Judge: FBI's NIT Warrant Invalid And IP Addresses Do Have An Expectation Of Privacy, But No Suppression Granted

from the good-findings-mixed-with-questionable-conclusions dept

Thanks to the FBI's one-to-many NIT warrant, which was issued in Virginia but reached thousands of computers all over the world, yet another federal judge is dealing with the fallout of the feds' efficiency. Michigan federal judge Thomas Ludington finds plenty he doesn't like about the FBI's malware and the DOJ's defense of it, but still can't quite find enough to warrant suppression of the evidence [PDF link].

Properly stated, the question here is whether the FBI’s NIT warrant so exceeded the limits of the magistrate judge’s jurisdiction and authority or reasonable behavior by law enforcement as to require suppression to deter similar actions in the future. Although the NIT warrant exceeded the scope of Rule 41(b) as it existed at the time, the FBI’s actions in investigating and closing Playpen were reasonable and directed toward securing the judicial review of law enforcement which the Fourth Amendment contemplates. Given the circumstances, suppression is not appropriate.

That being said, the opinion does offer plenty of counters to the DOJ's legal rationale -- something that other defendants in the FBI's massive Playpen investigation might find useful. The court, like others, finds the FBI exceeded the jurisdictional limitations of Rule 41 and no amount of creative phrasing is going to change that.

None of the three bases in Rule 41(b) provided jurisdiction for the magistrate judge to approve the warrant. Rule 41(b)(1) cannot serve as the basis for jurisdiction. Under that provision, a magistrate judge can issue a warrant to seize property “located in the district.” Here, the server housing Playpen had been transported to Virginia by the FBI, but the NIT involved the transmission of information from that server to computers located around the country and then back to the server. The relevant information (or “property”8 ) was the information requested by the NIT from the user’s computer. The NIT cannot be reasonably construed as seizing information “located in the district” even if the request for the information originated from a server in Virginia.

[...]

Even if Kahler had some contact with the Playpen server located in Virginia, the information sought by the NIT was all located in Michigan. The mere fact that the information from outside the district was brought into the district cannot satisfy Rule 41(b)(2). If that scenario was sufficient, then there would effectively be no jurisdictional limit on warrants for seizure of personal property, because property can typically be moved.

It also finds -- during its discussion of Rule 41 limitations -- that the DOJ can't justify its defective warrant by claiming the software was merely a "tracking device." The NIT pulled information from a computer -- including information that would ID the user -- and left nothing behind to track further computer "movements." That changes the purpose -- and the scope -- of the intrusion.

The receipt of the username associated with the computer’s operating system goes beyond simple location data to descriptive data regarding the identity of the user. The NIT is more than just a “tracking device”; it is a surveillance device.

Additionally, the entire purpose of the NIT was to interact with a computer and obtain information that was located in another district. Even though the NIT was nominally installed on the Playpen Server, the NIT’s “tracking” functionality occurred in other districts. Finally, the purpose of the NIT was to discover the location of the users accessing Playpen, not track their movement.

The government also argued that even if the warrant was faulty, it was ultimately unnecessary because the information obtained fell under the Third Party Doctrine. The court disagrees (nodding to the Supreme Court's Riley decision), finding that efforts users make to cloak their identity -- even while engaging in criminal activity -- generates a layer of privacy protection under the Fourth Amendment.

The Government argues that, despite using a software which exists only to veil the user’s IP address from prying eyes, the user has no reasonable privacy interest in his or her IP address. This argument has little to recommend it. If a user who has taken special precautions to hide his IP address does not suffer a Fourth Amendment violation when a law enforcement officer compels his computer to disclose the IP address, the operating system, the operating system username, and other identifying information, then it is difficult to imagine any kind of online activity which is protected by the Fourth Amendment. Internet use pervades modern life. Law enforcement, acting alone, may not coerce the computers of internet users into revealing identifying information without a warrant, at least when the user has taken affirmative steps to ensure that third parties do not have that information.

This contrasts with other decisions dealing with the same subject matter, where judges have found there's no expectation of privacy in IP addresses, even when one has taken extra steps to obscure it. Those findings seem logically contradictory, at best. If someone's attempts to keep third parties from obtaining information, this information can't truly be considered held by a third party. Stripping away these efforts turns the FBI into the "third party," and the government isn't allowed to both act as a third party and excuse its actions with the Third Party Doctrine.

But in the end, there's no suppression. As the court points out, two things weigh against suppressing the evidence, even with the warrant being facially invalid under Rule 41. First, the FBI malware only infected registered users visiting the dark web child porn site, which makes the possibility of accidental infection almost nonexistent. Second, the fact that the FBI had no idea where the site's visitors were actually located makes this an inelegant solution to a problem, not a case of judge-shopping for compliant magistrates.

[T]his is not a case where the FBI purposely avoided compliance with the law. The investigation of Playpen was difficult precisely because the FBI had so little information about the location of the users. If the FBI had known where certain users were located but nevertheless chose to seek a warrant in another district, suppression would be appropriate. In that case, the FBI would have purposely skirted the law despite a legal alternative. Kahler’s arguments, if accepted, would imply that the FBI should not have conducted the NIT investigation at all because the users were masking their true location. The FBI’s decision to adopt novel tactics to bring individuals distributing child pornography behind location-concealing software to justice is not inherently troubling behavior.

