10 ms·
I only want to know one thing: how does the government intend to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Geek Squad employees themselves didn't put the alleg
by mnm1 10y ago
I only want to know one thing: how does the government intend to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Geek Squad employees themselves didn't put the alleged porn pictures on the device? Does Geek Squad have a chain of custody and other such procedures? Was the device tracked every single moment and NEVER, not even for a second, allowed alone with anyone outside the government (this actually seems impossible unless agents were present when the device was taken in)? Seems to me like that would be a good way for Geek Squad scumbags to make some extra cash from the government while the government looks the other way and tries to convict innocent people. Also seems to me like this case should have been dismissed already based on these concerns.
- Esau 10y ago"how does the government intend to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Geek Squad employees themselves didn't put the alleged porn pictures on the device?" Well, that's the rub, isn't it? We're talking about non-law enforcement personnel who are going to be rewarded if they find something. And at that salary level, where people are frequently living month to month, it is indeed conceivable that somebody would place evidence just for the money.
- Spooky23 10y agoWhen I worked at a big computer chain in the 90s, my coworkers would sacrifice their left pinky for a $21 spiff for moving a Viewsonic monitor. $500 would be a crazy motivator, especially for the ex-military types who were drifting around after the service.
- Vadoff 10y agoWell maybe you could have an expert identify when that file was placed onto your computer. If it coincides with when the Geek Squad member worked on your computer, then that guy will (hopefully) go to jail for a long time.
- rjbwork 10y agoEasy to forge creation times.
- dredmorbius 10y agoUnallocated space doesn't have filesystem entries, hence, no file change, access, or modification times. Worse: many filesystems don't note creation time but change time. I'd have to check what the status is for NTFS (the most likely consumer FS), but that's the case for virtually all Unix-and-similar filesystems: ext3/4, HFS, etc.
- barrkel 10y agoEXT3/4 does in fact track creation time, but the Unix-style fstat() doesn't have a field to return creation time. You can use debugfs to retrieve it once you have the inode and device: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/50177/birth-is-empty-on-ext4/50184#50184 http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/50177/birth-is-empty... NTFS tracks creation time also, and it's available as one of the columns to sort by in Explorer.
- 0x09 10y agoThe BSDs, Windows, OS X, and Mac OS classic and their corresponding filesystems all supported this for decades. Linux is the only major holdout, because according to Linus, "it's all totally useless and people can't even agree on a name." [1] [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/397445/ https://lwn.net/Articles/397445/
- shakna 10y agoYet creation time is still useless in this case, because forging it is still trivial [0][1]. A chain of custody with extremely rigorous procedures and protocols is the only reason a forensic expert has some level of trust. Without that, and with incentive, this becomes nothing more than a farce. [0] https://www.howtogeek.com/203154/how-to-change-created-or-modified-timestamps-for-files-and-folders/ https://www.howtogeek.com/203154/how-to-change-created-or-mo... [1] https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=touch&sektion=1 https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=touch&sektion=1
- aphextron 10y ago>$500 would be a crazy motivator, especially for the ex-military types who were drifting around after the service. What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?
- brandnewlow 10y agoI assume he's referring to Desert Storm veterans who happened to be facing weak job prospects
- lithos 10y agoQuite a few military personnel pick up few hard skills. Unless you're in a trade/rate with with high knowledge requirements it seemed like they preferred it to keep some people in. That being said the current business 'prayer' of soft skills, has been an utterly massive boon to military personnel of any rate.
- darpa_escapee 10y agoThere are too many incentives to plant evidence: compensation, revenge, attention, power, diversion from their own crimes, etc. The KGB encouraged Soviets to spy and report on one another for kickbacks. People would disappear to gulags over neighborly disputes and other petty things. If you're going to reward people for hunting witches, expect a witch hunt.
- michalskop 10y agoNot only KGB, there are such victims jailed in Guantánamo even tonight.
- AtheistOfFail 10y agoYeah, but those were brown people. In Trump's America, who cares?
- sctb 10y agoPlease comment civilly and substantively on HN or not at all, especially on controversial subjects. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Nomentatus 10y agoSince the topic is citizens spying on citizens - There are a lot of American citizens in Guantanamo? Really? Since when?
- darpa_escapee 10y agoGiven that the poster responded to my comment about the KGB, this is really a stretch. His point was that we'd fly people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time to black sites on the basis of tips and hearsay from insurgents, Afghani and Iraqi people. If you know know you can throw innocent people, your enemy or a scapegoat under the bus for kicks and profit with no repercussions, it's going to happen. It isn't a uniquely American or Soviet thing.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 10y agoeven if the case is dismissed, your reputation is already in ruin if people just suppose you had child pornography.
- downandout 10y agoThat is a huge problem with our justice system - the arrest and prosecution almost renders the actual outcome moot because of the damage that the mere accusation carries with it. This man was a doctor, and he will live under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of his life - undoubtedly affecting his professional and personal life. I would guess that very close to 100% of patients Google their doctor's name, and guess what will come up even a decade from now? These articles. If he has kids, all their friends and their parents will know, which will affect their social lives. And most people won't actually read the articles - they'll read headlines and walk away with the impression that he was accused and got off on a technicality (assuming the case is dismissed). For all of this, he won't even receive an apology, much less any compensation from the government. True "justice" in this case would be for him to be able to sue the FBI agent that mischaracterized the image as porn to get the arrest warrant (she later testified that it was not, which should kill the case right there), Best Buy for conducting illegal surveillance, and the government for wrongful prosecution. However, all of those cases are long shots. The most likely outcome is yet another example of the extreme injustices perpetrated by law enforcement agencies against innocent US citizens on a daily basis. The worst part is that the catalyst of most of these injustices is money - individual law enforcement agents wanting to advance their government careers or pad their resumes to get better paying jobs in the private sector. The whole thing is disgusting.
