The Government Built Its Criminal Case against MalwareTech Off Incidental Collection
The government has responded to MalwareTech’s (Marcus Hutchins) demand for more evidence by refusing everything. Along the way, they reveal that the bulk of the case against Hutchins arises from him being incidentally collected off two other criminal suspects, Tran (his co-defendant) and Randy (an informant who provided testimony against him in conjunction with his own criminal exposure).
Twenty-somethings claiming they’re not drunk occifer
As for rebuttals of the points made in his demand, the government has two rebuttals as to the substance of Hutchins’ argument, versus the law. First, they claim that Hutchins told the FBI he wasn’t drunk when they arrested him, contrary to the claim made to support a demand for materials on the surveillance of him leading up to his arrest.
Before the interview started, Hutchins told agents that he was not under the influence of alcohol.
Apparently they made a separate 302 (of unknown date) to memorialize their claim he told them he wasn’t drunk.
In addition to those materials, the government recently disclosed an additional FBI 302 report memorializing the defendant’s statement that he was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of his arrest,
The filing also reveals that there are,
two reports detailing limited surveillance of the defendant on July 26, 2017, and August 2, 2017.
Note, while August 2 is the day Hutchins left Las Vegas, the 26th was not the day he arrived; that was July 21. So they conducted surveillance of him on at least one day while he was in the US hanging out with other hackers at Black Hat, but won’t tell him if they conducted surveillance on the other days.
The government’s “intentional” fuckups may lead to superseding indictments
The government seems to cede Hutchins’ suggestion that it flubbed the language on “intention” versus “knowledge” on at least one and maybe a second charge against him.
Hutchins claims that the indictment is defective because Count Two of the indictment states that the defendant acted “knowingly” instead of “intentionally.” 3 Likewise, despite the fact that Count Six charges an attempt, Hutchins argues Count Six fails to allege that defendant “intentionally” attempted to cause damage to a protected computer.4 This, however is not an allegation of “error in the grand jury proceedings” under Rule 12(b)(3)(A)(v). It is an allegation of a defect in the indictment under Rule 12(b)(3)(B)(v). Thus, if Hutchins truly believes Counts Two and Six are facially defective, he can file a motion dismiss those counts under Rule 12(b)(3)(B)(v).
3 Count Two appears to contain a drafting error because Counts Three and Four, which also allege violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2512, state that the defendant acted “intentionally” rather than “knowingly.” This further undermines Hutchins’ speculation that the grand jury was erroneously instructed.
4 According to Seventh Circuit jury instructions, an attempt means to take a substantial step towards committing the offense, with the “intent to commit the offense.” Therefore, because Count Six is charged as an attempt to violate section 1030, including the word “intentionally” before “attempted” would be unnecessary and redundant.
But they generously offer to fix that problem in a superseding indictment.
The government has already explained to the defense that it will likely seek a superseding indictment in this case. That superseding indictment would address any possible drafting errors noted by the defense.
Given that elsewhere they say the informant, Randy, who provided information against Hutchins, discussed “involvement in creating the Kronos banking Trojan, among other criminal conduct” [my emphasis] with him in online chats, they seem to be suggesting that if the defense makes too big a deal about this they’ll add charges against Hutchins.
Incidentally collected defendants get nothing
Perhaps most interesting, this filing demonstrates the degree to which Hutchins’ prosecution stems from his incidental collection in investigative efforts targeting Tran and Randy. In fact, precisely because he was incidentally collected and not personally targeted, the government claims it doesn’t have to provide affidavits that might explain how — and more importantly, why — they decided to arrest Hutchins.
For example, the government argues Hutchins can’t have the MLAT requests, which are used to ask other countries to provide information for a criminal prosecution. In this case, MLATs obtained information on Tran, the guy who sold the Kronos malware Hutchins is alleged to have helped write. The government refuses to hand these over, in part, because they don’t get signed by FBI Agents, but instead get signed by lawyers.
