WannaCry kill-switch hero Marcus Hutchins collared by FBI on way home from DEF CON Marcus Hutchins, the unassuming Brit who found and activated the kill switch in the WannaCry ransomware, has been arrested by the FBI in America. Hutchins had been invited over to the States for the DEF CON hacking conference, held last week in Las Vegas, Nevada, and stayed on a few extra days to do the usual touristy things …
"Stay away from the USA for whatever reason, more like."
Very unfortunate that this is so.
But I'm afraid you're right.
I just would not feel at all safe travelling to a country where I stand a chance of abuse by a border guard on a whim, with no way to protect myself from his bad morning's foul humour.
Or be arrested without known cause with no available legal consel.
Cheers,
Not a chance I will cross that line again. It is a very bright red line in my mind. Race war is just one of the big problems. They recently approved concealed carry of weapons by university students. Major brain drain in action now. The center of the Bell curve skewing down the curve quickly.
"Is that a revolution to change the spelling of "colour" back to being correct?"
i don't know about you but over here we pronounce the word as "col or" or "col er"... not "col our" or "col hour" ;)
i won't mention the "colour" spelling being flagged as misspelled B)
This post has been deleted by its author
Not sure why I'm bothered, but being in IT might make me a target for some reason
To be honest, the way things are going over there, being bothered is entirely sane. It's just not worth the potential hassle to travel over there, particularly if you're going somewhere that may raise your profile (like defcon).
There aren't many countries I'd outright refuse to travel to for work, but the US is currently top of that list. To be honest, I'm not convinced I'd be too pleased about travelling to the UK if I didn't already live here, but we are, at least a long way behind the US in the arresting-for-the-fuck-of-it stakes.
If I *had* to go, it'd be with burner phone, laptop etc with no credentials to access anything until they're communicated to me once I'm safely into the country (and deactivated before I leave). Even a few years ago that'd sound incredibly paranoid, and it's scary how increasingly rational it seems to have become
Fortunately, Trump doesn't get to set the funding. He gets to ask for funding, but Congress (specifically, the House) drafts the appropriations. This is why the news (yesterday) that the Customs and Border Patrol organization explicitly told their agents to stonewall members of Congress back when the Muslim Ban (v1) was enacted is so extraordinarily foolish.
Sure, Congress isn't going to defund CBP... this isn't how you get your stretch financing goals met!
Donald Trump doesn't matter much here, except as a catalyst, slowly clearing the mud from the heads of the thickos who get policies mixed up with identity and tribalism. The ascendancy of Donald Trump is just that event in history where they accidentally dropped the pretty stage background and the ugly machinery behind the whole performance becomes visible and obvious to all.
... The president by law only has his all intrusive and lethal God-Emporer Powers over Foreigners, those un-Americans, remember. What Obama's surveillance state was indeed slagged over, not over any 'right' or 'wrong' or - god forbid - principles and stuff.
This post has been deleted by its author
Its pretty clear we know next to nothing about whats really going on with this.
Perhaps he was arrested at the request of OUR intelligence services for all we know?
All we know for certain right now is:
- he's been detained
- it occurred just after he attended a black hat convention
- it also occurred just as the wallets were emptied
- he's confessed previously to using a fake DoB to open a bank account
This post has been deleted by its author
They might prefer him to be arrested by the very cruel US justice system rather than the relatively well-behaved British one. The Americans arrogantly give themselves the right to prosecute offences committed anywhere in the world.
Anonymous, because I prefer them not to arrest me next time I go over there.
I was going to make some comment about the Awan brothers and arrests in airports because they fall under different jurisdiction but thought I'd search the Reg for recent Awan Brothers or Wasserman Schultz info first and find there is virtually no coverage (from those searches anyway).
WTF!
Seems I may have mistaken the type of site this is.
Seems I may have mistaken the type of site this is.
While "Media" - Either you Stay on The Message or you are a "Servant of Putin", "Alt Right Cookie", "Fringe" ... whatever sticks, that's what you will officially become, basically.
Once you are one of those agents of the deplorables, you can write just anything at all, because Freedom and Democracy. Maybe not for much money, maybe to not that great an audience, and "Media" has to pay rent / mortgages like we all do.
If anyone pulled the same kind of stunts in one of those areas where "we" fly drones ... then there is one-size-fits all "solution" to that too.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/08/daniel-mcadams/worried-crazed-russophobia/
'... there will be a push to move on other alternative media
that has nothing to do with Russia but that opposes US interventionist foreign policy: ZeroHedge, Lew Rockwell, Ron Paul Institute, ConsortiumNews, etc.
Crazy, you say? Don’t forget: this war against us already started last year when the Washington Post ran a front page article accusing all of the above of being Russian agents!
What would be next? Do you read any of these alternative news sites? Do you pass along articles that oppose US sanctions policy toward Russia? You are engaging in transactions. You will be subject to “sanctions” as described in the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” which is now the law of the land.
This would never happen, you might say. The government would never compile, analyze, and target private news outlets just because they deviate from the official neocon Washington line.
Perhaps not yet. But some US government funded “non-governmental” organizations are already doing just that...The German Marshall Fund project monitors 600 Twitter accounts [that ] are “accounts that are involved in promoting Russian influence and disinformation goals.” Which accounts does this monitor? It won’t tell us. How does it choose which ones to monitor? It won’t tell us. To what end? Frighteningly, it won’t tell us.
How ironic that something called the German Marshall Fund is bringing Stasi-like tactics to silence alternative media and opinions in the United States!..'
-- Daniel McAdams,
Russia Sanctions and The Coming Crackdown on Americans
Ron Paul Institute
Russia Sanctions and The Coming Crackdown on Americans
.... and .... Once again the entire issue is reduced to "Bad American Policies applied to Americans, Oh The Horror". That is exactly why America truly deserves every inch of the rogering that Donald Trump will be giving them for the next 7 years.
So it's been, what, eighteen hours since anybody has heard from him? They took him and he's just vanished from communication? Poor sod - he's probably terrified. And with the USA's history of punishing people for being smarter than them, I wouldn't blame him.
Hope he's alright. I doubt he will be anywhere near as well-disposed to helping people or governments after this.
After a minor run in with the police and the law 17 years ago in a accidental I.T security thing at my school I'm never going to help them or anyone else again. It didn't land me in jail but it did come dam close it. What it did was cost me computer hardware + data and good amount of money (by 17 years ago standards).
He is going to feel the same way once this is over. He might work for a company in the security I.T field (or he might switch fields once he gets out from the U.S) if he feels up to it. That might not be the case in the long run. This type of things have terrible results on one mental personality.
Today, if I see a security flaw I let it be. The owner of it can deal with it on his own time and cost once everything has started to burn because if his own incompetence.
I just make sure my own gate is secure on my own systems. Everything else is treated as possible security risk.
If he's just gone missing, I wouldn't hold my breath. They could say he was abducted by aliens and no one would be any wiser (Maybe Gary McKinnon). I really hope our powers that be can intervene and get him the hell out of there. After he's been released and returned to the UK, then I suggest we take off and Nuke the site from orbit! It's the only way to be sure!
Good point.
And from my recent experiences, conferences still in the US are seeing a lot fewer foreign attendees; a lot of people aren't attending because of the problems getting the necessary visas for the States (especially students from countries where the skin colour isn't in the approved range), and because of the general 'fuck you' attitude radiating from officialdom right now.
I've got a paper ready and I'd normally submit it to a US conference and then tack on a few days to see what has always been a fantastic place, but I think it'll end up going to a European conference purely because I might come back intact.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
