14 ms·

How I almost got a Criminal Record

86 points by sathyabhat 15y ago

mirkules 15y ago
My very first thought was do NOT go to the police station without a lawyer. Nothing good can come out of talking to the police (or anyone else) without legal counsel when you are the accused. This video lecture by officer George Bruch really opened my eyes: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#
- tlow 15y ago
  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865... I believe this is the preceding video to George Bruch's. I found both to be compelling.
- ars 15y ago
  Wrong, as this very article proves. That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested). By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was. If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out. But that would not change the past, and he would have still spent time in jail. If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind.
  - mirkules 15y ago
    This article didn't prove anything. The author got lucky that he ran into a legal department that found their own error. "If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out." Obtaining a lawyer does not in any way imply guilt - you are exercising your right to an attorney and proper process of law. Watch the video. "If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind." No. If you are _accused_ you should get a lawyer. A seemingly innocent statement can be completely taken out of context, again watch the video. Also, you are being foolish if you think you can change an officer's mind about arresting you by talking to him. I'll say it again, whether you are guilty or not, the only words out of your mouth when you are accused of a crime should be "I'd like to speak with a lawyer"
    - ars 15y ago
      Like the poster above you, you are confusing the court and the cops. > Obtaining a lawyer does not in any way imply guilt To the court. But to the cops it most definitely does imply guilt. After arrest it's worth it - they already think you are guilty. But before arrest it's not. > whether you are guilty or not, the only words out of your mouth when you are accused of a crime should be "I'd like to speak with a lawyer" That will help you in court, but doing that guarantees arrest. You may be released later, but I'd prefer to avoid the arrest in the first place.
      - drivebyacct2 15y ago
        Wait, you're implying that bringing a lawyer with you is grounds for arrest? You need to get a better lawyer if that's happening. You realize that cops can't just arrest you for whatever right? They have to have grounds to arrest you, and in a case where you're getting voluntarily called to the station, someone has signed off on it and has either said that they can/can't arrest you for reason X, Y or Z. Walking in with a lawyer doesn't give them cause to arrest you, and if they do so, any lawyer worth their salt will ask why they're arresting you. There are legal limits to how long they can hold you for questioning without an arrest.
        ars 15y ago
        > Wait, you're implying that bringing a lawyer with you is grounds for arrest? It's not grounds. They already have grounds or they wouldn't be talking to you in the first place. But if they are unsure (which they usually are) a lawyer will tip the balance toward definite arrest. A good lawyer will get you out later sure. But he can't prevent the arrest in the first place. > There are legal limits to how long they can hold you for questioning without an arrest. If they are "holding you" you are basically arrested.
        mootothemax 15y ago
        It's not grounds. They already have grounds or they wouldn't be talking to you in the first place. But if they are unsure (which they usually are) a lawyer will tip the balance toward definite arrest. A good lawyer will get you out later sure. But he can't prevent the arrest in the first place. Citation, please. A good lawyer will absolutely prevent arrest by stopping you from saying something that implicates yourself, regardless of whether you're innocent or not. If they are "holding you" you are basically arrested. Please expand.
  - asnyder 15y ago
    It's a slippery slope, if you're the main suspect in any case by talking all you're doing is giving them information which they can use however they want against you. If you give them no information the burden on them is to dig up whatever they can, if they can't, too bad. For example, in this case clearly the author is technical enough to have perpetrated this crime, and by divulging your technical knowledge you just make yourself more of a suspect. Also, better to have a lawyer with you advising whether you should answer such and such question. Remember, the police are not your friends, as much as they would like to make it seem that way, they want to charge someone with a crime and close the case, everybody says their innocent. It's real tough as lawyers are very expensive, and the police, feds, etc. will make it seem as if you don't need one, lies, all lies. At most, say it wasn't you, I was at such and such, any further questions, refer to my lawyer.
