Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

ccc.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 106 posts

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#11

Post by zeepzeep »

hnbad wrote: post #6
spacemanmatt wrote: post #4

why do we even tolerate malware companies

Because this company was the developer of the "Staatstrojaner" malware government agencies used to hack into computer systems to investigate crimes. I think the original use case was just terrorism but I'm pretty sure it's been used against other crimes as well. As to why the German public tolerate it: because there wasn't sufficient pushback and the government doesn't care about a few protests as most people will ev…

> I think the original use case was just terrorism but I'm pretty sure it's been used against other crimes as well.

As with every dystopic "anti-terror" measurement, this is correct.

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#12

Post by hnbad »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #8
hnbad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this company was the developer of the "Staatstrojaner" malware government agencies used to hack into computer systems to investigate crimes. I think the original use case was just terrorism but I'm pretty sure it's been used against other crimes as well. As to why the German public tolerate it: because there wasn't sufficient pushback and the government doesn't care about a few protests as most people will ev…

Seems to me like the government should internally own their malware rather than tolerate a company that presumably sells to other governments or private entities. Mine was a rhetorical question of course.

You mean like a state owned enterprise? That would go against decades of free market ideology. Even if we had somehow ended up with a state owned malware development organization it would probably have been privatized by now.

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#15

Post by sva_ »

uniqueuid wrote: post #7
sva_ wrote: post #3

It appears like they're just going through a "rebranding" https://mobile.twitter.com/Pingu/status/1469314222349852675 Quote from the OP article: > the public prosecutor's office wanted to secure the assets potentially obtained from an unlawful act by means of an asset freeze in order to be able to confiscate them if necessary. The group of companies escaped seizure through insolvency So you know what's going on.

It seems a bit more complicated - there's a great post from netzpolitik [1] (in German, unfortunately) listing all the gory details. Again, all of this came to light because of the hard and persistent work of a whole bunch of NGOs (GFF, netzpolitik, CCC and so on). [1] https://netzpolitik.org/2022/nach-pfaendung-staatstrojaner-h...

Good source. It sounds a bit like they were destroying the evidence with that move then. Like throwing a match into a gasoline-doused crime scene.

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#16

Post by allendoerfer »

zeepzeep wrote: post #13
spacemanmatt wrote: post #4

why do we even tolerate malware companies

Malware isn't bad, like guns, it depends on the one using it. There are legit uses, e.g. governments or simulations of real attacks.

Instead of writing a malware exploiting a bug to simulate an attack to defend against the exploit, you could have just fixed the damn thing in the first place.

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#17

Post by someotherperson »

zeepzeep wrote: post #13
spacemanmatt wrote: post #4

why do we even tolerate malware companies

Malware isn't bad, like guns, it depends on the one using it. There are legit uses, e.g. governments or simulations of real attacks.

Do we actually have any cases of governments using malware for good?

Guns aren't a great comparison because the use can (and usually is) wholly defensive or acts as a deterrent -- i.e if you are known to be armed then you'd be left alone.

Malware on the other hand is almost exclusively offensive and governments around the world almost exclusively use it for nefarious reasons (i.e NSO Group's clientele and published usages).

Re: Stage win: FinFisher is bankrupt

#18

Post by m12k »

zeepzeep wrote: post #13
spacemanmatt wrote: post #4

why do we even tolerate malware companies

Malware isn't bad, like guns, it depends on the one using it. There are legit uses, e.g. governments or simulations of real attacks.

I think nukes are a better analogy than guns. There's legitimate reasons why you might want your government to develop and own them, but there's no good reason that it should be legal for private companies or individuals to sell or buy them.
Post reply on HN