Recently disclosed documents may indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went beyond the limits of a warrant that had been issued allowing the agency only to hack 300 specific targets on the dark web.
According to Motherboard, the FBI received a warrant to target 300 people using what is called a network investigative technique (NIT), a type of malware that would grab the IP address of people logging into an FBI controlled dark web site known to distribute child pornography using their TorMail account.
Court documents unsealed due to an ACLU effort indicate that the FBI was only allowed to use the NIT to grab information on a certain set of people, but Motherboard cited sources who said the NIT was deployed and capturing data before the TorMail login page to the pornography site was even displayed. Which would mean the NIT was grabbing data of people who were not just logging into the site, Motherboard concluded.