    - ars 15y ago
      You are confusing the court and the cops. Everything you write is true about court. But it's not true regarding cops. Cops do not need proof to arrest someone, they simply need to be suspicious. You want them to not be suspicious of you, and the easiest way is not to act guilty.
      - epoxyhockey 15y ago
        The police were already suspicious of the guy as he received a letter in the mail to come down to the police station. Why are you so insistent on talking to police without a lawyer? People watch too much TV to think that "not acting guilty" will get you bonus points in the real world. Also, police job performance is not measured by letting innocent people go. It's measured by arrests and convictions.
      - bullseye 15y ago
        Asking for a lawyer does not fall under probable cause, which is what they need to arrest you. "He looks guilty" is not probable cause. And if they already have cause, you really want to have an attorney present. I don't understand why this isn't completely obvious. I'd suggest taking the time to speak to someone in law enforcement about how difficult it actually is to perform arrests. I think you would be surprised.
  - milkshakes 15y ago
    Maybe in Europe. Here in the USA, law enforcement is much more manipulative and narrow minded. If they're talking to you, they already think you're guilty, and they're trying to twist everything you tell them to fit their story. Don't ever interview with police without a lawyer present.
    - ars 15y ago
      That interview you are thinking of is after arrest. In which case get a lawyer 100%. Before arrest they are much softer since you can leave at any time. And Europe is no different.
      - milkshakes 15y ago
        I'm sorry, but no. You're wrong and this is horrible advice. The whole point of bringing the lawyer to any interview is to prevent you from saying something that could be twisted against you later. It doesn't matter if they're 'much softer' before they arrest you, anything you say at any time can and will still be used against you.
      - furyg3 15y ago
        The police are trying to accomplish at least two objectives in the "information gathering" (pre-arrest) phase: 1. Figuring out what happened here, broadly. If you didn't do it, it truly seems like a good idea to help them with this function. It's easy to conceive of a situation where talking to them can help you here. 2. Collecting information to enable them to charge and testify against someone with. You really don't want to help them with this phase if the someone is you. Which it is. It's much better to deal with this area in court, where you get to see/evaluate/challenge their evidence before making statements. The problem with talking to the police in this pre-arrest phase is that you don't know what objective they're trying to achieve. Truth is, they don't either. They get to decide retroactively if something you said to them at this phase will be used as evidence against you, as evidence against someone else, or just discarded. Worse: in the US, what you said to them can never help you in court. "He told me he was at the scene of the crime" will help convict you, "He told me he he wasn't anywhere near the scene of the crime" will be thrown out as here-say. Given this situation, hindering objective #2 outweighs helping objective #1.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    >That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested). >By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was. That is incredibly, unsafely naive. I wish I were still naive.
    - yuhong 15y ago
      Yea, I'd say the opposite instead. Even then I still would recommend bringing a lawyer.
  - jasonzemos 15y ago
    There's an old saying that a good prosecutor will convict most guilty men, and a great prosecutor will convict a few innocent ones too. The sole purpose of law enforcement is to collect evidence to convince a trial jury of guilt. Whether or not you're guilty, have a lawyer, do a song and dance in the interview room -- it makes no difference to the police. They will only extract whatever they need to build a case. You can't expect "good faith gestures" to give you any bonus points -- there are only negative points.
  - mootothemax 15y ago
    Wrong, as this very article proves. Hang on just a minute - you're saying that only the guilty take legal advice? That's crazy! I wouldn't go along to a sales pitch without a decent salesman, why should the law be any different? If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. By then it's too late; try googling "Miscarriage of justice." It's not unknown for the police to frame suspects - if you go along lawyered-up, the chances of the police fabricating evidence from your confusion will be greatly reduced.
  - radu_floricica 15y ago
    Ok, HN, what's with you? I see no trace of anything offensive, trollish or off-topic in parent's posts, and yet they're all downvotted to oblivion. Come on!
    - iwwr 15y ago
      This appears to be an actually consequential discussion, compared to what normally happens on HN.
