyster, but silence is still your best bet. England also has volumes of unenforced laws, they all commit 3 felonies/day, same as Americans.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Prison-Industrial Complex of America. Big Corrections is hungry for profits.
Unless you live in a state like Ohio where you are forced to waive your 5th amendment rights if you want to exercise your 2nd amendment rights...
It's not like refusing to even talk to the police or pleading the 5th to every question isn't going to make you look really suspicious even if you're completely innocent. Oh wait...
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
or the rich and powerful will take you out, rule of law, what a joke, the whole system is corrupt and evil
I know "Innocent until proven guilty" is kind of a cornerstone of western legal systems, but it seems like many are taking it a tad too far with the general stance here is that he can't possibly be guilty. Even thou there's loads of ex cybercriminals working in the infosec industry these days, many of them openly and some of them are even open about the convictions they've received.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
The Constitution applies to all people on US soil, not just citizens.
Except the ones accused of being terrorists, or knowing terrorists, or living in an area where terrorists were once suspected to also live. They don't get rights. Especially not the parts about "speedy trial" and the right "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" (6th amendment).
It's not like refusing to even talk to the police or pleading the 5th to every question isn't going to make you look really suspicious even if you're completely innocent. Oh wait...
No you're already suspicious. The point is not giving an inch of rope to the hangman.
Also nickname checks out :-)
England also has a 'right to remain silent'. But they can hold your silence against you, if you later claim a defense you didn't speak about during initial interrogation.
In England, maybe, but not in America.
You can't bring up a new defense after the trial, but no, you don't have to bring up a defense until after you talk to a lawyer, and being silent before you consult a lawyer explicitly can not legally be used against you.
*allegedly* ... we still have the concept of "innocent until proven guilty"
Yep. And the ability to hold off making a judgement until we know the details.
It is entirely plausible that he could both be working on increasing security, and also be responsible for malware himself. But it is also plausible that the prosecutors are overreaching, or misinterpreting actions that were not malicious.
without seeing the evidence, it's impossible to tell either way.
In the US, your silence can be used against when under oath, sometimes, but not usually otherwise. IE if you take the witness stand, you cannot just answer the defenses questions, once you answer questions about an event, generally you have to answer all questions about that event, or your silence can be used to weigh your other testimony. But since testimony given to a police... is not "on the record" and it cannot be brought up in your defense, you can go silent at anytime. I think because the prosecution can choose to drop all of it at anytime, they don't have to have a way to counter claims you made then.
The Constitution of the US applies to the US government everywhere and for all purposes. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the US government from compelling anyone (US citizen or not) anywhere (on US soil or not) to testify against himself.
How the hell does that video only have 700k views?
It has been around forever and gets linked all the time.
No that's not how it works.
Non-Citizen's are granted the limited right to Habeas Corpus (due process and limited Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections depending on the charges) and then they fall under Immigration Law which is at the discretion of the Executive Branch.
Show me in the constitution that it says anyone on US Soil is fully protected by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution ... I'll be happy to wait for you to read it as it sounds like you haven't.
Again not how it actually works.
Anyone brought to the US or a US protected zone is given limited right to Habeas Corpus which includes the 5th and 6th Amendments *unless* they are proven to be classed as Enemy Combatants which puts them into the second legal system the United States has which is called The Military Code of Justice which 90% of everyone and 100% of lawyers seems to not understand.
*unless* they are proven to be classed as Enemy Combatants
i.e. foreign, male and at more than 12 years old.
One of the patches released via Windows Update that was specifically for WannaCry, was finalized and digitally signed several months before WannaCry was even a name and a thing.
It suggests NSA was responsible, that the patch had to be finished to quickly stop and contain the damage, and that the whole thing was to probe infrastructure to gather information on weaknesses.
I guess they don't want people meddling with their little creations and experiments, so of course they want him extradited to send a clear signal: don't interfere with our espionage and sabotage attempts, or we'll put you in an American prison for life.
i.e. as in classified by the Geneva Conventions you mean.
UCMJ. Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The 5th amendment enumerates a right, but it is couched in the form of a restraint on the governemnt's power to compel testimony: "No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".
In theory, anyone anywhere has the right not to answer a question posed by a member of the US government or their representative if responding might cause them to provide incriminating evidence. In practice, if you are in a foreign country, good luck exercising this right: the US will just have their local counterpart put the question to you and you may have no such right to silence under the local laws. Those statements given to a foreign official can now be used as evidence against you in a US court.
Tell me where it says they're not. Since you've read it, that'll be quicker.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but pleading 5th is not a good practise any more.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=61f0c293-44b7-4614-9437-98574bb319c3 "Silence as evidence: U.S. Supreme Court holds that the Fifth Amendment does not bar using a suspect’s silence as evidence of guilt "
That is, supreme court has made a decicion which states in layman's terms: you must be guilty if you don't say anything.
Instead of saying: I use my 5th to say nothing, say: "I don't want to say anything without a lawyer"
I think similar suggestion is in the "Right to remain innocent" by James Duane
https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/1503933393/
Not in the Constitution directly. It comes form a USSC decision in Boumediene vs Bush.
Maybe you should think before you talk? Because talking actually gives you the opportunity to lower suspicion while refusing to do so can only have the exact opposite effect.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."