Entries Tagged "courts"

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Dan Egerstad Arrested

I previously wrote about Dan Egerstad, a security researcher who ran a Tor anonymity network and was able to sniff some pretty impressive usernames and passwords.

Swedish police arrested him:

About 9am Egerstad walked downstairs to move his car when he was accosted by the officers in a scene “taken out of a bad movie”, he said in an email interview.

“I got a couple of police IDs in my face while told that they are taking me in for questioning,” he said.

But not before the agents, who had staked out his house in undercover blue and grey Saabs (“something that screams cop to every person in Sweden from miles away”), searched his apartment and confiscated computers, CDs and portable hard drives.

“They broke my wardrobe, short cutted my electricity, pulled out my speakers, phone and other cables having nothing to do with this and been touching my bookkeeping, which they have no right to do,” he said.

While questioning Egerstad at the station, the police “played every trick in the book, good cop, bad cop and crazy mysterious guy in the corner not wanting to tell his name and just staring at me”.

“Well, if they want to try to manipulate, I can play that game too. [I] gave every known body signal there is telling of lies … covered my mouth, scratched my elbow, looked away and so on.”

No charges have been filed. I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with what he did.

Here’s a good article on what he did; it was published just before the arrest.

Posted on November 16, 2007 at 2:27 PM • View Comments

Partial Fingerprints Barred from Murder Trial

Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon man who was arrested because his fingerprint “matched” that of an Algerian who handled one of the Madrid bombs, now has a legacy: a judge has ruled partial prints cannot be used in a murder case.

“The repercussions are terrifically broad,” said David L. Faigman, a professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law and an editor of Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony.

“Fingerprints, before DNA, were always considered the gold standard of forensic science, and it’s turning out that there’s a lot more tin in that field than gold,” he said. “The public needs to understand that. This judge is declaring, not to mix my metaphors, that the emperor has no clothes.”

Posted on October 25, 2007 at 7:03 AM • View Comments

Master Forger Sentenced in the UK

Fascinating:

Magic fingers and an unerring eye gave “Hologram Tam,” one of the best forgers in Europe, the skills to produce counterfeit banknotes so authentic that when he was arrested nearly £700,000 worth were in circulation.

Thomas McAnea, 58, who was jailed for six years and four months yesterday, was the kingpin of a professional operation based in Glasgow that, according to police, had the capacity to produce £2 million worth of fake notes a day ­ enough potentially tom destabilise the British economy. More may remain out there undetected.

[…]

“Some of Hologram Tam’s money is still out there. It’s that good that if I gave you one of his notes, you wouldn’t know it,” a police source said.

The detectives also found templates for other forgeries including passports, driving licences, ID cards, bank statements, utility bills, MoT certificates, postage and saving stamps and TV licences.

Posted on October 12, 2007 at 11:34 AM • View Comments

Mesa Airlines Destroys Evidence

How not to delete evidence. First, do something bad. Then, try to delete the data files that prove it. Finally, blame it on adult content.

Hawaiian alleged Murnane—who was placed on a 90-leave by Mesa’s board last week—deleted hundreds of pages of computer records that would have shown that Mesa misappropriated the Hawaiian information.

But Mesa says any deletion was not intentional and they have copies of the deleted files.

“He (Murnane) was cruising on adult Web sites,” said Mesa attorney Max Blecher in a court hearing yesterday. Murnane was just trying to delete the porn sites, he said.

EDITED TO ADD (11/6): In the aftermath, the CFO got fired and Mesa got hit with an $80 million judgment. Ouch.

Posted on October 9, 2007 at 2:02 PM • View Comments

Federal Judge Strikes Down National-Security-Letter Provision of Patriot Act

Article, ACLU press release, some legal commentary, and actual decision.

From the article:

The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers’ phone and Internet records.

In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.

He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all “be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof.”

Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.

He said when “the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty.”

Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”

He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

Note that judge immediately stayed his decision, pending appeal.

EDITED TO ADD (9/9): More legal commentary.

Posted on September 7, 2007 at 10:05 AM • View Comments

NASA Employees Sue over Background Checks

This is a big deal:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists and engineers sued NASA and the California Institute of Technology on Thursday, challenging extensive new background checks that the space exploration center and other federal agencies began requiring in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

[…]

But according to the lawsuit, the Commerce Department and NASA instituted requirements that employees and contractors permit sweeping background checks to qualify for credentials and refusal would mean the loss of their jobs.

NASA calls on employees to permit investigators to delve into medical, financial and past employment records, and to question friends and acquaintances about everything from their finances to sex lives, according to the suit. The requirements apply to everyone from janitors to visiting professors.

The suit claims violations of the U.S. Constitution’s 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, 14th Amendment protection against invasion of the right to privacy, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and rights under the California Constitution.

Those in more sensitive positions are asked to disclose financial records, list foreign trips and give the government permission to view their medical history.

Workers also must sign a waiver giving investigators access to virtually all personal information.

[…]

“Many of the plaintiffs only agreed to work for NASA with the understanding that they would not have to work on classified materials or to undergo any type of security clearance,” the suit said.

More details here (check out the “Forum” if you’re really interested) and in this article.

Posted on September 4, 2007 at 12:56 PM • View Comments

Computer Forensics Case Study

This is a report on the presentation of computer forensic evidence in a UK trial.

There are three things that concern me here:

  1. The computer was operated by a police officer prior to forensic examination.
  2. The forensic examiner gave an opinion on what files construed “radical Islamic politics.”
  3. The presence of documents”in the “Windows Options” folders was construed as evidence that that someone wanted to hide those documents

In general, computer forensics is rather ad hoc. Traditional rules of evidence are broken all the time. But this seems like a pretty egregious example.

Posted on August 31, 2007 at 6:13 AM • View Comments

Stupidest Terrorist Overreaction Yet?

What? Are the police taking stupid pills?

Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The competition is fierce, but I think this is a winner.

What bothers me most about the news coverage is that there isn’t even a suggestion that the authorities’ response might have been out of line.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

Translation: We screwed up, and we want someone to pay for our mistake.

Posted on August 27, 2007 at 2:34 PM • View Comments

Interview with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell

Mike McConnell, U.S. National Intelligence Director, gave an interesting interview to the El Paso Times.

I don’t think he’s ever been so candid before. For example, he admitted that the nation’s telcos assisted the NSA in their massive eavesdropping efforts. We already knew this, of course, but the government has steadfastly maintained that either confirming or denying this would compromise national security.

There are, of course, moments of surreality. He said that it takes 200 hours to prepare a FISA warrant. Ryan Single calculated that since there were 2,167 such warrants in 2006, there must be “218 government employees with top secret clearances sitting in rooms, writing only FISA warrants.” Seems unlikely.

But most notable is this bit:

Q. So you’re saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A. That’s what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it’s a democratic process and sunshine’s a good thing. We need to have the debate.

Ah, the politics of fear. I don’t care if it’s the terrorists or the politicians, refuse to be terrorized. (More interesting discussions on the interview here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Posted on August 24, 2007 at 6:30 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.