On first pass I was pretty alarmed and thought this was a scary precedent being set. Further down in the comments I believe it was likened to arresting a gun manufacturer for someone pulling an armed robbery, and that the major vendors are getting a pass for the same functionality.
However, I disagree. The functions listed above are not mainstream use cases for legitimate software. I also think of it as the same thing as arresting someone who hosts a child porn or silk road type of website. You may not be doing the crime, but you certainly are facilitating it in a big way.
What I also think, however, is that this is probably a misguided kid with aspirations that exceeded his business savvy. He probably could be mentored into using some of his skills for good, so I hope the FBI doesn't proceed to ruin his life.
> The functions listed above are not mainstream use cases for legitimate software.
Who decides what is "legitimate" software? Do you want to live in a world where you have to get the government's approval before writing code?
How could a feature be "mainstream" if it isn't included in software? Should we have arrested Steve Jobs for the Macintosh because GUI wasn't "mainstream" when it came out?
For that matter... if it's not legitimate, then why does the hardware have the ability to do it? Why does camera hardware allow the light to be disabled during recording? I mean SYN is useful, and SYN flood might be useful for systems testing... that said, there are other tools for that, and RAT probably isn't the right place.
In any case, this is definitely a slippery slope as there are "Security" companies that provide software that does all of this that act as US, local and other govt vendors.
However, I disagree. The functions listed above are not mainstream use cases for legitimate software. I also think of it as the same thing as arresting someone who hosts a child porn or silk road type of website. You may not be doing the crime, but you certainly are facilitating it in a big way.
What I also think, however, is that this is probably a misguided kid with aspirations that exceeded his business savvy. He probably could be mentored into using some of his skills for good, so I hope the FBI doesn't proceed to ruin his life.