Here, the defendant relies on Rule 16(a)(1)(E)(i) in seeking disclosure of MLATs and search warrant applications. But that Rule is inapplicable. With regard to MLATs, they are not signed or attested to by law enforcement agents. Instead, they are signed by an attorney representing the United States. Information received in response to an MLAT that is subject to disclosure under Rule 16 has been, and will continue to be, turned over to the defense in this case. Indeed, the defendant acknowledges that he has received materials responsive to an MLAT request. Doc. #44 at 17. The MLAT request itself, however, is not subject to production. In fact, MLAT requests (rather than the responsive materials) are explicitly excluded from production under Rule 16(a)(2).
Moreover, because the MLAT was targeted at Hutchins’ co-defendant, and not him, he doesn’t get it.
Moreover, the MLAT request submitted in this case related to Hutchins’s codefendant and not Hutchins. As noted above, the government has disclosed materials received in response to the MLAT, but the MLAT itself is not subject to production under Rule 16, Giglio, Brady, or § 3500.
There is one still undisclosed search warrant affidavit in the case. But because that was used to incriminate Randy, the informant, Hutchins won’t get that either.
With regard to search warrant materials, the government has explained to Hutchins that no search warrants were executed that focused on Hutchins’ activities. There was a search warrant executed in an unrelated case that revealed statements made by Hutchins to CS-1, and those statements were turned over in discovery under Rule 16. But, there is no authority supporting the production of that search warrant affidavit or other documents relating to that warrant. The warrant was executed at a residence in the United States and did not involve Hutchins’ property or privacy interests. The affidavit is not subject to disclosure under 18 U.S.C. § 3500 because it was made in connection with an unrelated investigation. Given the separation between this case and the other investigation, the government does not believe at this time that the affiant’s statements in the affidavit supporting that warrant “relate to the subject matter of the testimony” to be presented in this case. 18 U.S.C. § 3500.
The government seems pretty lackadaisical towards Hutchins’ co-defendant
The government’s unwillingness to turn over information on the other alleged criminals in this case is particularly interesting given how uninterested they seem in him. The filing reveals that someone working undercover for the FBI did have discussions with Tran about Kronos (again, this is malware that had no significant US victims in the form Hutchins is alleged to have been involved in it), and they collected postings on it off the Darkode forum.
In support of this request, Hutchins asserts that such items “must be material to preparing Mr. Hutchins’ defense” because the indictment alleges a conspiracy; that “the government may be withholding information that could exculpate Mr. Hutchins”; and that he has a right to “locate the codefendant.” Doc. #44 at 8-9. Because the government has disclosed information relating to the codefendant, and there is no authority supporting the defendant’s request for additional information, his motion to compel the production of this information should be denied.
Of note, Hutchins’ codefendant has not yet been arrested in connection with this case. And, the government has disclosed certain information relating to the codefendant to Hutchins. This includes (1) the codefendant’s name; (2) materials responsive to an MLAT request that included a redacted copy of the codefendant’s passport; (3) undercover chats between the codefendant and the FBI related to the marketing, sale, and distribution of Kronos; and (4) various Internet postings related to Kronos that are attributable to one of the aliases used by the codefendant, including on the now shuttered Darkode forum.
But the government hasn’t obtained any information about the other things Tran was selling on dark markets.
Hutchins’ speculation that “the government must be withholding substantial additional information in its possession,” including information that may show the codefendant acted independently of Hutchins, is not supported. Doc. #44 at 8. While it might be true that the codefendant was involved in criminal activity in addition to distributing Kronos with Hutchins, the government is not suppressing that information. It simply does not possess such information. If additional records in the government’s possession are identified and deemed material, the government will provide those records to the defendant.1
That suggests he’s not really the target here.
More interesting still, the government claims it hasn’t yet identified any records from its AlphaBay seizure pertaining this malware they claim is so important they’ve arrested the guy who stopped the WannaCry malware attack.
