If you didn't catch the sarcasm in the title of this post, I'll spell it out for you, Malware is the oldest hacking trick in the book. And using it to attempt to catch criminals who are notoriously adept at covering their digital footprint is simply not going to work.
What has me so riled up about this you ask? I just finished reading this article. Most of you are probably familiar with the infamous 'Mo', but if now I'll give you a quick recap. In 2012, days after the Denver Movie Theater shooting, 'Mo' emailed police stations demanding the release of his "friend" otherwise he would detonate a bomb in a public place. Mo continued to make these threats to places like the University of Texas, San Antonio, Virginia Commonwealth University, a prison, and other public places. Obviously, every time Mo made these threats he sent the police and FBI into a scramble to attempt to verify the threats. No bombs were ever found.
Mo used pretty common techniques to cover his tracks. He used a virtual proxy to disguise himself from Google Voice and to falsify his gmail account. This virtual proxy creates a false location for the machine you are using so that it becomes very difficult to trace actions back to yourself.
Mo has also been able to keep himself hidden after emailing photos of himself to authorities as well as a realistic name. So you would think that if a person was capable enough to hide himself from authorities even after they became aware of his face, email accounts, and name would know not to click on emails filled with malware. I mean come on my twelve year old cousin knows what emails he isn't supposed to click. I'm hoping that the FBI has leaked this tactic to throw Mo off a little bit since it has yielded no results. Maybe if Mo thinks that all the FBI is capable of is spamming him with malware until he accidentally downloads surveillance software from Quantico then he will let his guard down and then the FBI can unveil their real hacking attempts. Maybe... Who knows though, maybe they'll hire some Nigerian Princes to help them out in their endeavor.
On a more serious note, this article raises some serious, if not worrisome, questions regarding the FBI and your lives. The article quotes Laura K. Donohue, a Georgetown University law professor, saying that
“You can’t just go on a fishing expedition, There needs to be a nexus between the crime being alleged and the material to be seized. What they are doing here, though, is collecting everything.”
Meaning that the FBI is still running into a lot of resistance when they attempt to roll out their malware full of surveillance software. In light of the recent Edward Snowden case, I wonder how many malware emails I have successfully ignored in my own life. However, It lightens my heart a bit knowing that so many oppose (or claim to oppose) a government that constantly spies on its citizens, and the rest of the world for that matter.
The NSA does have a duty to protect the citizens of the United States of America. However, no one can tell me that the most efficient way to gather information on potential terrorist acts is to run surveillance on EVERY SINGLE citizen in the United States of America. That is a tremendous amount of data to sift through.
To be clear, I do feel that there is a need for an organization like the NSA but I do not agree with the ways that they gather their intelligence. Perhaps I am just being naive, or perhaps everyone else was when it took a Edward Snowden to make people realize that the USA spies on other nations...
Anyway, the article also makes mention that the FBI also needs a court ordered warrant and the okay from a government official to spy on someone using their email account. So in theory, it isn't a cake walk for them to spy on us.
However, I'm skeptical of this. I don't have a hard time believing that the government has allowed much more serious surveillance efforts in light of more serious restrictions. Regardless, we as a nation need to think about how much freedom we are sacrificing for "security." It is one thing to live in a nation where you can always feel safe, I believe that is something that everyone wants, but if we need to be spied upon every minute of every day, then I don't think that approach is worth it.
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