
NHS cyber-defender Marcus Hutchins to appear in US court - scaryclam
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40820837
======
brudgers
My nose suggests the arrest is using the tool of prosecutorial discretion in
an attempt to create better alignment between Hutchins' work and Anglo
American intelligence and security interests...one or the other or both. If
pursuing justice regarding the criminal complaint was the primary goal and the
case was strong, the US could have sought his extradition from the UK in the
past.

~~~
usefulcat
"..the US could have sought his extradition from the UK in the past."

Or maybe they found out (or at least suspected) that he planned to attend
DefCon and figured it would be easier if he came to them.

~~~
nthcolumn
Yes they did not know him before. He was only recently publicly identified as
malwaretech having been doxxed by British media as a 'reward' for stopping the
wannacry virus.

Some journos bought him dinner in Vegas - did they know something, were they
really just there for BHDC?. He got all the way to airport and was moaning
about the delay with his priority boarding but looking forward to getting back
to a debugger.

The dude in question they really want is called TouchMe/TouchMyMalware. There
are some old chat logs but no hard evidence in them even on TouchMe. If
something as ephemeral as an IRC nick is then well then I'm bruceschneieier.
They joke about putting Brian Krebs in it and I do recall this was a meme for
a while. There is some stuff on hacker forum but kids stuff.

It is not illegal even in US/UK to write code.

He researches malware, maybe hung out with the creators in IRC. Actual
evidence suggests that he did not create or distribute either Kronos or
Wannacry.

Some people say he wrote and did a video for a RAT. So what - it is a RAT.

It is interesting to note the reaction of various hackers. Spot the fed. Used
to be a game at BHDC now it is spot the hacker. I think that an alternate con
- maybe in Estonia - would be a good idea? There must be many who won't travel
to US now or even before.

Only last week some UK Police Squad were touting their hacker rehab for kids
with some lulzsec dude. Recent UK legislation was brought in that means the
government can force you to work for them. They want to make it easier for
themselves to spy/hack and to lock up and/or press-gang everybody else. Do
what we say not what we do.

What OPSEC lessons are we learning kids? Privacy? Getting involved? Helping
out?

Whoever they also lifted has a SSN, any ideas?

------
ablation
> People, who work with Mr Hutchins investigating malware, have said "it looks
> like the US justice system has made a huge mistake".

Who on earth let this article go out with that in it?

~~~
devnull42
Whats the issue with that statement. It is early and I haven't had my coffee
yet but I am a security researcher and while I have my questions about his
past many of my counter parts in the UK have raised some very very valid
questions about the legitimacy of the allegations against him. So unless I am
missing a grammatical or syntactical error whats the issue with that
statement?

~~~
ablation
See reply from Sharlin below:

> It's just poor writing. Either you paraphrase what people are saying, or you
> cite someone specific.

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banku_brougham
The confusing part for me is I thought malware was an establish (albeit evil)
business i which the US govt and many others did a brisk business. For example
Gamma Group [1].

[1]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Group](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Group)

------
Shivetya
What disturbs me is the idea he can be arrested and his place of incarceration
is not known. Unless he is subject to harm I see no reason that this should be
the case. Is this merely the BBC not asking?

~~~
pricechild
> The arrest was initially confirmed by a screenshot that a friend of Hutchins
> captured of the facility website. When the friend visited the detention
> center on Thursday morning, he was told Hutchins was no longer there. The
> website mention of Hutchins was also gone. PJ Thomas, an administrator at
> the US Marshals office that the website referenced, said the agency has no
> record of Hutchins. The friend, citing privacy concerns, asked not to be
> identified by name in this article.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/researcher-
who-s...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/researcher-who-stopped-
wcry-worm-detained-under-mysterious-circumstances/)

------
nawtacawp
A couple parallels:

\- companies selling 0-day malware/spyware to U.S. Government

\- companies offering software to 'root' a device to extract information (cell
phone data extraction), used by law enforcement.

~~~
doktrin
How are these parallels?

~~~
nawtacawp
There are companies providing tools to 'hack' other devices/systems -- and
they sell those tools to the U.S. Government. Similar to what Mr. Hutchins is
being accused of, only the U.S. Government wasn't a customer.

~~~
doktrin
> only the U.S Government wasn't a customer

Are we going to start pretending the identity of the customer or employer
doesn't matter? It's accepted practice for the government to have a monopoly
on certain goods & services.

~~~
nawtacawp
It boils down to what Mr. Hutchins thought the buyers were going to do with
the malware. Were they going to use it for malicious purposes or was it for
educational use?

If Mr. Hutchins was selling malware to the U.S. Government, then his thought
would more likely be it was to be used for malicious purposes. i.e espionage.
However, this is not illegal -- but the other is?

~~~
doktrin
There are some things you can only sell to certain customers. All of those
things could, in theory, be used for "educational" purposes. I can't legally
manufacture & sell anthrax to my neighbor even if he swears on a bible that he
only intends to study it.

