When is malware not malware? When the FBI says so, of course

[allheart55 Cindy E]

 

 

Is there such a thing as good malware?

 

The FBI would argue that there is, if they are the ones who created it.

 

The origins of the case date back to February 2015, when the FBI seized control of a child sexual abuse website called Playpen.

 

You might have expected the FBI to shut down the site immediately. But instead, rather sneakily, they chose to continue to make the site available from a government server, planting code that could grab identifying information about computers – such as IP addresses – used by the site’s users, as well as downloading malware to their computers.

 

What makes that particularly interesting is that Playpen was on the dark web, and its users were attempting to remain anonymous by using Tor to cover their tracks.

 

That’s all very well and good, but when the FBI refused to share details of how it had managed to exploit Tor with a “Network Investigative Technique” (NIT) to discover the identities of alleged pedophiles, a judge threw out the evidence.

 

Now, as Julian Sanchez noted on Twitter, the FBI has claimed in a legal brief that its code simply isn’t malware.

 

Source: Twitter

 

As William Turton at Gizmodo reports, the FBI is bristling at the suggestion that its malware could in any way be considered.. umm… malware:

 

Obviously, the FBI is not pleased with any suggestion that what the agency may have done is wrong or that its malware wasn’t above board. In fact, the FBI is saying, well, it couldn’t possibly be malware because FBI agents are the good guys! Hmmmmmmmmm.

 

If you didn’t know, malware is just short for malicious software. Now, the FBI is trying to dispute what it really means.

 

Source: hot for security