    - danssig 15y ago
      Ars' posts are exactly the kind of thing that should be downvoted into the stone age. It's horrible, naive and (worst of all) dangerous advice. Anyone listening to this clown could end up in prison. Personally, if I had powers here I would have banned him by now. He clearly hasn't got any idea what he's talking about but continues to shit all over the thread with his moronic advice.
  - danssig 15y ago
    Every post you've made in this thread is absolutely appallingly bad and naive advice. I hope no poor soul believes this uninformed nonsense you've written here and gets their life ruined because of it. I don't mean to have this kind of attitude on HN, of all places, but you obviously don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about (all of your "advice" is about how you would see it, i.e. less than worthless) but insist on continuing to blather on and on with your anti-advice. Please stop. A cop's job is not to catch bad guys, it's to solve cases. If they are having a hard time solving a case and some naive person walks in and explains everything then they've just found someone with opportunity. Now they just need a plausible motive and their work is done. EDIT: Spelling fixes
- peteretep 15y ago
  This seems to be an American thing - many Europeans really trust the police. Certainly in the UK I expect police to be helpful, polite, and fair; from everything I've read, that doesn't sound like the case in the US
  - yuhong 15y ago
    FYI: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/why_you_should.html#c292986 http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/why_you_should...
  - arethuza 15y ago
    I'm also in the UK - while the individual police officers I've had any dealing with have always been extremely helpful and polite I think it is dangerous to extend this to uncritical trust of the police force as an institution.
    - philbarr 15y ago
      I think trusting the police, or any institution is a big mistake. People are just people, and the police or medical profossionals can be just as lazy and inept as anyone else in any other line of work. In fact, I would say in the police it's worse as they learn to dissasociate with people's problems since they see them every day. Case in point: We were involved in a car crash. The guy crashed in to the side of us and span us 360 degrees. Immediately after the crash I checked on my wife and she said she was ok (I think she was in shock, though, later she had to be cut out of the car, needed oxygen, and was taken to hospital). I got out to see if the people in the other car were ok and saw them try and drive off, but their car was too damaged and they just drove into a few parked cars. I had a clear view of this. When the policeman arrived that night to take our statement it was clear he'd had a long day for whatever reason. I told him I saw the other car attempt to drive off. "Are you sure, sir?" "Yes. There were other people there, didn't they say the same thing?" "No." "There must have been damage to the other parked cars, though, what about that?" "The only damage was your car and their car. Remember, you'd just been in a crash, perhaps you're misremembering?" "But I could've sworn...." "Are you sure you wish to pursue this? No one else reported this." "Er, ok, er...." It was only many months later, when we received the witness accounts from the insurance company, that we realised the witnesses said the same thing as me. Neither the insurance company not the police cared. Maybe there's an extra form to fill in if someone tries to drive off.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- runjake 15y ago
  If you had read the posted link, you'd see that the author isn't American and they aren't afforded the same rights as those of us in the US. We don't get letters from the police mentioning that we're a criminal suspect. Usually such notifications come in the form of a door kick or finding a magnetic tube on the underside of our car.
ars 15y ago
Anyone else impressed that the police are actually taking this kind of thing seriously? How many stories do you read about "xx got laptop stolen and police won't do anything" - here it's hacking, and police got involved.
- CWIZO 15y ago
  Here in Slovenia they tend to investigate cases like this. I'm usually on the "give us the IP of this user" side of things (we run a social network page), so I usually don't know how things get resolved (and how long it takes if they do).
younata 15y ago
There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook? First reaction: AWESOME. I won't see any spam about that in the feed (which I rarely view anyway). Second thought: This cannot end well. It's so easy to spoof stuff that a lot of innocent people will have to deal with similar situations before the law gets repealed (if it gets repealed, most likely it'd just stop being enforced). Unfortunately, most people would never think about how bad it could end, just about how people won't be annoying them on facebook.
