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Experts: Evidence to support search warrant on Rebekah Jones' home flimsy

101 points by dtmmax33 6y ago

zaroth 6y ago
On the home page of Florida Today, there are right now 9 different articles defending or supporting Rebekah Jones, some of them linked multiple times, for a total of 12 links on the home page with the following headlines; Rebekah Jones pushes back after dashcam released Exclusive interview with Rebekah Jones Evidence 'weak' for warrant on Rebekah Jones home Jones reacts to release of FDLE raid footage FDLE releases bodycam video of Rebekah Jones raid Fired FDOH scientist denies wrongdoing Rebekah Jones described equipment seized Fired FDOH scientist: ‘I spoke out of necessity' Rebekah Jones talks whistleblower complaint
- byecomputer 6y ago
  Geez Rebekah, save some headlines for the rest of us
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
Everyone knows the evidence and information supporting the raid was nonsense. She refused to bend the knee to a conservative administration while people were dying, and the political machine decided to lash out.
- cpncrunch 6y ago
  >She refused to bend the knee to a conservative administration while people were dying, and the political machine decided to lash out. Nope, that isn't what happened at all. The facts [1] show that she got the wrong end of the stick when the state epidemiologist asked to temporary remove one data field in order to validate the data (according to the emails seen). She didn't have all the facts, and she then incorrectly assumed that the data was being censored. [1] https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/florida-health-department-officials-told-manager-to-delete-coronavirus-data-before-reassigning-her-emails-show/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/florida-heal...
  - gruez 6y ago
    >She didn't have all the facts, and she then incorrectly assumed that the data was being censored. So the solution is to raid her house? How about we raid the people that allege that biden fraudulently won the election?
    - cpncrunch 6y ago
      That's a ridiculous illogical comment. I was not commenting on the raid at all.
      - aaomidi 6y ago
        And so is your comment. Why does why she was fired relevant? Also your article goes literally against what you said.
        cpncrunch 6y ago
        >Why does why she was fired relevant? It's not. I never even mentioned that. The article was supporting my comment above by showing the emails between the state epidemiologist and her dept. I havent found any better source for those emails. >Also your article goes literally against what you said. No, it doesn't, if you read the article you will see it supports the facts I gave (see my other comment in this thread).
  - jeremysalwen 6y ago
    Your claims are not supported by the article linked.
    - cpncrunch 6y ago
      If you look at the first article, you will see that it does in fact support the facts I presented: [1] The state epidemiologist asked her supervisor to temporily remove the data: "“Per Dr. Blackmore, disable the ability to export the data to files from the dashboard immediately. We need to ensure that dates (date fields) in all objects match their counterpart on the PDF line list published,”" [2] Rebekah assumed this was censorship: “This is the wrong call,” [3] Her supervisor asked her to re-instate the data one hour later: "Then, just after 6 p.m., the I.T. director emailed both Jones and Dr. Blackmore. “Re-enable for now please.”"
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Everyone? Having not read the court filing that granted the search warrant I know nothing about the information supporting the seizure. I know that she tried to make an emotional appeal on social media, I know that she has been accused of really sketchy behavior with a coworker, and I know that people who read her messaging are going to jump to conclusions about her being wronged with no information besides her being fired by republicans. What evidence was presented which got the warrant granted? Why was it nonsense, and what led the judge to grant it anyway? Why did she delay officers executing a legally granted search warrant for twenty minutes, hanging up on them and refusing to answer the door? It very much strikes me as a “more than meets the eye” kind of situation that jumping to conclusions based on political affiliation does not do justice.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >Why did she delay officers executing a legally granted search warrant for twenty minutes, hanging up on them and refusing to answer the door? I can think of several reasonable reasons why she might do so: 1. To contact the court WRT the validity of such a search warrant; 2. To contact an attorney to obtain legal advice WRT how to respond to an attempt to enter and search her home; 3. To remove her small children (who obviously have no involvement) and protect them from the police; 4. To put on appropriate clothing so as to be fully dressed when police enter her home. I'm sure there are a myriad of other reasonable reasons she might have delayed answering her door. I don't know if any or all of the above (or any other) reasons are relevant, but it seems to me that such a delay doesn't imply wrongdoing on her part.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      23 minutes. The police showed overwhelming restraint in not breaking the door down. Whatever she was doing, she could have been trying to destroy evidence the entire time. The police serving a warrant aren’t supposed to wait outside for half an hour for you to answer the door.
      - nobody9999 6y ago
itronitron 6y ago
related discussion from yesterday >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25362079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25362079
- dang 6y ago
  Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370229 Earlier threads on the story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348695
HexagonalKitten 6y ago
