I can only hope they actually find a smoking gun implicating Taylor as a true conspirator in this case. Because the picture painted by the article puts a whole new meaning on 'chilling effect'.
Did he pick the wrong place to advertise his code? HackForum could just have easily been Hacker News. According to the article Taylor actively worked to defend against malicious use of his software; deactivating accounts he found were using the software to launch attacks, and eventually removing functionality like password scraping and keylogging which ultimately proved too alluring to black hats.
The tool has obvious non-infringing use. That it can also be used maliciously cannot be a factor. If NanoCore is a criminal conspiracy, I'd hate to think what the FBI thinks of Metasploit or Tor.
The article puts forward a good theory for how the FBI might have found themselves in this position. They are used to barging into these guys houses, crawling through all their equipment, and finding actual evidence of collusion with black hats. They are used to pressing these guys to turn state's witness and in the past it's worked out great when a trusted malware provider landed them 100 convictions. I am shocked, shocked let me tell you, the FBI would, upon not finding any real evidence of a conspiracy, press on with charges against a sole developer with $60,000 to their name.
Taylor Huddleston might not exactly be Aaron Swartz, but if the truth is anything like how The Daily Beast is telling it, Taylor is going to need a lot of help and a lot of support to get through this, and I hope he gets it.
Did he pick the wrong place to advertise his code? HackForum could just have easily been Hacker News. According to the article Taylor actively worked to defend against malicious use of his software; deactivating accounts he found were using the software to launch attacks, and eventually removing functionality like password scraping and keylogging which ultimately proved too alluring to black hats.
The tool has obvious non-infringing use. That it can also be used maliciously cannot be a factor. If NanoCore is a criminal conspiracy, I'd hate to think what the FBI thinks of Metasploit or Tor.
The article puts forward a good theory for how the FBI might have found themselves in this position. They are used to barging into these guys houses, crawling through all their equipment, and finding actual evidence of collusion with black hats. They are used to pressing these guys to turn state's witness and in the past it's worked out great when a trusted malware provider landed them 100 convictions. I am shocked, shocked let me tell you, the FBI would, upon not finding any real evidence of a conspiracy, press on with charges against a sole developer with $60,000 to their name.
Taylor Huddleston might not exactly be Aaron Swartz, but if the truth is anything like how The Daily Beast is telling it, Taylor is going to need a lot of help and a lot of support to get through this, and I hope he gets it.