Last Thursday wired.com, through the FOIA,  obtained 100’s of pages of  documents that detail seven years of the FBI’s use of malicious software in tracking down hackers, hitmen, extortionists and terrorist suspects. The released documents, available for download here, are of course heavily redacted. The software is called CIPAV, or “computer and internet protocol address verifier.” From the documents it’s capabilities include: reporting a computer’s IP address, MAC address, open ports, a list of running programs, the operating system type, version and serial number, preferred internet browser and version, the computer’s registered owner and registered company name, the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL. After sending this information to FBI servers via covert channel, the software sits quietly and monitors your internet use, reporting the IP addresses of every connection made while on the Internet.

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