NHS cyber-defender Marcus Hutchins to appear in US court

[brudgers]

My nose suggests the arrest is using the tool of prosecutorial discretion in an attempt to create better alignment between Hutchins' work and Anglo American intelligence and security interests...one or the other or both. If pursuing justice regarding the criminal complaint was the primary goal and the case was strong, the US could have sought his extradition from the UK in the past.

[usefulcat]

"..the US could have sought his extradition from the UK in the past."

Or maybe they found out (or at least suspected) that he planned to attend DefCon and figured it would be easier if he came to them.

[ablation]

> People, who work with Mr Hutchins investigating malware, have said "it looks like the US justice system has made a huge mistake".

Who on earth let this article go out with that in it?

[devnull42]

Whats the issue with that statement. It is early and I haven't had my coffee yet but I am a security researcher and while I have my questions about his past many of my counter parts in the UK have raised some very very valid questions about the legitimacy of the allegations against him. So unless I am missing a grammatical or syntactical error whats the issue with that statement?

[jmkni]

When this story broke yesterday, the BBC was describing him as a hero in their headline.

[jauzeyimam]

Same with:

> It is thought to be named after a mythological creature.

This article has some interesting framing issues. Aside from being simply incorrect in this case.

[UK-AL]

What's wrong? Generally that's how people talk in casual conversation and this meant to be a quote.

[banku_brougham]

The confusing part for me is I thought malware was an establish (albeit evil) business i which the US govt and many others did a brisk business. For example Gamma Group [1].

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Group

[Shivetya]

What disturbs me is the idea he can be arrested and his place of incarceration is not known. Unless he is subject to harm I see no reason that this should be the case. Is this merely the BBC not asking?

[pricechild]

> The arrest was initially confirmed by a screenshot that a friend of Hutchins captured of the facility website. When the friend visited the detention center on Thursday morning, he was told Hutchins was no longer there. The website mention of Hutchins was also gone. PJ Thomas, an administrator at the US Marshals office that the website referenced, said the agency has no record of Hutchins. The friend, citing privacy concerns, asked not to be identified by name in this article.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/researcher-who-s...

[nawtacawp]

A couple parallels:

- companies selling 0-day malware/spyware to U.S. Government

- companies offering software to 'root' a device to extract information (cell phone data extraction), used by law enforcement.

[doktrin]

How are these parallels?

[shallot_router]

Except neither of those cases involve making software to be sold for purposes of common theft and fraud.