In the future, the FBI won't have to deal with nearly as many suppression hearings, thanks to changes to Rule 41. These decisions are becoming relics of statutorial limitiations almost as soon as they're issued. Even if courts find the malware deployment to be a search invasive enough to trigger Fourth Amendment protections, the lack of jurisdictional limits going forward will prevent them from being challenged.

Unfortunately, the rule changes are almost guaranteed to encourage more frequent deployments of tools designed to decloak anonymous internet users. The breadth and reach of these warrants will be almost unchecked and that's bad news for activists, dissidents, and others who just want to stay off the internet grid. Sure, it's also bad news for child porn fans, but child porn, terrorism, drug warring, etc. is where these efforts start. It's seldom where they end.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, doj, fbi, malware, nit, playpen, warrant

FBI Dismisses Child Porn Prosecution After Refusing To Hand Over Details On Its Hacking Tool

from the extreme-tactics,-voluntary-dismissals dept

The FBI has decided to let one of its Playpen defendants walk rather than turn over information on its Network Investigative Technique. The NIT, deployed all over the world on the back of a single warrant obtained in Virginia, unmasked Tor users by dropping code on Playpen visitors' computers that sent back IP addresses and other information about the user's computer.

The warrant itself has been ruled invalid by a number of judges presiding over Playpen prosecutions, although not all of them have determined that the evidence obtained by the NIT should be suppressed. The FBI not only sent malware to site visitors, but it also ran (and possibly improved) the child porn website for two weeks while pursuing its investigation.

Michaud's lawyer asked the court to force the FBI to hand over information on the NIT. The FBI countered, saying it wouldn't turn over the information even if ordered to do so. Judge Bryan, after an in camera session with the agency, agreed with the government that there was a law enforcement need to keep the details of the tool secret. But he also made it clear the government couldn't have both its secrecy and its evidence. He ordered all evidence suppressed.

With all evidence deriving from the forced exposure of Michaud's IP address, there was nothing left for the government to work with. It could have voluntarily turned over information to Michaud's defense lawyer for examination, but has chosen instead [PDF] to let Michaud go free. (h/t Andrew Crocker)

On June 23, 2016, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington filed a protective Notice of Appeal to preserve the right of the United States to pursue an interlocutory appeal of the order of the district court granting the defense motion to compel and finding, as a remedy for the refusal to comply that the evidence of the Network Investigative Technique (NIT), the search warrant issued on the basis of that evidence and the fruits of that search should all be suppressed.

Upon further review within the Department of Justice or the Court’s order and the record in the case, the United States has concluded that this appeal should not be pursued. It is for that reason that the United States now respectfully requests that this appeal be dismissed.

The FBI is developing quite the reputation for dropping prosecutions in the face of challenges of its secret tools and techniques. The NDAs it hands out to every law enforcement agency seeking to purchase Stingrays not only tells them to obscure the device's use, but to let suspects walk if it seems some of this info might make its way into the courtroom.

What's more problematic here is the FBI/DOJ's two-faced stance on these issues. The FBI argues in court (often obtaining the court's agreement) that these questionable tactics (deploying malware, warrants that ignore jurisdictional limits, running child porn sites rather than shutting them down, etc.) are justified because the people it's going after (child porn viewers/distributors) are that terrible. But then it turns around and lets the very bottom of its basket of criminal suspect deplorables go free rather than hand over information to the defense. It does this even though the defense, the judge, and the DOJ would do all they could to protect as much of the NIT information as possible, including sealing documents and redacting those that are published.

Fortunately, the judge presiding over this case wasn't going to let the FBI have 100% secrecy and 100% of the derived evidence. And that has resulted in a voluntary dismissal of someone the government clearly felt was enough of a criminal menace that its extreme tactics were justified.

Filed Under: child porn, doj, evidence, fbi, hacking, jay michaud, nit, playpen

Judge Says FBI's Child Porn Investigation Bordered On 'Outrageous,' Lets It Keep All Of Its Evidence

from the this-troubles-me-but-not-enough-to-actually-do-anything-about-it dept

Another ruling [PDF] has been handed down in the FBI's multitudinous Playpen cases, this one consolidating four defendants in a Washington federal court. While the court does find aspects of the FBI's child pornography distribution unpleasant, it's not enough to result in anything more than some stern words. All evidence remains unsuppressed and all motions to compel discovery are denied. (h/t Brad Heath)

This was everything that was done with a single, Virginia-issued warrant.

