WannaCry reverse-engineer Marcus Hutchins hit with fresh charges WannaCry ransomware killswitch hero* Marcus Hutchins faces fresh charges in relation to separate malware the security researcher is alleged to have created. Hutchins, a British citizen, has been held in the US since August last year, after visiting the Black Hat and DEF CON security conferences in Las Vegas. He was collared at …
He is also accused of lying to the FBI by "knowingly and wilfully" making a "materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement" when he was arrested on 2 August, by stating "he did not know his computer code was part of Kronos until he reverse-engineered the malware some time in 2016".
The FBI had better have some indisputable proof of that, as their case is already looking very shaky considering that the recorded time of him being read his miranda rights were changed twice to fit with the time he was in a stairwell with no surveillance coverage. Also that the interview recording shows that he was not told he was being charged until half an hour into his interview with the beginning missing because they had to "manually" start the "broken" recorder. If I was on the jury, I know who I would believe at this moment in time. Besides which, if the code was pirated how can anyone be responsible for the actions another person.
The FBI had better have some indisputable proof of that,
Err... you are mistaking it to civilized countries.
In civilized countries a charge sheet or its equivalent is handed in COURT. You have to demonstrate to a judge that there is enough material to charge a person and it is the court which hands the charge sheet. This is the case in the UK and it is the case in Napoleonic law which governs most of the developed world.
In less civilized countries charges are filed by a prosecutor, there is no limitation to what they can pile up and they can after that pull out one or more of them prior to trial. This (as openly demonstrated by USA judicial system on a daily basis) is open to abuse. It goes in front of a judge only if the defence files a motion to dismiss which takes time and money.
"In civilized countries a charge sheet or its equivalent is handed in COURT. You have to demonstrate to a judge that there is enough material to charge a person and it is the court which hands the charge sheet. This is the case in the UK [...].
In less civilized countries charges are filed by a prosecutor,"
I'm not entirely convinced this is correct; for the UK at least. I could be wrong but If the police feel there is enough evidence that you have committed a crime, particularly in open-and-shut cases (like a positive breathaliser result for instance) or something they have witnessed themselves, they can charge you without consulting any other agency or court. If they are not sure they have enough evidence to charge someone they consult with the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) to gauge the chances of a successful prosecution with what evidence they do have. If the CPS feel there is, again, its the police that charge you.
" for the UK at least. I could be wrong but"
You're correct. In England and Wales the police charge, either on their own or after having taken advice from the CPS.
The scenario outlined here could easily have happened in England too if further evidence had come to light.
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"I don't think Tommy Robinson would agree with you."
He fucked with a trial. Twice. After being convicted the first time, got a suspended sentence and told to stay away from court. Then did it again.
Contempt of court is a serious offence. Seen an ex-cop do it deliberately (twice) to cause a mistrial, and then get four years for perverting the course of justice.
What he was doing (filming defendants and publishing their details) can cause a mistrial. Thus if you want the accused to get convicted the last thing you want to do is allow the to get off on a technicality.
I don't understand why he gets any sympathy from anyone. He's essentially trying to allow some real scum bags off the hook, then blame the system for locking him up and not them.
The trials he is "reporting" on will get a bunch of media attention once they conclude, based on what happened with the other child grooming cases. I would also expect that while many of those accused will be convicted, there will be a few who are not, or at least not on the most serious of charges.
Of course, he won't get any attention that way. Hence why he's getting himself arrested, so he can claim he's being oppressed.
The right to a fair trial and presumption of innocence is something that extends to all people. We can't just wash our hands off it when the crime (or the colour of the defendant) offends us.
Once they've had that, and a court has found them guilty, then he can go all "journalist" on them. He can record and write all he likes, just not publish until the end of the trial. He could even have detailed the allegations *before* the trial started, but that's something an actual journalist might do.
umm in the UK they can charge and take you to court, then drop, change and add charges on a daily basis until they find a loophole or uncovered subject in your carefully prepared defence. The UK courts allows the abuse of both evidence rules by the CPS and Bail rules by the police. I personally have seen both occurring.Make no mistake, the UK legal system is just as bent and crooked as the US one.
> Make no mistake, the UK legal system is just as bent and crooked as the US one.
And now, of course, severely under-resourced. If you need a duty solicitor you might be lucky to find one, and may end up sat in custody for 20 odd hours while they try to arrange transport for the custody hearing because the local court has been closed.
The american legal system is a heap of shite, but you're right in that ours really isn't far behind in many different ways
Neither of them.
I don't know enough about the case, but it wouldn't surprise me to see either:
- trumped up charges being made (no pun intended r.e. America)
- a "security researcher" with a foot both sides of the line
or, you know, both.
As to whether any of that applies here? I don't know, and I'm going to leave judgement to those who do know more, and hope that they get it right.
- a "security researcher" with a foot both sides of the line
I doubt there are many people who work with computers who have not donned both a black and white hat, more so those working in security research.... how many security researchers start their career while a teenager with a harmless crack !!
I doubt there are many people who work with computers who have not donned both a black and white hat
You could be right. I worked for years as a data recovery engineer and software developer. We also wrote forensic software and the company was a major player in computer forensics throughout the 90s and early 00s.
But while at Polytechnic in the 80s I wrote a virus for CP/M. I don't think anyone's going to want to bring charges about that though :)
"If I was on the jury, I know who I would believe at this moment in time."
If you were on the jury, you would have something that none of us have right now -- actual evidence and information.
At this moment, I don't believe (or disbelieve) either of them. I know nothing outside of what's appeared in the press, and none of that amounts to anything more than what each side is claiming to be true.
"If I was on the jury"
If you were in the jury pool, one side or the other would do their utmost to have you rejected. You appear to know something about technology and that would hinder some attorney's ability to submit garbage into evidence and have it accepted unquestioned.
They would have him ejected because he's already formed an opinion about the case, which defeats the whole point of a "fair and impartial" jury. Now in a high profile case like say 9/11 finding someone who doesn't have an opinion formed may be difficult, but in a case like this that probably 99% of Americans have not heard of, it is pretty easy to toss people out of the pool who already have their minds made up.
You appear to know something about technology and that would hinder some attorney's ability to submit garbage into evidence and have it accepted unquestioned.
And my naive idealism clings, against all hope, to the completely unrealistic notion that one should be judged "by a jury of one's peers", which in this case would imply, IMHO, inclusion of at least a couple of qualified security researchers who could judge from experience where the aforementioned "fence" stands.
The "Jury Of One's Peers" ... Interesting game that one.
If that were the case, I would be personally judged by None Less than YOU people in any given situation I could think of. I would Oddly Be OK WITH THAT (you blighters ain't so bad).
That's just not reality.
I always though plumbers should be judged by plumbers. Jury of your Peers, right there in the name.
A plumber isn't going to have a Vastly different worldview than we do (our industry moves a lot of shit too) but there's Enough of a difference. A hair-stylist might have a different value-system too. A retiree judging me for dropping a site by hacking it to shut it's fucking bot-net up at 0300 is completely reasonable to some of us but "Bob" isn't going to grok the subtleties and nuances of Responsible Disclosure, and vendor neglection, etc, etc...when I just kick down the damned door and turn off The Bad because I TRIED the "Proper Route", but my New Solution is "Illegal". Why? That bot-net server is ALSO illegal and don't see Law Enforcement, or the owner, so we play these games.
Waste of bloody time when we could be actually fixing things.
Yep Ok I know where this is going.
When law enforcement add a charge of "knowingly deceived or make false statement or lie to.. Police". There are only two circumstances this happens. The first is the police wasted an extraordinary amount of time investigating a bullshit complaint from an individual and they are now charging the individual that made the complaint.
The second is, it is known as a back up charge. A charge added to the original list of offences, which they know that will get thrown out of court and crucified by the magistrate. Leaving them open to a civil suit of false prosecution. The Back up charge is a catch all. Inevitably the person they charge is found guilty or plea guilty to it whilst all the original charges are dropped **. They cop a deferred sentence, the victim actually walking away thinking they are a winner.
All the while the cops are walking away having dodged a bullet, a grilling from the court. A massive law suit and also possibly being prosecuted themselves for abuse of power (illegal arrest/detention) .
** In Australia you cannot proceed with a law suit if you were found guilty of just one offence in the list of charges that resulted from the original arrest. Well you can but you automatically lose.
Indeed so. The cases of Martha Stewart, Michael Flynn, and George Papadopolous spring readily to mind, and there doubtless are many, many others. The potential for such charges, which need not be about statements intended to deceive, explain why the best policy if detained and questioned by police is to say nothing beyond what is legally required. In the US, and I suspect in most countries where English law was the starting point, that doesn't go beyond name.
And, of course, request an attorney be present for any questioning and never waive Miranda (US) or comparable rights even momentarily.
Add to that list George Brown, one of the Merrill Lynch bankers jailed for the Nigerian barge case. The four were released on appeal after the judge decided that the "fraud" for which they were convicted wasn't actually a crime under US law, but Brown was arrested charged and convicted of lying to the FBI when in practice the worst that could be said of Brown's testimony was that it was imprecise open to interpretation. Unfortunately for Brown the FBI didn't interpret his statement the way he meant it.
@ Fozzybear: What are you trying to say? If you mean that an individual found not guilty of false charges is also somehow in some mysterious way automatically found guilty of lying to the police, that makes no sense at all: an accusation of lying goes to the heart of any prosecution's attack on an accused's credibility. Your weird contention that it's a 'back up charge' is as much a mystery as your claim that individuals found guilty of lying are found not guilty of everything else. But perhaps they do things differently in Australia??
@vulcan95.
No I am saying that adding a charge of lying to Police is one of those charges that are VERY easy to prove in court. It is a back up charge, a safety net for the prosecution. In A similar scenario where a person is charged with Murder 1st degree and manslaughter. The Murder charge has a higher burden of prove, therefore the manslaughter charge is added as a back up charge. During the trial if you can prove the defendant killed the victim but cannot prove premeditation the defendant would walk a free person if only charged with Murder 1st Degree. The Manslaughter charge is a backup, therefore the defendant would be found not guilty or murder but guilty of manslaughter
Similar scenario here, adding this charge this late in the game means they realise they are highly likely to lose at trail on the existing charges, this charge being so easy to prove in court saves the prosecution of possibility of a civil suit
If this where in the UK that evidence would not even make it to a jury. Under the Police And Criminal Evidence Act otherwise known as PACE it would all be inadmissible. If the Crown Prosecution Service where daft enough to even try and use it the defence barrister would object, the jury would be sent out (so as not to be prejudiced) there would be arguments before the judge who would then rule the evidence was inadmissible.
That said it was not always like this in the UK...
This recent documentary, The Microsoft cyber attack, is enlightening regarding their current and ongoing practices in lobbying. It's a documentary from Germany's international public broadcaster DW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGLS2rSQPQ
"In May 2017, hundreds of thousands of computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems were disabled by the WannaCry cyber attack. How could a single malware program simultaneously cripple companies, hospitals and even government intelligence services all around the globe? Microsoft Windows software programs proved to be their common Achilles heel..."
"Microsoft Windows software programs proved to be their common Achilles heel"
They all had unsecured operating systems exposed to the internet, and were mostly monolithic organisations without seperated internal vpns or security mechanisms in place. But that doesn't make for a snappy headline.
I heard a credible one: that the NHS (parts of it anyway) were vulnerable because of XP computers which had out-of-date protection; despite the fact that the teams who support the kit applied to get paid-for Microsoft protection funded. But funding was cancelled or blocked by guess who? ........
Step forward the Minister for Rhyming slang : J. Hunt.
As ever, Follow the Money. (BTW am I right to think that this "attack" wasn't on the NHS per se, just another oh-I'm-so-clever malware epidemic where NHS was the most public victim ?)
