Still miffed that it's infamous Back Orifice remote access program was labeled a malicious trojan horse, the Cult Of The Dead Cow hacking group has decided to give the FBI a hand in creating an almost identical replica of the program, one of the most notorious rat programs on the Internet. **

Reid Fleming, a cDc member, said: "Never before has the US faced a more troublesome enemy. To meet this growing challenge, the FBI has announced an ongoing effort to create and deploy best-of-breed electronic surveillance software.

"While we applaud the innovation and drive of the federal law enforcement agency, those of us who are US citizens would be remiss if we did not offer our expertise in this area."

"We are confident that the government will limit the use of this technology only to targets relevant to legitimate investigations," he added, further underscoring the cult's faith in federal law enforcement organisations. "The FBI has a long history of following Title 18 to the letter."

cDc has reported that while the BO trojan would do exactly what the FBI wants, it is going to completely revamp the program, keeping the codes separate and secret in order to defeat antivirus programs. They promise it will be stealthier than any program developed to date.

*************

Interceptor's Commentary: Let's see if I understand this...the cDc never wanted Back Orifice to be labeled a trojan horse, but offered the source codes to everyone in order to enable them to modify the trojan  and make it more difficult to be detected or cleaned. Of course, they never figured what would happen if they did release the code.

To qualify for some brownie points from the Fed, they have offered their services  for free. How can the FBI trust one of the most infamous hacking groups responsible for writing one of the most dangerous trojan horses in Internet history with this responsibility?  I wonder if the cDc has a more nefarious agenda wiggling around in their little minds. If they are the only ones with the source code to an as-yet-undetected and super stealth trojan horse that probably won't be included in virus scanner definitions, will the temptation to use it for personal gain going to be a factor?

In addition, the cDc was recently creating a new web browser in order to prevent users from being tracked on the web by the federal government. This would allow activities from piracy to child pornography. (
Just what side of the fence do these con artists and cyber-crooks play on?)

Now let's address the intent of the FBI. They have proven to be one of the most effective anti-crime tools the US has at it's disposal, but in light of their recent and less-than-stellar activities and performance record, do we really trust them enough to use this weapon only against those that pose a threat to the security of the nation or perpetrators of serious Internet crime? What about the NSA, BATF and DEA? Are they going to have access to this tool? I believe combining this software with Carnivore and Echelon puts every Internet user and business at severe risk.

What is going to constitute a crime serious enough to warrant using this trojan horse? Will it just be kiddie porners and terrorists who are targeted or is it going to extend to users who have copies of programs, games and WinXP lent to them by friends? Who is going to draw the line between qualified and legitimate useage and abuse of governmment and law enforcement powers? I hope nobody tries to tell me that somewhere on the World Wide Web there are no hackers that will be able to get their hands on this program and use it for their own malicious purposes.

Maybe I'm wrong in my assessment, but as it stands now I certainly hope the antivirus companies can catch this virus in time to create a definition for it before the situation gets out of hand and we lose what privacy remains available to us.

Posted by Interceptor on Dec 13 2001, 04:39 PM
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Still miffed that it's infamous Back Orifice remote access program was labeled a malicious trojan horse, the Cult Of The Dead Cow hacking group has decided to give the FBI a hand in creating an almost identical replica of the program, one of the most notorious rat programs on the Internet. **

Reid Fleming, a cDc member, said: "Never before has the US faced a more troublesome enemy. To meet this growing challenge, the FBI has announced an ongoing effort to create and deploy best-of-breed electronic surveillance software.

"While we applaud the innovation and drive of the federal law enforcement agency, those of us who are US citizens would be remiss if we did not offer our expertise in this area."

"We are confident that the government will limit the use of this technology only to targets relevant to legitimate investigations," he added, further underscoring the cult's faith in federal law enforcement organisations. "The FBI has a long history of following Title 18 to the letter."

cDc has reported that while the BO trojan would do exactly what the FBI wants, it is going to completely revamp the program, keeping the codes separate and secret in order to defeat antivirus programs. They promise it will be stealthier than any program developed to date.

*************

Interceptor's Commentary: Let's see if I understand this...the cDc never wanted Back Orifice to be labeled a trojan horse, but offered the source codes to everyone in order to enable them to modify the trojan and make it more difficult to be detected or cleaned. Of course, they never figured what would happen if they did release the code.

To qualify for some brownie points from the Fed, they have offered their services for free. How can the FBI trust one of the most infamous hacking groups responsible for writing one of the most dangerous trojan horses in Internet history with this responsibility? I wonder if the cDc has a more nefarious agenda wiggling around in their little minds. If they are the only ones with the source code to an as-yet-undetected and super stealth trojan horse that probably won't be included in virus scanner definitions, will the temptation to use it for personal gain going to be a factor?

In addition, the cDc was recently creating a new web browser in order to prevent users from being tracked on the web by the federal government. This would allow activities from piracy to child pornography. (
Just what side of the fence do these con artists and cyber-crooks play on?)

Now let's address the intent of the FBI. They have proven to be one of the most effective anti-crime tools the US has at it's disposal, but in light of their recent and less-than-stellar activities and performance record, do we really trust them enough to use this weapon only against those that pose a threat to the security of the nation or perpetrators of serious Internet crime? What about the NSA, BATF and DEA? Are they going to have access to this tool? I believe combining this software with Carnivore and Echelon puts every Internet user and business at severe risk.

What is going to constitute a crime serious enough to warrant using this trojan horse? Will it just be kiddie porners and terrorists who are targeted or is it going to extend to users who have copies of programs, games and WinXP lent to them by friends? Who is going to draw the line between qualified and legitimate useage and abuse of governmment and law enforcement powers? I hope nobody tries to tell me that somewhere on the World Wide Web there are no hackers that will be able to get their hands on this program and use it for their own malicious purposes.

Maybe I'm wrong in my assessment, but as it stands now I certainly hope the antivirus companies can catch this virus in time to create a definition for it before the situation gets out of hand and we lose what privacy remains available to us.