"...The agency’s revelation this week that it joined a computer botnet attack piggybacking on the malware’s signal to track its activities has raised new questions about what is acceptable in cybersecurity. The problem, the civil liberties advocates say, is that the FBI collected IP addresses and “ancillary” information from computers it traversed as it tried to map the Joanap malware... 'The powers that the FBI is using here are inherently invasive,'said Andrew Crocker, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'Directing someone’s computer to things like this gives the FBI pretty broad rein, and that is concerning...' The FBI and Air Force investigators obtained court orders approving the moves. They said the actions were critical to disrupting the botnet, which spawned a global network of computers infected with the Joanap malware... Cybersecurity analysts say the FBI’s hacking of infected computers is a double-edged sword, giving authorities a new tool to fight crime in an increasingly digital world, but also exposing sensitive and unrelated files to law enforcement... Federal investigators claimed authority to piggyback on the botnet from a 2016 change to an obscure federal criminal procedure statute, known as Rule 41. The change allows the government to use hacking software on computers to gain evidence..." https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/31/fbi-counter-hacking-operations-raise-privacy-red-f/