1 In his motion, Hutchins states that “the government likely has records of the codefendant’s activities on AlphaBay.” Doc. #44 at 9. The government is still pursing information from the AlphaBay marketplace, but it has not yet located any materials subject to disclosure.
It seems virtually impossible that they wouldn’t find information in the seized servers, if it was, at all, a priority. Which seems to suggest the opposite — not finding anything — may be a priority.
By providing evidence that suggests the government simply isn’t all that interested in Tran (if, as his name suggests, he’s Vietnamese, he may be beyond any extradition treaty), the government dismisses the possibility that Hutchins or his friends could find Tran (not an unreasonable possibility, because that’s how hackers roll).
[Hutchins] told agents that he knew his codefendant only by various online aliases; his dealings with his codefendant were all online; and he has never met his codefendant in person or even seen a photograph of the codefendant. It therefore makes no sense for Hutchins to claim that, if provided the requested “materials and communications,” he will be able to locate the fugitive codefendant and obtain exculpatory information from that individual.
But along the way, this prevents Hutchins from arguing that this case is all trumped up to go after him, for some reason.
Hiding Randy and the carding charges he’s working off
More interesting, still, the government is going to some lengths to hide Randy, the informant they call CS-1 who provided information on Hutchins.
The list of what they have provided in discovery provides some outline of how they got to Randy.
In reality, the government has produced the following materials related to CS-1: (1) A redacted proffer letter between the government and CS-1; (2) undercover chats between a government cooperator and CS-1 regarding the sale of stolen credit card numbers; (3) chats between CS-1 and Hutchins regarding Hutchins’ involvement in creating the Kronos banking Trojan, among other criminal conduct; and (4) a redacted FBI 302 report (which Hutchins refers to in his motion) memorializing a FBI interview of CS-1 regarding Hutchins and others.
It seems that a third part (the “government cooperator,” who himself may be an informant working off criminal charges) provided the FBI chats showing discussions with Randy of carding activity. This led to the FBI to go after Randy. He, in turn, made a proffer to the government offering to cooperate, presumably in exchange for leniency in his own case. That led to an interview with the FBI where Randy provided information on Hutchins “and others.”
Note that the government doesn’t tell us when all this happened?
The government argues that Randy is a mere tipster who wasn’t (yet) being controlled by the FBI at the time, and so they won’t have to let Hutchins question Randy about these underlying circumstances unless they put Randy on the stand, even though they concede he might (as someone working off his own criminal exposure) might actually be a transactional witness.
CS-1’s position in this case is more of a like a “mere tipster” than a transactional confidential informant. Hutchins sent a copy of the Kronos malware to CS-1 in 2015, but CS-1 was not acting as an agent for the government at that time. If the government called CS-1 as a witness at trial, his/her primary role would be to testify about the third-party admissions Hutchins made during chats with CS-1. Even if the Court found CS-1 acted more like a transactional witness, that finding does not automatically justify disclosure of CS-1’s identity. United States v. McDowell, 687 F.3d 904, 911 (7th Cir. 2012). The defendant would still need to establish that knowing CS-1’s identity is “relevant and helpful to his defense or is essential to a fair determination of a cause,” Wilburn, 581 F.3d at 623. Here, his request for disclosure of CS-1’s identity is based on speculation, which is insufficient. See Valles, 41 F.3d at 358 (“The confidential informant privilege ‘will not yield to permit a mere fishing expedition, nor upon bare speculation that the information may possibly prove useful.’” (quoting Dole, 870 F.2d at 373)).
The government argues that Hutchins is only speculating that learning who Randy is would be material to his defense, and uses that to argue that they don’t have to reveal Randy’s name so Hutchins can test whether it’s material to his defense.
The government generously agrees to give Hutchins Randy’s real name if they call him to testify, but then boast that Hutchins’ jail phone calls mitigate the need to put Randy on the stand.
