You should read through the search warrant to see the lengths that they went through to get permission from the courts to do so.
Regardless I think it’s an interesting question as well but my position is that if these machines are already compromised I’d rather have them run the “uninstaller” than the victims continue to receive commands from the botnet controller and cause additional collateral damage.
The operation was performed in concert with other governments. See https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/qakbot-malware-disrupted-inte.... I’ve worked with some of the partners involved on previous operations and they are top notch - while like I said I think this is a legitimate argument either way (should governments have the ability to actively disrupt malicious activity), I am on the side of taking action as has been done here.
So no problem if others break the law (in foreign countries, too), then?
"Top notch"? I wonder ifvthat would apply to the feds in other countries 'fixing' US computers.
Nb. Not having a dog inbthe fight, I doverr towards keeping anyone the fuck out of my pc. I could appreciate a pop-up though, explaingvwhatcwas going on and how to fix it.
In this case there is someone already “the fuck in your pc”. It’s just a group of cyber criminals looking to monetize said pc with mostly illicit activity. As the sibling pointed out, the pop up would require code execution so … they would necessarily be in your pc already.
That said, I would imagine the pop up would be where this is going over time.
Regardless I think it’s an interesting question as well but my position is that if these machines are already compromised I’d rather have them run the “uninstaller” than the victims continue to receive commands from the botnet controller and cause additional collateral damage.