Acting DOJ chief defends Malacañang on torrenting stolen Comelec data

Acting Justice Secretary Emmanuel Caparas on Tuesday defended Malacañang  and denied that it torrenting the supposed voters' data stolen by hackers from the Commission on Elections' (Comelec) system.

"From what we've seen [and] what we've learned so far... I don't think there's any seeding coming from Malacañang," Caparas said in a media briefing.

Caparas slammed the people who seemed to be "playing up something that is not there."

He said the Department of Justice (DOJ) was already looking into how Malacañang has been made to appear to be seeding the stolen data.

"But I can tell you for a fact that there is no seeding from Malacañang... There is no such thing as Malacañang seeding data and making it available for the public," Caparas said.

Netizens earlier noticed that a web address, allegedly belonging to Malacañang, seemed to have downloaded the stolen data and made them available for torrent seeding.

Torrents are "peer-to-peer" file sharing systems that allow users to download files from the computers of other users on the same system.

Once a file has been downloaded, the torrent software can make the file available for seeding to other computers or users.

The government has belatedly come down hard on the perpetrators of the breach, almost a full month after it happened.

Caparas said in light of the upcoming elections, the government wanted to address the data leak immediately.

As far as the confidential leaked information being used for other purposes, Caparas said it would be "difficult to speculate as to what can be done with that data." He, however, assured the public that concerns regarding that are already being discussed.

Caparas, however, warned the public that they would get punished for the unauthorized use of the Comelec data.

"Of course, of course [they will be punished]. Let's put it this way. In this case, it's a case of stolen information. In other cases, it's stolen property. Everything that does not belong to you must be returned to the rightful owner," he said.

"And if you're going to utilize that, use it, and even send it, transact it, in the meantime, then that's illegal. Ang sabi nga nila, fruit of the poison tree yan. It cannot be legalized or made lawful simply by passing it on to a third party," Caparas added. — ALG/JST/RSJ, GMA News