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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: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday April 01 2017, @04:03AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday April 01 2017, @04:03AM (#487467) Journal

    Plausible alternate explanation? Sorry, that's a poor second to the what sounds like the most plausible. Given our corporatocracy's long history of fearing and overreacting to technology and those most savvy with it, this case is most likely another of those. Pretty Good Privacy and export controls on encryption, Steve Jackson Games, Dmitry Sklyarov, Aaron Swartz, etc, etc.

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