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Security researcher Collin Mulliner was surprised and angered to learn an open source toolkit he authored to enable hacking of Android phones, had been incorporated into the arsenal of spyware sold by the Hacking Team to its clients, which include a variety of police states around the world. Of course the discovery was made possible by the recent leak of over 400 GB of Hacking Team's source code; the tipster found Mulliner's contact info in the source code and figured he was a paid consultant.
Mulliner, a German researcher currently affiliated with Boston's Northeastern University, presented the toolkit at a security conference in 2012; it combines mechanisms for hooking Android API functions in Linux userspace, with NFC/RFID hardware-level hacking, the latter apparently done in collaboration with fellow researcher Charlie Miller. Installation requires being in close physical proximity to the target's phone, to exploit NFC.
Mulliner stops short of accusing the Hacking Team of using his code unlawfully, but feels violated nonetheless. He vowed that his future projects will come with a license prohibiting use by "bad actors" - while admitting he doesn't know what such a license would look like.
Richard Stallman has consistently opposed tacking a "no military use" or similar onto the GPL:
Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program as you wish. If a license restricts how you can run the program, the program is not free software.
This criterion is crucial. We cannot accept programs in the GNU system which have limits on what they can be used for. If we did, different programs would come with different limits. One program, perhaps written by Muslims, might ban use by restaurants that serve alcohol; another program, perhaps written by the Munich Oktoberfest committee, might ban use by restaurants that do not serve alcohol. Continuing along these lines, we might end up with a system that nobody would be allowed to use.
But of course, even open source advocates are free to disagree with Stallman on many issues.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday July 22 2015, @03:43PM
Okay, so he released "an open source toolkit" and was ... surprised ... that a corporation exploited it to make money? Really? Has he not noticed the billions Google and Apple are making by exploiting open source? Where one little bug in a low-level library they exploit but don't financially support the development of can cripple the Internet?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @04:18PM
No, he wasn't surprised that people make money with it. He was surprised that people use it for evil purposes. Now he wants a license that effectively says "You may not do evil things with this code."
Of course, such a clause would be completely ineffective. I mean, how does he intend to enforce it?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday July 23 2015, @04:27AM
Evil is subjective.... not saying in this case it isn't, but it is very hard to define evil. For example, Fox News certainly think their overlords are not, but many internet arm-chair AC thinks otherwise.