For approximately 14 days, from February 20, 2015 through March 4, 2015, the FBI administered Website A from a government-controlled computer server located in Virginia, which forwarded a copy of all website communications to FBI personnel in Linthicum, Maryland. Once deployed by the Government, the NIT gathered approximately nine thousand IP addresses, approximately seven thousand of which were associated with computers in one of more than one-hundred countries other than United States. Dkt. 90-1 at 3, 5. The FBI maintains that it did not post content itself, but concedes that it allowed registered users to access the site, view and download child pornographic content for distribution, and post new content, including 44 “new” series of data. Id. at 3. Some website users commented on technical improvements to the site while under FBI control. Dkt. 90-3. A NIT has been relied on by the FBI in at least twenty-three other investigations. Dkt. 100.

Following this, the court explains that the FBI's in camera, ex parte submissions justify its refusal to release more information on its NIT. Because of the nature of the submissions, there's obviously not much to be gleaned from this "discussion," other than it won't be happening.

From there, the court lists several FBI activities that could be labeled "outrageous conduct:"

(1) The Government ignored the statute forbidding such conduct: “In any criminal proceeding, any property or material that constitutes child pornography . . . shall remain in the care, custody and control of either the Government or the Court.” 18 U.S.C § 3509(m).

(2) The Government facilitated the continued availability of Website A, a site containing hundreds of child pornographic images for criminal users around the world.

(3) The Government, in fact, improved Website A’s technical functionality.

(4) The Government re-victimized hundreds of children by keeping Website A online.

(5) The Government used the child victims as bait to apprehend viewers of child pornography without informing the victims and without the victims’ permission—or that of their families.

(6) The Government’s actions placed any lawyer involved in jeopardy for violating ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4, and raise serious ethical and moral issues for counsel.

The court even calls out the government for its backward thinking -- that such things shouldn't be considered "outrageous" by courts because the criminals they were after were such terrible people.

The only justification for the acts of the Government, as provided by counsel, is that the end justifies the means, or in the Government’s words, “Because those who create, obtain, trade, distribute and profit from the imagery of the rape and sexual exploitation of children have turned to Tor in an effort to hide their activities, the United States has been forced to employ creative means to unmask the individuals engaging in the destructive and heinous criminal conduct.”

Despite all of this, the court lets the government slide. The balancing test doesn't tip in the defendants' favor. The government can cross many, many lines before the court starts adding tension to the leash. In these consolidated cases, the court doesn't like what it sees in terms of the FBI's actions, but still doesn't see enough to dismiss the charges.

Not only that, but the court finds that the violations of Rule 41 jurisdictional limits and alleged lack of probable cause should have no effect on the collected evidence. The information collected by the NIT -- namely, the suspects' IP addresses -- has "no expectation of privacy." Anything else that colored outside the lines of statutes and laws can be excused through the good faith exception. The NIT warrant was facially valid, according to the court, even if the agent filing the affidavit may have known the search would exceed jurisdictional limits. The court finds a way around this by citing the DOJ's letter containing its proposed Rule 41 changes (introduced by the defendants as evidence that the DOJ knew it was breaking the rules with the NIT warrant), rather than the expected precedential case law.

The DOJ letter reveals an intent to improve the rule, which does not rule out the possibility that DOJ could have considered Rule 41(b) sufficiently flexible to address changes in technology. See also, Dkt. 104-1. Furthermore, the record is silent as to the magistrate judge’s thoughts regarding the scope of the warrant at the time it was issued, and speculation on that subject is fruitless. The record does not show deliberate disregard.

In the end, the government wins. It gets to walk away from its outrageous conduct with (most likely) four new convictions and nothing but some lightly-singed feelings from an opinion front-loaded with a judicial benchslap. The rest is pretty much history. Whatever cases might fall apart because of what Rule 41 used to be will no longer be an issue in the future, as the DOJ's jurisdiction "fix" is now law.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, child porn, doj, fbi, malware, nit, outrageous, playpen

Thanks To Months Of Doing Nothing, Senate Allows DOJ's Rule 41 Changes To Become Law

from the do-nothing-lawmakers-manage-to-accomplish-something dept

The amendments to Rule 41 are now law, thanks to Sen. John Cornyn, who prevented bills opposing the immediate adoption of the changes from being debated.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Chris Coons (D-Del) took to the floor and unsuccessfully asked for unanimous consent to either pass or formally vote on three bills to delay or prevent updates to the process used by law enforcement to get a warrant to hack suspects' computers.

“We simply can’t give unlimited power for unlimited hacking,” Daines argued.

[...]

But the bid to prevent the imminent changes to Rule 41 ended quickly. After Wyden spoke, Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) immediately objected to all three bills, without waiting to hear from Coons and Daines.

But Cornyn alone can't be blamed for this outcome. A vast majority of senators did nothing to prevent the proposed changes from becoming law -- even though the decision has been in their hands since the Supreme Court's approval in April.

The FBI and others will be able to take advantage of the removal of jurisdictional limits to search computers anywhere in the world using a single warrant issued by a magistrate judge. It will also be granted the same power for use in the disruption of botnets -- in essence, searches/seizures of devices owned by US citizens suspected of no wrongdoing.

Cornyn, who prevented any debate over the "updates" to Rule 41, seems closely aligned with the DOJ's views -- that these changes will have "little effect" on civil liberties because the FBI, etc. "will still have to get a warrant."

