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Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

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31–40 of 81 posts

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#31

So the headline uses the word "pedophiles", but in the article the word is nowhere to be found. Maybe that's because this sting isn't necessarily about pedophiles, but about people watching and trading child pornography. Using "pedophiles" only serves to reinforce the stigma of a already heavily stigmatized minority. The word "pedophile" should be defined as someone with a sexual attraction towards children. It doesn…

If nobody visited the hidden service, the operator would have no reason to keep it running. Watching child porn fuels its demand, and therefore encourages its distribution.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#32
post #30
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well biologically the person has inherited some genes that function in such a way as to lead to their obsession with young people. At the end of the day this is very much a mental problem that can be remedied with bioengineering. Not much else you can do for these people. To criminalize it in all of its forms, is the same thing as criminalizing any sexuality. Perhaps one day we'll create an algorithm that can generat…

Has it been proven that Pedophilia is genetic, tho?

Has homosexuality? In general in many of these cases they is definitely some element of OCD involved, as in hoarding millions of images, and the criminal offenses are set up in a way to penalize for each image using the same sort of logic as above. But then that's common for other people with what are considered normal sexual orientations, having a huge porn collection.

I mean the deviant element of this is that it's all so taboo, I mean after all "think of the children" (tm). We should treat it as any other crime and try to do harm reduction.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#33

So the headline uses the word "pedophiles", but in the article the word is nowhere to be found. Maybe that's because this sting isn't necessarily about pedophiles, but about people watching and trading child pornography. Using "pedophiles" only serves to reinforce the stigma of a already heavily stigmatized minority. The word "pedophile" should be defined as someone with a sexual attraction towards children. It doesn…

I feel that people who watch child porn and find it appealing rather than repulsive - qualifies you as a pedophile in my book. It's certainly a lesser crime than actual sexual assault of a child. But watching sexual assault for enjoyment and trading in these videos is still a crime. The term pedophile fits just fine as far as I'm concerned.

It's an overgeneralization, it's like conflating straight males with people that watch a male raping a female.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dissonance is accepted in this case because of the repulsive nature of the crimes, as determined by our current social consensus. Philosophical purity is very appealing, but ultimately the justifications we use for why the law is the way it is only have to stand up long enough to convince most interested parties that we're doing the right thing.

Well biologically the person has inherited some genes that function in such a way as to lead to their obsession with young people. At the end of the day this is very much a mental problem that can be remedied with bioengineering. Not much else you can do for these people. To criminalize it in all of its forms, is the same thing as criminalizing any sexuality. Perhaps one day we'll create an algorithm that can generat…

Well biologically the person has inherited some genes that function in such a way as to lead to their obsession with younger people.

That includes everyone. Women with the most neotenous traits are considered the most attractive in every human society.

[*] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_humans

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#35

So the headline uses the word "pedophiles", but in the article the word is nowhere to be found. Maybe that's because this sting isn't necessarily about pedophiles, but about people watching and trading child pornography. Using "pedophiles" only serves to reinforce the stigma of a already heavily stigmatized minority. The word "pedophile" should be defined as someone with a sexual attraction towards children. It doesn…

> Also, the people operating and visiting that hidden service could have had other reasons for visiting. Such as?

Indexing

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#36
post #5
post #2

Imagine a later hardline: "FBI Ordered to Reveal the Code Used to Backdoor San Bernadino Suspect's Phone"

The accused is conveniently dead in this case. In the next case, a defendant's lawyer would surely want to inspect the instruments used to gather evidence.

Maybe we should appoint public defenders for the conveniently dead.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#37
post #26
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is only useful on the specific iPhone in question if it is in fact signed, and Apple does not have the technical capability to sign an update for a specific phone but not others; they all trust the same keys. And Apple would deliver it to the FBI with a signature, so there's a high risk that the signature wouldn't be redacted before being available to the public.

But the version signed could check the id of the phone and shut down if not a hard coded id. Yes, it could be installed on any phone, but it would be useless on any other phone. And in order to modify it to work on other phones (even with source code) you'd need Apple's keys.

It'd be easy for anyone to patch memory at runtime to skip over that `if` check on the phone's ID (or at least easier than hacking the phone without the backdoor code).

Once the backdoor/exploit is created and released, there's no securing it to where it will only be used on a single phone.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#38
post #27
post #18

"Sure, here it is compiled to assembly and stripped of all comments." is sort of what I'd expect

If you analyze malware for a living, then the assembly is the source code. :) It's really not that much of an issue. It makes things more fun. I am curious about whether they developed the malware in-house or if they hired a contractor. Is there any information out there on this? I wouldn't be surprised if they cut out parts, which may hint at a particular contractor having developed the malware. Also, I still do not…

> Also, I still do not understand why TOR Browser Bundle allows scripts by default.

The best diet is the one you can actually stick to. The best birth control is the one comfortable enough to use. The best anonymity software must be usable enough for Joe Average.

If the situation is high-stakes, TBB comes with NoScript installed. And you should probably get a burner laptop, do all your web browsing off TAILS, and randomly change your physical location.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#39
post #12
post #4

I am more concerned that there is no limits to what they can do in regards to a honeypot (trap/etc). You would think child porn would be one thing they would not go this far with. Regardless, I think someone with expertise should be allowed to review any code developed by the government in such operations only to ensure it does not somehow violate the rights of innocents

The judge is not concerned http://motherboard.vice.com/read/judge-rules-fbi-running-chi...

Well he is wrong then.

Re: Judge Rules FBI Must Reveal Malware It Used to Hack Over 1,000 Computers

#40

So the headline uses the word "pedophiles", but in the article the word is nowhere to be found. Maybe that's because this sting isn't necessarily about pedophiles, but about people watching and trading child pornography. Using "pedophiles" only serves to reinforce the stigma of a already heavily stigmatized minority. The word "pedophile" should be defined as someone with a sexual attraction towards children. It doesn…

> Also, the people operating and visiting that hidden service could have had other reasons for visiting. Such as?

To be clear, I meant other reasons than having a persistent sexual attraction towards children. Those other reasons can be: wanting to see physical abuse, seeing how abuse happens, finding a thrill in seeing something illegal, trying to see what gets you aroused, and many other reasons.

The Dutch rapporteur for sexual abuse summarized that it is estimated that about 20% of the people caught for possessing child pornography are actual pedophiles, meaning people with a persistent sexual attraction towards children: http://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/Images/nationaal-rapporteu...

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