This is a pretty bad article. Their expert isn't: "Butler, at the University of Florida, said making an IP address that appears to come from elsewhere isn't that complicated." And the legal analysis is weak, but that's apparent from the title: "Experts: evidence to support search warrant on Rebekah Jones' home flimsy" Yes, search warrants are to search for evidence. If the evidence wasn't flimsy they'd have had an arrest warrant. It offers as a defense that there were no damages. "What (Jones) did, didn't cause any damage," she continued. "Normally you don't see prosecutors prosecuting for computer crimes something that didn't cause any harm... it seems to be a very sketchy use of discretion to try to use this very serious statute against somebody who didn't cause any harm to your systems." But it neglects to recognize that the damaging act is the message, and whatever actions or defamation it may cause, not the stolen CPU time. It quotes the EFF to say that an IP alone isn't good evidence, "It's a thin read to just use the IP address, and it's one that we really, really discourage," said Cindy Cohn, the EFF's executive director. But it misses that they had an IP and it coincided with a small set of people who had access and motive. They note that the police had an IP, but no linkage of IP/customer/date. This does allow challenging the warrant, but doesn't make it instantly null and void. It says "Cybersecurity and digital rights experts also said the fact that the emergency system in question relied on a shared user name and password further complicates the case." No, it doesn't. Fired people are not authorized users. And they have an IP address which points to a specific one of those users, so that's not complicated. It then attempts to conflate misuse of data with unauthorized access of the system at all by claiming that this case is similar to Van Buren v. United States which is about a police officer using his authorized access to do something which was forbidden. I have no opinion about the case but this article is trying to give me one. Not facts, it just wants to skip straight to opinions.
- cpncrunch 6y ago
  >This is a pretty bad article. The main problem I have with the article is that it's factually incorrect about it being easy to spoof an ip address in a situation like this. It's easy to send off a fake ip address if [1] your ISP permits spoofed ips (which it shouldn't) and [2] you don't care about a response. But in this case the user had to actually log into the system, which is pretty tricky to do with ip spoofing. (There is some debate about it potentially just requiring an email to be sent to a mailing list, but even SMTP requires various responses). Given the level of technical difficulty to do this, it seems extremely implausible that someone would go to all that effort just to send out this message.
heisenbit 6y ago
How can the state claim the access was unauthorized when it shared password between users and also published it on a document on its website? The former may be irresponsible but is commonly excused but the latter?
- colechristensen 6y ago
  If I leave a pie on the windowsill, it is still wrong to take it even if it’s easy. Bad security practices doesn’t mean it is open season for any activity. Being fired and logging back on to work computers is really hard to defend as not knowingly wrong.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    That's not what the parent is asking tho. They're saying how do you actually pin it on them.
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      You ask the ISP who owns the IP who was using it at a specific time, when it turns out to be your former employee’s home, you ask for a search warrant to sieze her computers as evidence. Then you try to match logs on a device with logs on your servers, and additional evidence perhaps as well in order to establish beyond reasonable doubt that this woman did indeed do what is being accused.
      - aaomidi 6y ago
        Yes because ip spoofing doesn't happen.
        zaroth 6y ago
        So your conspiracy theory is someone sent the message and spoofed Jone’s IP address in order to frame her? Give me a break. In any case, the right response is to serve a warrant and check her devices to see if there’s substantiating evidence. It wasn’t any random IP. It was her IP.
colechristensen 6y ago
This is complete BS. The complaint alleges that 1750 messages were posted on an communications system urging employees to blow whistles. Those messages were linked to an IP address which Comcast pointed at Jones’ home. Is that enough for a conviction? No, it’s not hard to establish reasonable doubt with that. But that’s damn well enough for a search warrant to sieze electronics from somebody’s home. Being fired for insubordination, she had motivation, the terrible security practices gave her opportunity, and IP logs are a clear piece of evidence that it could be her. That’s a pretty solid ground for granting a search warrant. Hanging up on officers and denying them entry for twenty minutes is a good way to make them nervous about your intentions as well. IPs can be spoofed? Sorry it would take a hell of a lot of sophistication for that to be what happened or outright evidence falsification on the prosecution. Is it more likely that a somewhat troubled woman logged in to work computers to try to stir up trouble or that a sophisticated act of framing occurred?
- sneak 6y ago
  The seeking of a (potentially plausible) search warrant by the state to silence a publisher that is publishing things the state doesn't want published is the issue here, not the relative merits of the search warrant itself. The state was using this as retaliation, not to further the investigation of a crime. That's just the cover story. Even if they make the hacking charges stick, this isn't about hacking at all, it's about publishing. It's astounding to me to see people regurgitating unsubstantiated cop claims with no evidence.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    If she did do it, logged on to a work system after being fired to spam a communications system encouraging people to blow whistles... I guess I don’t really care if the motivation to prosecute is political. That’s a pretty clear cut case of a crime being committed. The defense about the justification for the warrant being dubious is just false. Unless somebody wants to claim the evidence is fabricated, don’t go searching for “experts” to come up with nonsensical refutations.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