Sure, warrants are still involved, but the scope of what can be accessed with a single warrant has been expanded greatly. And the DOJ has yet to explain how it's going to prevent law enforcement agencies from shopping around for the most compliant magistrates, now that they're not required to perform searches in the issuing court's jurisdiction. The DOJ also hasn't adequately explained what sort of notification process it will use when performing its botnet cleanups.

What it has done, however, is issue a statement saying the ends justify the means.

In an effort to address concerns, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell wrote a blog post this week arguing that the benefits given to authorities from the rule changes outweighed any potential for "unintended harm."

The DOJ wanted fewer restrictions, more power, and the opportunity to treat any appearance of anonymization software as an excuse to deploy these newly-granted powers. The Senate -- for the most part -- gave it everything it wanted by doing nothing at all to stop it.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, hacking, john cornyn, nit, ron wyden, rule 41, surveillance, warrants

FBI's NIT Hit 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries... As Did The Child Porn It Was Redistributing

from the any-means-necessary dept

On the other hand, who needs to wait for the Rule 41 changes to kick in?

In January, Motherboard reported on the FBI's “unprecedented” hacking operation, in which the agency, using a single warrant, deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually an order of magnitude larger.

In all, the FBI obtained over 8,000 IP addresses, and hacked computers in 120 different countries, according to a transcript from a recent evidentiary hearing in a related case.

No need to sit back and wait for the DOJ's proposed Rule 41 changes -- including the stripping of jurisdictional limitations for search warrants -- to default their way into adoption on December 1st. This worldwide search, performed under the authority of a single warrant issued by a single judge in Virginia, is just the FBI acting first and asking for forgiveness codification later. From the day two transcript [PDF]:

Every time Your Honor grants a discovery request and we get new information, it's like -- to use an appropriate metaphor, like peeling an onion. There's just another layer of fact there that we did not know about. I mean, we did not know this was a truly global warrant before. There are 120 countries and territories listed outside the United States that the FBI hacked into, and they also hacked into something called a "satellite provider." So now we are into outer space as well.

It's not just the hacking of computers around the world. It's also the FBI's brief stint as perhaps the world's largest distributor of child porn. From the day one transcript [PDF]:

Your Honor, starting with Michaud, and what we know now is there was no discussion of trying to limit the distribution. There were no protocols for these agents for handling or limiting the distribution of child pornography. And the scale of the distribution now went out to at least 120 countries, at least 1 million images. And it is absolutely mind boggling, we have not seen something like this.

And for all the area covered by the investigation -- the number of computers scattered all over the world the FBI sent its NIT to -- there, so far, seems to be very little to show for the agency's efforts. Defense lawyer Colin Fieman:

We have never, in our nation's history as far as I can tell, seen a warrant so utterly sweeping. 100,000 potential targets. Something like 8700 IP addresses captured. At least 1152 open investigations. And now oddly enough only, about 214 arrests.

[...]

What's even more disturbing, even if they disagree about the efficacy of some of those methods, we now know from Agent Alfin's recent testimony which we cited, there was absolutely no discussion at the Department of Justice or the FBI about protocols in terms of handling this stuff or whether these methods of limiting, at least limiting the most egregious distribution were viable. Nobody cared.

Fieman quotes an earlier case dealing with the FBI's physical distribution of child porn in hopes of netting some arrests. The FBI actually created a child porn "catalog," mailed it to sting targets, and sent the targets the child porn they requested. The court in that case was not happy with the FBI's actions.

The Court took it upon itself to make these statements, because they were so troubled by it. So first they start "we are aware of the necessity of such tactics" -- in terms of undercover operations and baiting with contraband -- "we are aware of the necessity of such tactics in so-called victimless crimes such as drug offenses, but the use of these methods when victims are actually harmed" -- and they are talking about the children depicted in these images -- "is inexplicable."

And "moreover" -- this is again Sherman, continuing with the quote from 549 -- "the government's dissemination of the pornographic materials could hardly be described as a 'controlled' delivery." Well, if it's not a controlled delivery where they were able to send it to the defendant and it sat in his house, I think for a period of time, several weeks, and they recovered it ultimately, the scale of lack of control and heedless distribution in this case is mind boggling.

Fieman goes on to point out that on top of ignoring Rule 41 restrictions, on top of acting as child porn distribution kingpins, the FBI's prized NIT could have been delivered and executed without the collateral damage caused by the redistribution of illegal pornographic images.

One of the very troubling things here, as you know from the NIT warrant, the authorization allowed the FBI to deploy the NIT and complete their searches in a matter of a fraction of a second, at the time the targets landed on the home page. So they had authorization to collect all the information they wanted before anybody actually got the content…

Instead, the government kept the site live and not only distributed what was already hosted there, but allowed users to upload new images to be shared and redistributed.

[I] don't know the exact quantity, because all we know from the disclosure is 43 new series [of photos/videos]. But during just that window of time that the FBI was running this site, 43 new series. That means things that haven't been seen from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children were launched onto, uploaded with the assistance of the FBI through their file hosting feature, onto the site, and have now circulated globally and will never be recovered.

