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Comment by blahblahthrow | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this talk, the person in question wrote stalkerware and acknowledged it would be used for abusing women. The title is misleading, the EFF isn't "publicly shaming individuals", they're talking about one case where someone wrote highly unethical software.

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He wrote a R.A.T. There are lots of R.A.T.s out there and this is nothing out of the ordinary. It's a common research project. People decided to take issue with the fact that it has a webcam capture feature, like any other modern RAT, and blew it way out of proportion.

His software isn't targeting stalking women. You can use Facebook to abuse women too if you want.

I remember that the EFF used to defend programmers freedom against the government's arguments that hacking tools / exploits could be misused and should be regulated. What happened? This seems like a total reversal of position.

edit: according to this thread, the EFF is indeed full of shit. Sad. https://twitter.com/pwnsdx/status/1192459212611342336

EFF threw grugq and every exploit developer under the bus way back in 2011 or 2012 when they literally made up a quote attributed to grugq where they claimed he said "the only reason I don't sell exploits to the Middle East is that they don't pay enough".

He had to clarify his position stating which governments he sold exploits to and why (basically only Five Eyes).

TBH, the infosec industry is full of (vipers) people posturing, trying to protect their secret knowledge and exert control over who has what capabilities (just like traditional government spies do). The author's mistake was open sourcing his RAT and putting it on GitHub.

> and acknowledged it would be used for abusing women

There is a tweet a few down in the linked thread of the author asking where he said that with no response.

Actually there is a response.

  Yes Sr's. In "Hack me if you can" "Hackeame si puedes"
  Documentary @DarkCoderSc says that he think Darkcomet can
  used for script kiddies (hackers) for spy friends and
  GIRLFRIENDS for fun and not for cyberwarfare or spy.

https://twitter.com/JosueOrtizNovoa/status/11924879575270563...

* formatting the quote correctly

What did he say in that documentary?

He asked "where did you saw / heard me saying “I knew DarkComet would be used for spying on girlfriends and that’s fine”?"

Does he say "an that's fine" (or equivalent) in the documentary? Or just aknowledge that it's possible?

The person who made the tweet claiming the author said that (and is also on stage) that he is asking for clarification on is the EFF's Director of Cybersecurity herself too.

Here you go: https://twitter.com/evacide/status/1192489533071384579?s=20

I haven't watched the linked video but that's the answer to the question.

> [...] they're talking about one case where someone wrote highly unethical software.

It is worse. Oxygen, a chemical substance, is used by highly immoral human beings, such as Kim Jong-un, to breathe, and continue living and causing havoc on the oppressed North Koreans. These immoral human beings are also eating and drinking. Cars are used to kill people as well. iFixit toolsets could also be used for this purpose. CPUs and other hardware are being used to exploit Chinese citizens via GFW and cameras. Meanwhile, evil girlfriends can abuse RATs to spy on their boyfriends as well.

Instead of these ridiculous narratives we need to look at

1) The main purpose of a tool.

2) The relative abuse of the tool, or collateral damage, and the impact of such abuse and damage.

Which is why the above examples, and OpenSSH Server as well, are each bad examples.

It is a lot more difficult, to be nuanced. I'd like to learn more about the exact software, and where it was advertised back in the days (2012 apparently). Was it legitimately used?

could, not would. Knifes can be used to stab people, cars to run them over, large glass bottle can bludgeon. Are they also "highly unethical" objects?

Actually I have been using as a drop in replacement of RDP back in the days and it was pretty decent, bad people will misuse all kind of tools but especially the ones that facilitate their crimes (see also Tor)

That’s crap. I have a set of knives in my kitchen that can be used to abuse women.

Oh wait, they can be used to abuse anyone.

Oh wait, everyone has a set of knives.

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