- jMyles 10y agoThe justice system is screwed up, no doubt, but is this really a problem with the justice system? We as people just need to stop judging people based on assertion and innuendo. If someone is merely accused of something, and there's no evidence to back the charges, we need to judge (or refrain from judging) appropriately. Similarly, if someone is not accused or convicted of a crime, despite having obviously committed (such as the police officers who murdered Kelley Thomas), we need to feel free to come to our own conclusions.
- elevensies 10y agoAnother great reason to encrypt all your drives.
- grawlinson 10y agoYou can be forced to give up the keys to your hard drive. Few examples: https://www.cnet.com/news/doj-we-can-force-you-to-decrypt-that-laptop/ https://www.cnet.com/news/doj-we-can-force-you-to-decrypt-th... https://www.cnet.com/news/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-their-laptops/ https://www.cnet.com/news/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-d... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/17260917532/judge-says-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-laptops.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/17260917532/judge...
- sxates 10y agoDoubtful Geek Squad is going to force you though.
- elevensies 10y agoIts true that you can be ordered by the court to decrypt drives. Then there is a documented point-in-time when the state received read/write access to your drives, and also, presumably the drives are already in custody etc. I think the highest risk of evidence being planted would occur during the search and seizure process, so encryption would help you there. And it also prevents informants from doing it and then selling you out for their own benefit. And it prevents thieves from looking through your files if your bag gets snatched. Overall I think disk encryption provides some great benefits. EDIT: although you have to be more careful about data loss, for example: https://www.gwern.net/Notes#november-2016-data-loss-postmortem https://www.gwern.net/Notes#november-2016-data-loss-postmort...
- michaelmrose 10y agoThis is by no means ultimately decided yet.
- M_Grey 10y ago
- vermontdevil 10y agoIt's like declaring a bounty on a certain invasive species. This usually motivates people to breed said species to collect the bounty.
- seanp2k2 10y agoConsider, throughout history, how much time humans have wasted on such endeavors in the name of currency.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoWhen I consider how much time, resources and effort humans have wasted on stupid / harmful shit in the name of currency, I just want to cry.
- dredmorbius 10y agoI'm leaning strongly to the view that modern "free-market capitalism" is really a variant on mercantilism, in which liquidity has replaced gold and silver. The end results are rather similar.
- preid24 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
- robotjosh 10y agoHow do you know that the police themselves don't put porn on someone's computer to get them?
- axoltl 10y agoIt's all about incentive and opportunity. The Geek Squad employee has a good incentive to do so as it means a $500 payday. Considering these guys' likely pay, that's a decent chunk of change. They also have plenty of opportunity to do so, they handle computers all day long. The police on the other hand have less of an incentive to do so, unless they were specifically trying to hurt someone. They also have far less opportunity, as they would've already needed a reason to have said computer in their possession.
- diydsp 10y agoConsider access, similar behavior, similar prosecution and motivation. Motivation: Police structure and culture are set up so that catching more criminals gives kudos but not financial incentive. Other behaviors are valued higher, such as keeping calm in a situation, endurance, ability to negotiate intense situations. Crimes themselves are only a part of police work, much is peace-keeping, presence, simple observation and record-keeping. Television of course, focus on the most dramatic elements, but upon catching a pedophile, incentive isn't necessarily the highest perspective of importance. You still have to touch the creep, take their statements, deal with it emotionally, transport them all over the place in your vehicle. Similar behavior: With the extremely rare exception of a few bad apples, very few police plant evidence at crimes. It has happened, just like hot air balloons sometimes fall out of the sky, but it's not a system which incentivizes and rewards the behavior. Access: Police aren't at the keyboards of peoples' PCs, whereas Geek Squad people are given complete access to computers often in peoples' houses and in private. Moreover, they're typically working with an especially vulnerable population, those with little technical literacy. Fabricating that evidence remotely is a chore and supposing users employ half-decent passwords and ignore phishing, non-trivial. It requires special training and even equipment. Similar Prosecution: Piracy and other forbidden data is more efficiently done by cutting things of at the source, typically by sophisticated actors who won't be in contact with The Geek Squad. It only rarely pays to go after individuals like this, or maybe there's more to the story than we understand from what the media tells us.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TACIXAT 10y agoThis case pisses me off. Truly. Not because of what the FBI did, but because of all these articles coming out, from the doctor's home town, that leave out a ton of detail. Then a bunch of people in the comments defending someone who had naked pictures of underage girls and works in a position of power. He's trying to get off on a technicality. How could we possibly know? >Mark Rettenmaier, a gynecologic oncologist on staff at Hoag Hospital, had the pornography on three portable hard drives, a laptop and his iPhone, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed in November. 1. http://www.latimes.com/tn-dpt-me-1224-doctor-update-20141222-story.html http://www.latimes.com/tn-dpt-me-1224-doctor-update-20141222...
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoWTF? Should law enforcement not be obligated to follow the law when they're hunting down people we don't like?
- Svezik 10y agoTalk to a millennial sometime. They don't teach these things in school any more. Talk about the presumption of innocence or the right to a fair trial and they look at you like you're from outer space.
- dragonwriter 10y agoNot only are Millennials I know as likely to be aware of those things as older people I know, Millennials are among the most passionate about protecting them.
- katpas 10y agoI'm a 'millenial'. I also have a law degree and our lecturers were pretty hot on the importance of the right to a fair process and a fair trial above all else.
- ftxrcc 10y agoVery low quality comment. Millennials are among the best informed of the issue.
- dredmorbius 10y agoSee the Cobra Effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect Perverse incentives of rewarding information or activities.