Hackback Backers’ Comeback?

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has issued its annual report. It reminds us that, while press and privacy campaigners have been hyperventilating over US intelligence programs, there are, you know, actual authoritarian governments at work in the United States — breaking into the networks of activists whom they dislike, newspapers whose sources they want to discover, and companies whose secrets they want to steal, all without (gasp!) court orders or Jim Sensenbrenner's consent.

Perhaps even more interesting, the Commission offers moral support and an open Overton window to those who support much more active defenses than the Justice Department has been willing to countenance under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Among the policy options it treats seriously are watermarking and beaconing of documents for evidentiary purposes as well as authorizing private victims to conduct a host of active responses to intrusions: