“Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age,” Jennifer Valentino-Devries and Danny Yadron report for The Wall Street Journal. “Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links—techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals.”
“People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with suspects who use new communications technology, including some types of online chat and encryption tools,” Valentino-Devries and Yadron report. “The use of such communications, which can’t be wiretapped like a phone, is called ‘going dark’ among law enforcement.”
Valentino-Devries and Yadron report, “The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.’s Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Which OS(es) are these laptops running?
“Surveillance technologies are coming under increased scrutiny after disclosures about data collection by the National Security Agency,” Valentino-Devries and Yadron report. “The NSA gathers bulk data on millions of Americans, but former U.S. officials say law-enforcement hacking is targeted at very specific cases and used sparingly.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Applepostle” for the heads up.]
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