Nonetheless, the government agrees to disclose CS-1’s identity to the defense if it determines that CS-1 will be a testifying witness at trial.2
2 To be sure, it might not be necessary to call CS-1 as a witness at trial because the defendant was shown the chats he had with CS-1 during his post-arrest interview and the defendant admitted that he was one of the parties in those conversations. Later, the defendant made phone call from jail in which he described the chats as “undeniable.” Therefore, the admissions Mr. Hutchins made to CS-1 are admissible non-hearsay statements, which Mr. Hutchins previously identified as accurate.
There are a slew of reasons Randy’s identity is of particular interest. Not least, that unknown entities engaged in serial credit card fraud to try to disrupt Hutchins’ defense fundraisers. As I’ve suggested, that means that entities engaged in probable criminal credit card fraud made a concerted effort to thwart Hutchins’ ability to mount the most robust defense.
Is the FBI even investigating who disrupted Hutchins’ defense fundraising efforts? Would they do so if it would hurt their case?
All of which leaves the distinct impression that the government isn’t all that interested in the two suspected criminals implicated in the case against him, but are very interested in ratcheting up the pressure on Hutchins himself.
And because they got to Hutchins via incidental collection — and not direct targeting — they might succeed in doing so.
That is seriously messed up. I’m sorry I can’t come up with anything more profound.
Incidental collection only applies to US citizens and green card holders in the process of attaining same no? Or was that the “right” to participate in US elections? How many mentally ill precedents is DOJ trying to cram into one case? Acts done outside the US, code that could be used for good or bad, no injured party in the US, believe someone intoxicated when they tell you they are not and fail to take a blood test. Seems there is quite a bit of software this could apply to. When this is played back to US persons outside the US, no prosecutor, politician, government employee or contractor is going to be doing any traveling.
Marcy, isn’t this an example of the type of prosecutorial creep that is enabled by the shortcomings of the 702 legislation? Once the database of communications information comes into existence, it can (and often will) be used to search for potential criminal conduct, regardless of traditional probable cause criteria. In a worst case scenario, this allows the FBI to go fishing for crime potential in the database and then hide behind “sources and methods” to deny due process. If this isn’t a formula for abuse, I don’t know what is.
It is revealing that people with Hutchins’ knowledge of internet surveillance would be so easily entrapped. Perhaps it’s not possible to adequately educate people about the extinction of privacy in modern life.
Hey, you’ve got nothing to worry about if you don’t have anything to hide, mm-kay?
Can someone explain to me how rigorous the definition of “incidental collection” actually is? How easily can something be ” fake targeted”? I mean, using the rules cited by the lawyers above to allow investigators to directly collect and then label something incidental post facto? Is there a circumstance in which that’d be possible?
OT; thank you, Marcy, for laying it out there about the GG bit in your TNR piece just now. Well done. The omissions in the NYMag bit felt bizarre, and I hadn’t clicked on the fact that they’re mainly of women.
Thanks for linking that.
Yes, brava on the TNR article. Fills in missing pieces and the perspectives the MSM leaves out.
Chat room banter.
It is not always obvious who is replying to whom in a chat room, inter alia, whether one participant is even replying or trying to converse with earlier posts. They may be starting a completely different train of thought. Chat rooms are *NOT* organized into articles and/or threads.
For this reason, one would have to see the entire context in the chat room well before and after the alledged ‘convo’ took place.
Furthermore, we would need proof that the many hours of chat are complete, actual, and have not been tampered with.
That is a very high bar.
Just because Marcus was using this chat room does not mean he was really having a convo with some other alleged bad guy.
Need to see hours of chat room, and proof that it is complete and still pristine. The latter will take lots of work and help from others in the chat room that archived the chat room messages. Multiple archivers whose logs match.
Maybe Marcus called someone that he knew from that chat room. Any evidence that that person is the same person the government thinks is CS-1?
Still not convinced ‘Randy’ is real. May be a person from IC, if that.
