White House Authorizes Private U.S. Companies to Hack Foreign Cybercrime Groups

If you (like me) found this hard to read, Reuters wrote up a decent summary: https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-signed-memo-allow-use-cy...

On a related note, https://mentalwires.tumblr.com/post/622219187310542848/black...

This sounds similar to letters of marque and reprisal, which is something I haven't thought of since middle school constitution class until now.

Zero-day hunters and the exploit broker market have been a thing for some time now. The US is one buyer on a world market of exploits. Maybe that's what this is trying to address. Many Nation states already stockpile zero days to use against one another when necessary or useful. I skimmed over the whole thing, and I'm guessing the US government wants to carve out a niche in the international zero-day market by creating a privatized, government-backed body that will collectively share hacking tools and exploits among one another. Membership being contingent on NOT participating in any other zero-day markets nor bargaining with any known exploit brokers.

Vigilantes worked out so well during Reconstruction. But now these are nominally profit-motivated vigilantes. What could possibly go wrong?

Those who engage in this better have good insurance. Ruin people's stuff, they're going to sue

This seems like the kind of thing you wouldn't want to announce publicly? But I guess the little man always needs to project power.