Given the current security climate, if that were my stolen gear, I'd treat it all as suspect and burn the lot in a barrel.
There's no telling who's done what to it or what kind of nasties are now in the firmware.
There's no telling who's done what to it or what kind of nasties are now in the firmware.
Sure, the equipment might not be trustworthy in a secure environment, but I highly doubt that anyone would really be interested in a high schooler doing his/her CS homework on it.
at the same time I wonder if crazy US agencies wouldnt call for treason charges after Kaspersky discovery of an implant, or even before, or even claiming his equipment is federal property now like in the case of GPS trackers.
I'm going to say "yes", since it seems that simple accusations of treason are enough to declare, say, a whistle-blower to be a traitor.
In the end, you're effectively a traitor when someone with sufficient power says you are.
He will probably be happy to receive this gear back to begin messing with people potentially on the other end. I wish I could find the video, it was a recorded talk.
E.g. I would trash the computer bacause you really can not be sure what was done to it.
The devices absolutely cannot be trusted.
Whether a person cares about trusting the FBI or not (or thinks they're happy with just flashing the firmware and replacing the harddrives) is another thing.
But, in this case. I seriously doubt this guy is worth trouble... Unless government knows more about him than we do (e.g. he sells stolen intel to highest bidder).