So, not only was the FBI unconcerned about Rule 41, but it was also not that worried that it would be contributing to the world's child porn problem during its investigation. And, it should be pointed out that this is the second time the FBI has seized a child porn site only to keep it running. It did the same thing back in 2012, but that one flew almost entirely underneath the judicial radar.

Filed Under: child porn, doj, fbi, malware, nit, playpen

Senators Not Impressed By DOJ's Answers On Rule 41 Changes

from the answer-the-damn-question dept

The DOJ has finally responded to questions posed by several senators about its interpretation of the proposed Rule 41 changes, due to go into effect on December 1st. Arriving shortly before the deadline -- and during the Thanksgiving holiday Black Friday news rush -- the DOJ's letter [PDF] contains a few explanations of its jurisdiction limitation-stripping and roving botnet warrants.

Unfortunately, not much is clarified other than that the DOJ still feels its proposal is nothing more than Rule 41 64-bit -- an update of existing law more in line with today's connected reality. (The DOJ offers no insight on its reluctance to update other outdated laws like the CFAA…) It also appears to believe the Fourth Amendment impact of its "one warrant, thousands of searches" proposal will be minimal and that it will maintain the same level of respect it has shown for privacy protections (also minimal) under the updated rule.

Needless to say, Sen. Wyden and co. aren't impressed by the DOJ's response.

Wyden and Coons were among 11 senators and 12 House members who queried DOJ about the hacking powers expansion last month. The department’s reply, which arrived today, should be “a big blinking warning sign about whether the government can be trusted to carry out these hacks without harming the security and privacy of innocent Americans’ phones, computers and other devices,” Wyden wrote.

The DOJ is still dodging a few questions. One question in particular was completely unaddressed in the DOJ's response. Wyden and his co-signers asked what the DOJ was going to do to prevent forum shopping for compliant judges -- something that would become far more common with jurisdictional limits removed.

The letter does not recount any specific department policies or training that would prevent forum shopping. It does stress police will only be able to seek warrants in districts where activity related to a crime has occurred and that the revised rule uses the same language as existing out-of-district warrant authorities for terrorism cases.

The DOJ either can't answer this or won't answer this. In either case, the lack of response indicates the DOJ isn't interested in preventing law enforcement agencies (like the FBI) from shopping for judges. If there's nothing in place now, it's highly unlikely any guidance will be in place by December 1st. If there is something in place, it's apparently nothing more than a suggestion that law enforcement seek warrants in their own jurisdictions. If the DOJ was truly interested in shutting down forum shopping, it would have begun putting policies in place at any point over the last couple of years while it pursued this "update" of Rule 41.

The letter does say law enforcement agencies won't be able to peek at private files while mucking about the insides of citizens' computers to shut down botnets. But the letter (and the Constitution) both say a lot of things that are great in theory, but less so in practice. Fourth Amendment violations can only be cured by visits to courtrooms, but it's something that's prohibitively expensive and subject to a large number of "GET OUT OF VIOLATION" cards (good faith, plain view, close-but-no-suppression, etc.) issued by presiding judges.

The redux of the changes is still this: if anonymization efforts are made by anyone targeted in a criminal investigation, the FBI, etc. can go find the most compliant judge available to sign off on a single warrant that can be used to search thousands of computers worldwide. It can also do this under the pretext of fighting botnets, performing the same sort of limited search for identifying info, even when all the hundreds or thousands of targets are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

Pretty much the only thing standing between the DOJ's proposal and the December 1st implementation is Congressional members' decision to "opt in" to a shutdown fight -- something the DOJ is clearly hoping won't happen. Wyden's recently-introduced bill would push the adoption back until the middle of next year, but it still requires representatives to express some sort of opinion (yes/no) on rule changes that could easily coast into existence while everyone in Congress is distracted by upcoming holidays and annual budget battles.

Filed Under: chris coons, doj, fbi, hacking, jurisdiction, malware, nit, ron wyden, rule 41

Bill Introduced To Push Back Approval Of DOJ's Proposed Rule 41 Changes

from the buying-time dept

Unless someone steps up to push this off course, the DOJ's proposed changes to Rule 41 will become law December 1. That's the key part: doing something. All that has to happen is nothing for the changes to become law. The December 1st date plays right into the DOJ's hands, arriving between two major holidays when legislators have other things on their minds, including the annual Congressional fisticuffs over the federal budget.

The DOJ says the changes are no big deal. Just an "update" on outdated laws. Oddly, it's never shown any interest in updating any other outdated laws (like the CFAA) or pushed for a reconsideration of the Third Party Doctrine, which traces back nearly four decades. When it comes to expansions of power, though, it's apparently time for some "updating."

The proposed changes would allow the FBI to hack thousands of computers around the world with a single warrant, much like it already did during two child porn investigations. Unfortunately for the FBI, its warrant is being met with successful challenges because the agency clearly violated Rule 41 jurisdictional limitations.

In addition, the DOJ wants permission to break into "compromised" computers and poke around inside them without the permission or knowledge of the owners of these computers. It also wants to treat anything that anonymizes internet users or hides their locations to be presumed acts of a guilty mind. The stripping of jurisdictional limits not only grants the FBI worldwide access for digital seizures and searches, but also encourages it to go venue shopping for judicial rubber stamps.

Earlier this year, Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill aimed at stopping the DOJ's Rule 41 push. Not much has been heard about this bill since, so Wyden (along with Sens. Coons, Lee, Franken, and Daines) has introduced another bill seeking to prevent a "do nothing" approval of expanding hacking/search powers. The "Review the Rule Act" [PDF] is about as succinct as legislation gets. Here's the complete summary of the proposed legislation (via Naked Security):

To delay the amendments to rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Wyden's earlier bill hasn't gained any traction and the hopes of a complete rejection before December 1st are nearly nonexistent. So, this bill just asks for a little more time to discuss the implications of the changes. This would move the default approval date back seven months to July 1, 2017.

This would allow representatives more time to fully consider the DOJ's proposal, freed from the time crunch of major holidays and annual federal budget discussions. There's far too much at stake to simply allow the DOJ to roll its Rule 41 ball downhill and past a distracted Congress. Many legislators like procrastination as much as they like not doing anything, so signing off on this proposal shouldn't require much effort, mental or otherwise.

Filed Under: congress, doj, fbi, hacking, nit, ron wyden, rule 41, warrant

Unsealed Warrant Shows FBI Malware Affected Innocent Tor Users While Agency Ran More Than 20 Child Porn Sites

from the supporting-justifications-cited:-1.-the-ends dept

Thanks to the ACLU's push to unseal documents related to the FBI's targeting of TorMail users and Freedom Hosting, the warrant affidavits supporting its NIT deployment have been released by the agency. Joseph Cox of Motherboard reports:

In 2013, the FBI received permission to hack over 300 specific users of dark web email service TorMail. But now, after the warrants and their applications have finally been unsealed, experts say the agency illegally went further, and hacked perfectly legitimate users of the privacy-focused service.

“That is, while the warrant authorized hacking with a scalpel, the FBI delivered their malware to TorMail users with a grenade,” Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Motherboard in an email.

The 99-page affidavit [PDF] is lightly-redacted but contains some completely uncensored and surprising admissions from the agency. Contrary to its post-release statements about the scope of the "narrowly-tailored" warrant not being exceeded, the actual contents show the deployment of the NIT to unmask Tor users is much more aligned with Soghoian's "grenade" description.

As Cox points out, the TorMail affidavit [PDF] says the NIT would only be delivered to logged-in, specifically-targeted TorMail users.

[T]he NIT… will be deployed on the TARGET ACCOUNTS while the TARGET ACCOUNTS operate in the District of Maryland, to investigate any user who logs into any of the TARGET ACCOUNTS by entering a username and password.

In reality, the deployment occurred the moment a user landed on any site utilizing Freedom Hosting -- not just the child porn sites the FBI had taken control of. And the number of sites the FBI was running during this investigation is staggering.

According to the new documents, the NIT was used against users of 23 separate websites.

If you thought the FBI's admin efforts for two separate child porn websites (in two investigations spaced a couple of years apart) were questionable, you have to wonder about the morality (or legality) of the US government becoming one of the world's largest distributor of child pornography. Researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis notes that, according to her numbers, the FBI could have been operating close to half (if not more) of the child porn websites in existence.

And, as for the claims the FBI didn't exceed the scope of the warrant: that's clearly not true. The warrant was issued in Maryland and was delivered to users all over the world. The supporting affidavit contains descriptions of one site apparently located in Hungary, but never makes any attempt to limit the FBI efforts to within US borders, much less Maryland.

The NIT violated Rule 41 limitations and then exceeded the FBI's own assertions about targeting specific users. It continues to deploy the same malware against Tor users with a similar lack of concern for jurisdictional restrictions or its implicit invitation for foreign law enforcement agencies to engage in the same tactics against US citizens.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, child porn, doj, fbi, malware, nit, playpen, warrant

Judge Orders FBI To Turn Over Information On How Many People Around The World It Snagged With Its Playpen NIT

from the malware-whereabouts dept

This might be big, depending on how much of this information is passed on to the general public, rather than delivered ex parte or under seal. Joseph Cox of Vice/Motherboard was the first to snag this ruling [PDF] by a Washington district court judge ordering the FBI to turn over tons of info about the NIT it deployed in the Playpen child porn investigation.

As we're already aware, the NIT was deployed by the FBI in Virginia but obtained identifying information about Tor-cloaked site visitors not just all over this country, but all over the world. The motion to compel discovery asked for several details about the NIT and its deployment and most of them have been granted.

Here's the full list (with additional commentary):

1. All records related to the Government’s review and approval of Operation Pacifier.

The Court has taken this discovery request under advisement. An order is soon forthcoming.

