I actually like article 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. It requires banning the development and sale of things like Pegasus, rootkits etc.
If your software is only intended to demonstrate the existence of a security flaw but contains no payload, then it is less obviously criminal. Still technically so, I suppose, but not so obviously that you couldn't make some kind of argument.
The collection of traffic and 'content' data is not beneficial though, so I suppose the treaty has to go for that reason.
> While establishing a basis for "mutual legal assistance", assistance may be denied "if the authorities of the requested State Party would be prohibited by its domestic law from carrying out the action requested with regard to any similar offence, had it been subject to investigation, prosecution or judicial proceedings under their own jurisdiction".
> But: a State Party "shall not decline to act" under the provisions of the freezing, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime "on the ground of bank secrecy". The Convention is expected to be adopted by the end of the year.
So Russia and any other can country can ask for records on any US person they want under a pretext of committing some crime there and unless the US is itself investigating this party then it's allowed? & conversely, if the US tried to do this Russia or any hostile country can just claim they're investigating said persons in crimes? Surely my reading of this is absurd & it's not actually this badly written?
It's particularly telling that it was Russia & China who proposed it in 2017 in the first place.
Say a foreign law enforcement entity is investigating Mr X, and asking a domestic authority for some information on Mr X.
The treaty says that generally speaking, the domestic authority should provide such assistance.
However, assume that instead another domestic law enforcement entity was asking the domestic authority for information on Mr X, but (under purely domestic jurisdiction) the domestic authority would be prohibited to provide such assistance for some reason (say, due to privacy laws, procedural protections, or so).
Then, the foreign law enforcement entity would not be entitled to the assistance, either.
I don't see how that changes anything I wrote. For example, take Bill Browder - Russia has been continuously harassing this man even getting an Interpol red notice to be issued against him to rendition him to Russia on trumped up charges because he stood up to Putin. So they issue a request to the bank with a validly issued subpeona in Russian courts. Since a bank would have to issue records to a domestic warrant, it'll now have to issue it for a foreign obtained warrant.
You kind of just reworded what I wrote but I don't see how it changes any of the concerns I expressed.
Yeah - that's the scary part. It seems like this has approval of the current administration so either I'm missing something critical about the protections this treaty has or this is really really bad.
> If your software is only intended to demonstrate the existence of a security flaw but contains no payload, then it is less obviously criminal. Still technically so, I suppose, but not so obviously that you couldn't make some kind of argument.
I do not see anything criminal at all in writing some malware or exploits. _Applying_ them to a system, where they might cause damage however, that is a completely different matter.
You don't go after the blacksmith or manufacturer of kitchen knifes or guns either. You go after the one using them for the wrong purpose.
It's often the intentions that matter. Doing X may not be a crime, but doing it with the intention to commit crime could be. And while outsiders can't know the true intentions, courts are often happy accept the intentions seen by a "reasonable person" as the truth. Which means that if you want to write malware, you should look like a respectable person and not do anything too shady.
Pretty much every such product uses libz, libssl, and these days websocket and javascript libraries. Are they malware? Very often the border between malware and non-malware is not clear. There are many command and control software that have no payload, and no exploits to spread. Are those malware? What about IRC/XMPP servers, webRTC/STUN/servers + proprietary equivalents, name resolution services (from DNS to some company's active directory), DHT, game servers (minecraft, quake) and other public services that often serve as or contribute to command-and-control hubs?
But I'm not really interested in drawing an actual clear line. I'm worried especially what will happen if a local police officer or court judge takes action based on their personal assessment of a cybercrime. And now, with this law, international action. Right now often DNS is sabotaged, usually on a way larger scale than necessary, to achieve a court order. Inconveniencing everyone, often right up to gTLDs.
Usually such a court order then doesn't work because the fact that a court case exists (and the time these things take) serves as ample warning for the malware authors plus you can use encryption to hide the command and control servers beyond the reach of even sabotaging DNS. And even that is assuming the damage isn't completely done by the time a decision is reached.
Actual prevention of malware attacks is the domain of extra-judicial agents working at security companies, and they usually disable malware by injecting their own payloads, something that even currently is highly illegal, and sometimes causes the justice system to go after these individuals.
> Pretty much every such product uses libz, libssl, and these days websocket and javascript libraries. Are they malware?
The answer to this question is obvious and the question doesn’t have to be asked. In what kind of thinking a product considered malware would imply that its generic components are also malware? It is clear logic fallacy. Same with C&C software - I don’t get how do you generalize it to IRC. I do not also see how this generalization can happen in law enforcement or courts.
1) when software is developed with legitimate purpose in mind, it is not malware. If a developer of such software is persecuted, it would be easy for their legal defense to demonstrate it _unless_ there’s some other regulation that prohibits such use cases (eg something similar to EU Chat Control proposals).
2) it is very unlikely that police will go after such software. They need to connect it to their case first and that requires technical expertise, so it will likely be a cybercrime unit.
This implies certain user interface that is different from criminal use cases. I.e. certain types of knives are considered weapons rather than kitchen appliances and even carrying them will get you problems in some jurisdictions.
If your software is only intended to demonstrate the existence of a security flaw but contains no payload, then it is less obviously criminal. Still technically so, I suppose, but not so obviously that you couldn't make some kind of argument.
The collection of traffic and 'content' data is not beneficial though, so I suppose the treaty has to go for that reason.