...with this complete inability on the part of a huge number of Americans, from the POTUS down, to accept that they are in the wrong, apologise and move on gracefully?
Instead they keep trying to invent new, and ever wilder, claims to try and prove themselves right; the main upshot of which is to cause much eye-rolling and comments of "Really?!" from the RotW
Presumably, having been shown to be wrong beyond any reasonable doubt, the FBI now need to find retroactive justification by getting their victim to seek to plea bargain (on the reasonable chance there is a selected jury that knows squat about computers but buys into the idea the evil English guy sat before them is trying to make their computers kill them, so says the well-paid besuited prosecutor), which apart from rational risk reduction, is a similacrum for guilt in the American euphemistically-misnamed 'justice' system.
Oh no, that's not at all true.
Brits are also the genteel supporting character calmly sipping tea while all hell breaks loose (Blythe, Cavendish, et. al. from The Great Escape), the sage confidant (Alfred from any Batman movie), or preverts (Capt. Mandrake from Dr. Strangelove). Brits have a wide spectrum of stereotypical roles to play!
"a selected jury that knows squat about computers but buys into the idea the evil English guy sat before them is trying to make their computers kill them, so says the well-paid besuited prosecutor),"
A jury likely made up of people who grew up in the era when the "bad guys" in the films were almost always brits with clipped accents?
"with this complete inability on the part of a huge number of Americans, from the POTUS down, to accept that they are in the wrong, apologise and move on gracefully?"
Many of our own politicians are no better.
But US colleagues have in the past offered an explanation: the US school system along with ambulance chasing lawyers. The school system (as our Public Schools did in Imperial days) teaches children that Americans are unique and exceptional and everybody else is inferior; and it teaches them to make sales presentations rather than discuss. Ambulance chasing lawyers translates as "never admit anything that might cost you money."
"LOL where do you guys get this stuff?? Sales presentations vs. debates REALLY cracked me up"
As I said, I was channelling two Americans I used to work with, one our R&D director and the other a marketing guy who subsequently moved to the UK to get a better education for his children.
I'm afraid this may have been a mistake on his and his wife's part, but debate is all about context. Having a school "debate" on evolution where all the kids know that supporting it will be a mistake is not the same as teaching critical thinking (a specific complaint at the time.)
I am sure that there are plenty of excellent teachers in schools in the US who are allowed to do their stuff without political or religious interference. There are plenty of Americans who worry about American exceptionalism and the long term problems. But my post was in answer to why exceptionalism exists to such an extent in the US.
" What is it...
...with this complete inability on the part of a huge number of Americans, from the POTUS down, to accept that they are in the wrong, apologise and move on gracefully?"
Wait: you're talking about Democrats and Mueller and the invisible non-smoking Russia gun? Or are you talking about all the evidence that Clinton keep a personal email server, was advised against it, yet continued to use it?
"this complete inability on the part of a huge number of Americans, from the POTUS down, to accept that they are in the wrong"
I wonder how much of it is due to the competitive nature of Americans- the socially-instilled need to win at all costs- to be seen to win at all costs- taking priority even if that's at the expense of being in the wrong. (#)
It would also explain the approach of prosecutors in court cases like this, turning what should (in an ideal world) be an attempt to ascertain the guilt- or otherwise- of the defendant and background of the crime into a blatant attempt to strongarm them into admitting guilt regardless of whether or not that's the case.
(Though as someone else noted, in the US such people are often wannabe politicians operating with their mind on that first and foremost).
(#) Not that this is a specifically American trait in general- it seems to be pretty universal in human beings to some extent- but I've no doubt that the American system and mentality amplifies and encourages this natural tendency significantly.
He noticed that the malware was querying for a domain and getting NXDOMAIN responses. He then registered that domain and was incredibly lucky to find that it stopped the spread. It could equally as easily triggered something worse.
It's also not what I'd call reverse engineering; he just watched wireshark and had a hunch.
.
That being said, there still doesn't seem to be any reason for the FBI to charge him with any of this shit.
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