2. Copies of any reports made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding child pornography posted on the Playpen web site.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

3. Copies of any notifications that were sent to victims by the Government for obtaining restitution related to images that were posted on, or distributed from, the Playpen web site.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

4. The number of new images and videos (i.e. content not previously identified by NCMEC) that was posted on the site between February 20, 2015 and March 5, 2015.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

(This information -- whether or not actually useful in suppression motions -- should at least provide some insight into how much additional child porn made its way to site visitors as a result of the FBI's decision to seize [and act as administrators of] the server, rather than shut it down. Information obtained in other court cases suggests the FBI not only acted as hosts during the NIT deployment, but actually made the site faster and more responsive.)

5. The names of all agents, contractors or other personnel who assisted with relocating, maintaining and operating Playpen while it was under Government control.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

6. Copies of all notes, emails, reports, postings, etc. related to the maintenance, administration and operation of Playpen between February 20, 2015 and March 5, 2015.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

(Again, this info could confirm whether or not the FBI improved the child porn site's performance during its two-week turn as administrators, as well as provide additional insight into how much child porn distribution was aided and abetted by the agency.)

7. Copies of all legal memoranda, emails and other documents related to the legality of the FBI’s operation of Playpen (and the distribution of child pornography by the Government), including requests for agency/departmental approvals of the undercover operation of Playpen and any communications with Main Justice or the Office of General Counsel at the FBI.

The Court has taken this discovery request under advisement. An order is soon forthcoming.

(This would be the government's legal rationale for running a child porn site rather than shutting it down. Chances are this will remain under seal and is probably FOIA-proof, as most legal guidance documents are.)

8. Copies of all correspondence, referrals and other records indicating whether the exploit used in the Playpen operation has been submitted by the FBI or any other agency to the White House’s Vulnerability Equities Process (VEP) and what, if any, decision was made by the VEP.

The Court has taken this discovery request under advisement. An order is soon forthcoming.

(Little is known about the government's actual handling of the VEP. On one hand, we have public statements which pay lip service to not screwing US companies by hoarding vulnerabilities. On the other hand, we have the exact opposite in practice.)

9. Copies of invoices and other documents for the hosting facility/facilities where the Government operated the Playpen server, the server from which the Government delivered the NIT malware and the server that NIT targets sent their identifying information back to, including documents revealing whether the Government informed the hosting provider(s) that child pornography would be stored in their facility or transmitted over their networks.

Defendants’ motions are granted. To the extent that the Playpen hosting provider was the Government, not a private party, it appears there may not be much discovery responsive to this request.

(There may be nothing here. Or there could be third party hosts involved who were never informed about their participation in the FBI's sting operation. If so, fun times ahead for the US government.)

10. The number of Playpen-related investigations that have been initiated but did not result in criminal charges, beyond the approximately 200 cases now pending across the country.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

(Another can of worms the FBI would probably like to remain closed. According to the government's own arguments in these cases, users would have connected to the site for a single purpose: to engage in criminal activity. A lack of charges would be a surprise and somewhat undermine the government's assertions about the criminal intent of visitors to the site.)

11. The total number of IP addresses and MAC IDs that were seized during the time the FBI was operating Playpen, over and above those related to these approximately 200 pending cases.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

12. The number of IP addresses and MAC IDs obtained during the investigation from foreign computers and the countries in which this data was obtained.

Defendants’ motions are granted.

(These are the potential goldmine. This will show how far-flung the FBI's net actually was, as well as provide more ammo for suppression motions predicated on Rule 41 jurisdictional limitations. The FBI is well aware it can't perform searches outside the jurisdiction covered by the warrant, but it chose to do so anyway. So far, its evidence has mostly held up, thanks to courts deciding suppression isn't the correct remedy, or crediting the FBI for unearned "good faith." The FBI and DOJ are pushing for changes to Rule 41 that eliminate the jurisdictional limits, so it's disingenuous for the agency to claim its agents acted in good faith when securing the warrant.)

This now becomes the Playpen case to watch, even if most of this information is likely to remain in the hands of defense lawyers only. Dismissal and suppression motions will contain references to the content of these documents, however, which will shed more light on the FBI's NIT deployment and its child porn site administration.

Filed Under: doj, eavesdropping, fbi, malware, nit, playpen, rule 41, warrants

Two More Courts Find In Favor Of The FBI And Its NIT Warrant; No Suppression Granted

from the malware-deployment-is-a-go dept

Two more rulings on suppression motions in FBI Playpen cases have been handed down. (h/t Riana Pfefferkorn) The ruling [PDF] in Tennessee agrees with the defendant that the FBI's NIT warrant exceeded Rule 41 jurisdiction limits. The following quotes are from the more substantive "Report and Recommendation" [PDF] by the magistrate judge, which has been adopted by the court overseeing the criminal trial.

The undersigned agrees with the majority of courts to analyze the Virginia search warrant that it violates Rule 41(b) because the magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia lacked authority to issue a search warrant to search property located outside of her district.

