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back to article Pwned Hacking Team tells cops, govts to shut down software

Flayed surveillance outfit Hacking Team is telling customers to suspend running instances of its software after 400GB of its source code and internal data was stolen and posted online. The Milan company sells spy software to law enforcement agencies, and has been accused by activist groups of happily signing up oppressive …

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  1. Mark 85

    It's almost a pity

    that the NSA isn't a customer... or any of the snooping agencies of the 5-eyes or other major players. The irony would be well worth the belly laugh. On the other hand, it could be that the agencies were feeding them useful info so that the rest of world can know the benefits of surveillance.

    4 1 Reply
    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's almost a pity

      It's being reported that the FBI, DEA and US Army all paid them money for software.

      Bit of a waste of taxpayer's money when they could have got better help from the NSA.

      3 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        Re: It's almost a pity

        Yeah, for free, because that's their job.

        2 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's almost a pity

        No, it would be a waste of taxpayer money if the NSA used its 'weapons' designed for 'special' targets to chase common criminals or low end targets, for which less 'strategic weapons' could be used easily, without exposing more expensive capabilities, and revealing them to 'enemies'.

        It's exactly the same reason, for example, that classified satellite imagery is not used to track and spot common criminals, you don't want to make known how far your capabilities go.

        You all should really stop watching the ridiculous 007 movies...

        2 1 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "We would expect this to be a relatively short suspension of service"

    Just what sort of interval is a "relatively short" one. A week, a year, a century? Forever hopefully.

    6 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Backdoor

    People have already been posting source code snippets to Twitter that show HT put backdoors in their own software. So I guess it's critical that police/governments/whoever shutdown that software before other people start using those backdoors to watch the watchers.

    4 0 Reply
  4. thomas k

    countries with patchy human rights records

    "countries with patchy human rights records... including Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan." and "Western government agencies including ..."

    Sorry, not quite seeing the distinction there.

    9 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: countries with patchy human rights records

      Most western countries no longer play 'how long does it take two men to dig half a hole.'

      2 0 Reply
  5. LucreLout

    Savage?

    Documents revealed in the huge cache made public yesterday after the company was savagely hacked

    Why is it that the word Savage is now being applied to absolutely everything in the most inappropriate instances?

    Savagely hacked - not really, just hacked. This hack wasn't cruel or vicious. No more so than any other hack leading to a data leak. and it certainly wasn't uncivilized or uncontrolled.

    6 0 Reply
    1. NotBob
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Re: Savage?

      One might argue that the hack was less savage than the average attack, given the nature of the target...

      1 0 Reply
  6. Frumious Bandersnatch

    ta an piast tar éis casadh

    Reminds me of this old phrase I remember from Irish... literally, "the worm has turned".

    1 0 Reply

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