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posted by on Friday March 31 2017, @09:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the bad-precedent dept.

The visitors were from the FBI, and after a 90-minute search of his house, they left with his computers, only to return two months later with handcuffs. Now free on bond, Huddleston, 26, is scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia on Friday for arraignment on federal charges of conspiracy and aiding and abetting computer intrusions.

Huddleston, though, isn’t a hacker. He’s the author of a remote administration tool, or RAT, called NanoCore that happens to be popular with hackers. NanoCore has been linked to intrusions in at least 10 countries, including an attack on Middle Eastern energy firms in 2015, and a massive phishing campaign last August in which the perpetrators posed as major oil and gas company. As Huddleston sees it, he’s a victim himself—hackers have been pirating his program for years and using it to commit crimes. But to the Justice Department, Huddleston is an accomplice to a spree of felonies.

Depending on whose view prevails, Huddleston could face prison time and lose his home, in a case that raises a novel question: when is a programmer criminally responsible for the actions of his users? “Everybody seems to acknowledge that this software product had a legitimate purpose,” says Travis Morrissey, a lawyer in Hot Springs who represented Huddleston at his bail hearing. “It’s like saying that if someone buys a handgun and uses it to rob a liquor store, that the handgun manufacturer is complicit.”

A conviction will set a sweeping legal precedent whereby car manufacturers can be sued if a car is used to kill, or a paper manufacturer can be sued if a scrap of paper is used to pass a ransom note.
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Profit!


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by butthurt on Friday March 31 2017, @10:46PM (3 children)

    by butthurt (6141) on Friday March 31 2017, @10:46PM (#487364) Journal

    Maybe they don't want to pay for it. This story reminds me of the PROMIS software (sold by a company called Inslaw), which the FBI was using in the 1980s.

    Two different federal bankruptcy courts ruled that the Justice Department "took, converted, and stole" the Promis installed in U.S. Attorneys' Offices "through trickery, fraud, and deceit," and then attempted "unlawfully and without justification" to force Inslaw out of business so that it would be unable to seek restitution through the courts.

    [...]

    [A] book quotes Canadian businessman Ari Ben-Menashe as claiming that former Mossad officer Rafi Eitan arranged a partnership between Israeli and U.S. intelligence to sell foreign intelligence agencies over $500 million worth of licenses to a trojan horse version of Promis, in order to spy on them.

    -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @11:34PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @11:34PM (#487379)

    > Maybe they don't want to pay for it.

    Come on man, that doesn't pass the laugh test.
    As if the FBI doesn't have their own software to remotely control windows computers.

    • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday April 01 2017, @03:25AM (1 child)

      by butthurt (6141) on Saturday April 01 2017, @03:25AM (#487447) Journal

      I would assume that they do. It might be desirable to have their own bespoke version of a popular package, though. That would let them blend in well with other attackers. Mr. Huddleston may be invited to make a plea bargain in which he creates such a thing for them. They could also ask him to make a back-doored version for them, that could be sold to the same sort of customers he already has, but could be readily taken over by the FBI.

      • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @01:39AM

        by butthurt (6141) on Sunday April 02 2017, @01:39AM (#487777) Journal

        On further reflection: they would probably be more discreet about it, if those were their intentions.