“2 To be sure, it might not be necessary to call CS-1 as a witness at trial because the defendant was shown the chats he had with CS-1 during his post-arrest interview and the defendant admitted that he was one of the parties in those conversations. Later, the defendant made phone call from jail in which he described the chats as “undeniable.” Therefore, the admissions Mr. Hutchins made to CS-1 are admissible non-hearsay statements, which Mr. Hutchins previously identified as accurate.”
[The smoke: CS-1 is the same person Marcus allegedly called]
[No proof that the person Marcus allegedly called is CS-1]
[Oh, did I mention that chat rooms are not actually secure?]
[Here is us-cert.gov talking about chat-rooms]
[Yes, same government trying to railroad Marcus]
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-011
…
Bots – A “chat robot,” or “bot,” is software that can interact with users through chat mechanisms, whether in IM or chat rooms. In some cases, users may be able to obtain current weather reports, stock status, or movie listings. In these instances, users are often aware that they are not interacting with an actual human. However, some users may be fooled by more sophisticated bots into thinking the responses they are receiving are from another person.
…
Identities can be elusive or ambiguous – Not only is it sometimes difficult to identify whether the “person” you are talking to is human, but human nature and behavior isn’t predictable. People may lie about their identity, accounts may be compromised, users may forget to log out, or an account may be shared by multiple people. All of these things make it difficult to know who you’re really talking to during a conversation.
…
You don’t know who else might be seeing the conversation – Online interactions are easily saved, and if you’re using a free commercial service the exchanges may be archived on a server. You have no control over what happens to those logs. You also don’t know if there’s someone looking over the shoulder of the person you’re talking to, or if an attacker might be “sniffing” your conversation.
[Note: the logs, sniffing]
[Imagine the DOJ, in court, lying with a straight face, to a judge that does not ‘get’ the tech. Your Honour, here are some logs of a ‘convo’ these bad guys had! We caught these bad guys, we pinky swear!]
[The burden is on DOJ to prove they are not blowing smoke. The burden on Marcus def team is to educate the court that DOJ has no proof and is blowing smoke]
[If Marcus def team can show that DOJ actually did ‘inhale’, awesome]
There is smoke in various locations,
all near Foggy Bottom.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/23/republican-memo-fbi-jerry-nadler-358918
“Those materials tell a very different story than the conspiracy theory concocted by Chairman Nunes and being repeated in the press,” Nadler wrote in the letter to Goodlatte.
@emptywheel
Does Boente really want the job,
or is this to get him out of the picture?
Boente was already about to be out of the picture, so think he wants the job.
Matt Gaetz talks about smoke on faux noise tonight. Wants second SC.
Bring it on dude.
Be careful what you wish for.
US District Court Case No. 17-CR-124, U.S.A. v. Hutchins, continues to look, and increasingly to look, to be a harassment lawsuit. Or what, in a legitimate and legitimately functional legal system, would be a harassment lawsuit, a prosecution initiated frivolous lawsuit with no real conclusive point or purpose, except to throw up a dust-storm, fling a little sand, do a little sand-blasting, scour some paint, pit some glass, be a nuisance…
In the current USA “legal System” it is as likely to be perceived in-house as a fishing expedition, doing a little dynamite in Wisconsin’s back-woods court-forum waters to maybe raise a few “guppy” adjudicators, ones who might bite on bullshit. Take bait from Feddies on a wide-eyed assumption that if the bait is Federal Government served it must be “real shit”, instead of the local bull- variety, even if it looks a lot like…
All part of the “American Comedy”. This week’s ‘in-flight’ movie as the hand-basket continues its descent toward “Destination H”…
Also, and most important for public-tit sucking Feddie lawyers, a way to keep their parasite-support checks coming in.
It’s a bit late in the game but this one deserves a hat tip so tipping it I am. Prose on these here interwebs doesn’t get any better than this.
It seems virtually impossible that they wouldn’t find information in the seized servers, if it was, at all, a priority. Which seems to suggest the opposite — not finding anything — may be a priority.