Defendant’s computer was never located in the Eastern District of Virginia. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b)(1) & (2). Moreover, the FBI was not investigating a crime of terrorism in the Eastern District of Virginia, nor was it attempting to seize property located in a United States territory or foreign state. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b)(3) & (5). The Government argues that Rule 41(b)(4) is persuasive because the NIT is analogous to a tracking device, which was installed on the Defendant’s computer when his electronic transmission “touched down” in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Playpen was hosted. However, as observed by the Western District of Washington, applying Rule 41(b)(4) to the Virginia warrant “stretches the rule too far…"

That being said, the court decides suppression is not the right remedy for this violation:

In balancing the present facts and circumstances, the magistrate judge first correctly concluded that suppressing the evidence in this case would not meaningfully deter future law enforcement misconduct. The defendant’s objections that officers acted deliberately, recklessly, or with gross negligence, and that it should have been apparent to law enforcement that the Virginia magistrate lacked authority to sign the warrant, are simply unsupported by the record.

[...]

To the extent that there was error in this investigation, such error “rests with the issuing magistrate, not the police officer, and ‘punish[ing] the errors of judges’ is not the office of the exclusionary rule.”

Interestingly (and a bit infuriatingly), the court grants good faith to the FBI for its apparent inability to fully comprehend the "intricacies of the jurisdictions of federal magistrates." This gives the FBI credit for pretending to misunderstand the very statutes it's in the process of trying to change. The FBI -- and the DOJ above it -- very much want the jurisdictional limitations of Rule 41 removed precisely for cases like these: where a search and seizure is performed on remote computers located far outside the jurisdiction where the warrant was issued.

The Nebraska decision [PDF] is much, much worse. First, the court finds there's no expectation of privacy in an IP address, even if the defendant has taken affirmative steps to obscure it.

With or without Tor, Defendant was sharing his IP address with others—total strangers, to potentially include law enforcement officers—with the hope and belief that the users of the first “node” computer would keep his IP address secret. While Defendant’s choice to use Tor may be evidence of his “actual, (subjective) expectation of privacy” in his IP address, using Tor does not elevate that expectation to “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’”

Not only that, but the court rules the NIT is not a search (nor a "tracking device," as the government argued in the Tennessee case), even though it had to extract this information from the user's computer.

But deploying the NIT to reveal the IP address was not a computer search. Defendant’s IP address is not a “physical component” of the computer or a file residing on his computer like electronic documents or pictures. Rather, the IP address is assigned to a user by the ISP and typically is “maintained on the internet modem that connects an internet device to the internet.” Thus, the NIT essentially compelled Defendant’s computer to produce its IP address (similar to a return address on an envelope) when the NIT instructed the computer to send other information identified in the Virginia Warrant. And the NIT was deployed only after Defendant sought out and visited the Playpen website. “The FBI did not come looking for Defendant. Instead it waited until he came to them and engaged in illicit activity by downloading content from Playpen.”

And here we have another reason why digital-to-analog so often fails. Comparing the compelled production of an IP address to a return address on an envelope is a non-starter because utilizing the postal service does not require the use of a return address, whereas an internet connection almost always requires an IP address.

Worse, the opinion cites Virginia judge Henry Morgan Jr.'s decision in another Playpen case -- where he asserted the FBI could hack computers with invalid warrants because, hey, computers get hacked all the time.

See also Matish, --- F. Supp. 3d ---, 2016 WL 3545776 at *22-24 (holding that with the prevalence of computer hacking and the “compromise of unprecedented amounts of data previously thought to be private,” all individuals have a diminished expectation of privacy once they log onto the internet.)

The court also finds that the FBI's NIT reach didn't exceed Rule 41 geographical limitations. Instead, the defendant made a virtual "trip" to the warrant's jurisdiction to access content stored on the seized server.

Finally, even if the defendant had raised a Fourth Amendment challenge the court found valid, the good faith exception would have prevailed. As in the Tennessee decision, the court finds the FBI held up its side of the deal by providing the magistrate with an affidavit full of technical language and specifics about the search method to be deployed.

This appears to be the broader finding across the large number of Playpen/NIT cases. The FBI's warrant may be invalid but either there's no expectation of privacy in the information obtained or the good faith exception prevents suppression of the obtained evidence.

The first is less problematic than the latter. While some users may undertake efforts to obscure their IP addresses, their expectation of privacy is no more "reasonable" than that of those who don't. Either the info has an expectation of privacy or it doesn't. The legal justifications used by judges, however, haven't been all that great, with the worst being that having your anonymity stripped and your information absconded with is just the price of doing business on the internet -- whether it's a criminal or law enforcement performing the actions apparently matters very little.

The latter part -- the reliance on the FBI's good faith -- is more of an issue. The FBI clearly knew its NIT would travel far beyond the jurisdiction the warrant was issued in. It apparently felt that it benefited heavily from good faith rulings as it made little attempt to obscure this fact from the magistrate judge it presented its affidavit to. But it still withheld some information, including the fact that it would actually be delivering a malware package that would "phone home" once it reached its destination. Just because the search sort of originated at a seized server in Virginia does not excuse seizures performed all over the nation utilizing a single, jurisdictionally-limited warrant.

Filed Under: fbi, hacking, malware, nit, playpen, rule 41