101 points by dtmmax33 6y ago

On the home page of Florida Today, there are right now 9 different articles defending or supporting Rebekah Jones, some of them linked multiple times, for a total of 12 links on the home page with the following headlines; Rebekah Jones pushes back after dashcam released Exclusive interview with Rebekah Jones Evidence 'weak' for warrant on Rebekah Jones home Jones reacts to release of FDLE raid footage FDLE releases bodycam video of Rebekah Jones raid Fired FDOH scientist denies wrongdoing Rebekah Jones described equipment seized Fired FDOH scientist: ‘I spoke out of necessity' Rebekah Jones talks whistleblower complaint

byecomputer 6y ago
Geez Rebekah, save some headlines for the rest of us

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

Everyone knows the evidence and information supporting the raid was nonsense. She refused to bend the knee to a conservative administration while people were dying, and the political machine decided to lash out.

cpncrunch 6y ago
>She refused to bend the knee to a conservative administration while people were dying, and the political machine decided to lash out. Nope, that isn't what happened at all. The facts [1] show that she got the wrong end of the stick when the state epidemiologist asked to temporary remove one data field in order to validate the data (according to the emails seen). She didn't have all the facts, and she then incorrectly assumed that the data was being censored. [1] https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/florida-health-department-officials-told-manager-to-delete-coronavirus-data-before-reassigning-her-emails-show/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/florida-heal...
- gruez 6y ago
  >She didn't have all the facts, and she then incorrectly assumed that the data was being censored. So the solution is to raid her house? How about we raid the people that allege that biden fraudulently won the election?
  - cpncrunch 6y ago
    That's a ridiculous illogical comment. I was not commenting on the raid at all.
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      And so is your comment. Why does why she was fired relevant? Also your article goes literally against what you said.
      - cpncrunch 6y ago
        >Why does why she was fired relevant? It's not. I never even mentioned that. The article was supporting my comment above by showing the emails between the state epidemiologist and her dept. I havent found any better source for those emails. >Also your article goes literally against what you said. No, it doesn't, if you read the article you will see it supports the facts I gave (see my other comment in this thread).
- jeremysalwen 6y ago
  Your claims are not supported by the article linked.
  - cpncrunch 6y ago
    If you look at the first article, you will see that it does in fact support the facts I presented: [1] The state epidemiologist asked her supervisor to temporily remove the data: "“Per Dr. Blackmore, disable the ability to export the data to files from the dashboard immediately. We need to ensure that dates (date fields) in all objects match their counterpart on the PDF line list published,”" [2] Rebekah assumed this was censorship: “This is the wrong call,” [3] Her supervisor asked her to re-instate the data one hour later: "Then, just after 6 p.m., the I.T. director emailed both Jones and Dr. Blackmore. “Re-enable for now please.”"
colechristensen 6y ago
Everyone? Having not read the court filing that granted the search warrant I know nothing about the information supporting the seizure. I know that she tried to make an emotional appeal on social media, I know that she has been accused of really sketchy behavior with a coworker, and I know that people who read her messaging are going to jump to conclusions about her being wronged with no information besides her being fired by republicans. What evidence was presented which got the warrant granted? Why was it nonsense, and what led the judge to grant it anyway? Why did she delay officers executing a legally granted search warrant for twenty minutes, hanging up on them and refusing to answer the door? It very much strikes me as a “more than meets the eye” kind of situation that jumping to conclusions based on political affiliation does not do justice.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Why did she delay officers executing a legally granted search warrant for twenty minutes, hanging up on them and refusing to answer the door? I can think of several reasonable reasons why she might do so: 1. To contact the court WRT the validity of such a search warrant; 2. To contact an attorney to obtain legal advice WRT how to respond to an attempt to enter and search her home; 3. To remove her small children (who obviously have no involvement) and protect them from the police; 4. To put on appropriate clothing so as to be fully dressed when police enter her home. I'm sure there are a myriad of other reasonable reasons she might have delayed answering her door. I don't know if any or all of the above (or any other) reasons are relevant, but it seems to me that such a delay doesn't imply wrongdoing on her part.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    23 minutes. The police showed overwhelming restraint in not breaking the door down. Whatever she was doing, she could have been trying to destroy evidence the entire time. The police serving a warrant aren’t supposed to wait outside for half an hour for you to answer the door.
    - nobody9999 6y ago

itronitron 6y ago

related discussion from yesterday >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25362079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25362079

dang 6y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25370229 Earlier threads on the story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25349759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348695

HexagonalKitten 6y ago

This is a pretty bad article. Their expert isn't: "Butler, at the University of Florida, said making an IP address that appears to come from elsewhere isn't that complicated." And the legal analysis is weak, but that's apparent from the title: "Experts: evidence to support search warrant on Rebekah Jones' home flimsy" Yes, search warrants are to search for evidence. If the evidence wasn't flimsy they'd have had an arrest warrant. It offers as a defense that there were no damages. "What (Jones) did, didn't cause any damage," she continued. "Normally you don't see prosecutors prosecuting for computer crimes something that didn't cause any harm... it seems to be a very sketchy use of discretion to try to use this very serious statute against somebody who didn't cause any harm to your systems." But it neglects to recognize that the damaging act is the message, and whatever actions or defamation it may cause, not the stolen CPU time. It quotes the EFF to say that an IP alone isn't good evidence, "It's a thin read to just use the IP address, and it's one that we really, really discourage," said Cindy Cohn, the EFF's executive director. But it misses that they had an IP and it coincided with a small set of people who had access and motive. They note that the police had an IP, but no linkage of IP/customer/date. This does allow challenging the warrant, but doesn't make it instantly null and void. It says "Cybersecurity and digital rights experts also said the fact that the emergency system in question relied on a shared user name and password further complicates the case." No, it doesn't. Fired people are not authorized users. And they have an IP address which points to a specific one of those users, so that's not complicated. It then attempts to conflate misuse of data with unauthorized access of the system at all by claiming that this case is similar to Van Buren v. United States which is about a police officer using his authorized access to do something which was forbidden. I have no opinion about the case but this article is trying to give me one. Not facts, it just wants to skip straight to opinions.

cpncrunch 6y ago
>This is a pretty bad article. The main problem I have with the article is that it's factually incorrect about it being easy to spoof an ip address in a situation like this. It's easy to send off a fake ip address if [1] your ISP permits spoofed ips (which it shouldn't) and [2] you don't care about a response. But in this case the user had to actually log into the system, which is pretty tricky to do with ip spoofing. (There is some debate about it potentially just requiring an email to be sent to a mailing list, but even SMTP requires various responses). Given the level of technical difficulty to do this, it seems extremely implausible that someone would go to all that effort just to send out this message.

heisenbit 6y ago

How can the state claim the access was unauthorized when it shared password between users and also published it on a document on its website? The former may be irresponsible but is commonly excused but the latter?

colechristensen 6y ago
If I leave a pie on the windowsill, it is still wrong to take it even if it’s easy. Bad security practices doesn’t mean it is open season for any activity. Being fired and logging back on to work computers is really hard to defend as not knowingly wrong.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  That's not what the parent is asking tho. They're saying how do you actually pin it on them.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    You ask the ISP who owns the IP who was using it at a specific time, when it turns out to be your former employee’s home, you ask for a search warrant to sieze her computers as evidence. Then you try to match logs on a device with logs on your servers, and additional evidence perhaps as well in order to establish beyond reasonable doubt that this woman did indeed do what is being accused.
    - aaomidi 6y ago
      Yes because ip spoofing doesn't happen.
      - zaroth 6y ago
        So your conspiracy theory is someone sent the message and spoofed Jone’s IP address in order to frame her? Give me a break. In any case, the right response is to serve a warrant and check her devices to see if there’s substantiating evidence. It wasn’t any random IP. It was her IP.

colechristensen 6y ago

This is complete BS. The complaint alleges that 1750 messages were posted on an communications system urging employees to blow whistles. Those messages were linked to an IP address which Comcast pointed at Jones’ home. Is that enough for a conviction? No, it’s not hard to establish reasonable doubt with that. But that’s damn well enough for a search warrant to sieze electronics from somebody’s home. Being fired for insubordination, she had motivation, the terrible security practices gave her opportunity, and IP logs are a clear piece of evidence that it could be her. That’s a pretty solid ground for granting a search warrant. Hanging up on officers and denying them entry for twenty minutes is a good way to make them nervous about your intentions as well. IPs can be spoofed? Sorry it would take a hell of a lot of sophistication for that to be what happened or outright evidence falsification on the prosecution. Is it more likely that a somewhat troubled woman logged in to work computers to try to stir up trouble or that a sophisticated act of framing occurred?

sneak 6y ago
The seeking of a (potentially plausible) search warrant by the state to silence a publisher that is publishing things the state doesn't want published is the issue here, not the relative merits of the search warrant itself. The state was using this as retaliation, not to further the investigation of a crime. That's just the cover story. Even if they make the hacking charges stick, this isn't about hacking at all, it's about publishing. It's astounding to me to see people regurgitating unsubstantiated cop claims with no evidence.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  If she did do it, logged on to a work system after being fired to spam a communications system encouraging people to blow whistles... I guess I don’t really care if the motivation to prosecute is political. That’s a pretty clear cut case of a crime being committed. The defense about the justification for the warrant being dubious is just false. Unless somebody wants to claim the evidence is fabricated, don’t go searching for “experts” to come up with nonsensical refutations.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]