- pmjordan 15y ago
  There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook? I think you'll find that to be the case anywhere that has laws about "computer crimes" - the laws are usually phrased as gaining access to or manipulating systems or data for which you have no authorisation.
wladimir 15y ago
Ouch. That'd be a very Kafkaesque situation to be in. You know you didn't do anything, but they claim to have your IP in the offending logs. Luckily, it sorted itself out. This is really scary. With the little the police knows about IT, there's no way you could prove yourself innocent... even in the case of an accident like this. I don't even want to think about cases where hackers would plant an IP address in the logs on purpose to get someone into jail.
dermatthias 15y ago
Same thing happend to a german professor in 2008, where they also accidentialy swapped IP numbers. The accusation was child pornography, the news got hold of it and, of course, his reputation was deeply damaged. Original german article: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Unschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291506.html http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Unschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291... and translation: http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fct%2Fartikel%2FUnschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291506.html http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl...
Shenglong 15y ago
How did they get the police to actually act over a facebook account hack? Someone deleted a good 30,000 entries on my mySQL DB - I'd like to press charges for that.
pavel_lishin 15y ago
> So, should you ever get into a situation where you are wrongfully suspected, make sure to let people know that there is a possibility of an error, even if they tell you otherwise. Isn't this sort of obvious? If I'm charged with a crime I know I didn't commit, of course I'm going to tell them there's been a mistake.
- dagw 15y ago
  Then again if I'm charged with a crime I know I did commit, I'd probably also tell them that there's been a mistake.
harshpotatoes 15y ago
When I began reading the story, I was worried it would be about a NAT problem (since it involved his phone). While I'm glad this guy got his situation cleared so easily, I wonder how you would defend yourself in this situation. Police ask telecom, "who has this address?" Telecom says: "this person has that address" (while failing to mention who else has that address). How would you refute such charges, since it would be true that you did have that ip address in this hypothetical situation?
losethos 15y ago
"none cane be justified by the law, all fall short... by faith" "A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere" "Judge not lest you be judged" "If you so much look at a woman with lust in your eye... adultery, pluck-out your eye" God says... clave items swine speaketh widows unkindled vengence impression preparing sacrilegious truly sports tumult Predicaments thereupon psaltery tired education trust mount upbraided dispensers useful supereminence spider's fantasies oppresseth silenced wives' truth retiring speaketh endangers restrains thinketh Predicament plenteousness confounded
losethos 15y ago
"none cane be justified by the law, all fall short... by faith" "A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere" "Judge not lest you be judged" "If you so much look at a woman with lust in your eye... adultery, pluck-out your eye, cut-off your hand" God says... clave items swine speaketh widows unkindled vengence impression preparing sacrilegious truly sports tumult Predicaments thereupon psaltery tired education trust mount upbraided dispensers useful supereminence spider's fantasies oppresseth silenced wives' truth retiring speaketh endangers restrains thinketh Predicament plenteousness confounded Cops and shrinks are taught how to pigeon hole people. If you fit multiple breakfast club cliques, they label you schitophrenic. WhatEVAR!

86 points by sathyabhat 15y ago

My very first thought was do NOT go to the police station without a lawyer. Nothing good can come out of talking to the police (or anyone else) without legal counsel when you are the accused. This video lecture by officer George Bruch really opened my eyes: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#

tlow 15y ago
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865... I believe this is the preceding video to George Bruch's. I found both to be compelling.
ars 15y ago
Wrong, as this very article proves. That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested). By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was. If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out. But that would not change the past, and he would have still spent time in jail. If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind.
- mirkules 15y ago
  This article didn't prove anything. The author got lucky that he ran into a legal department that found their own error. "If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out." Obtaining a lawyer does not in any way imply guilt - you are exercising your right to an attorney and proper process of law. Watch the video. "If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind." No. If you are _accused_ you should get a lawyer. A seemingly innocent statement can be completely taken out of context, again watch the video. Also, you are being foolish if you think you can change an officer's mind about arresting you by talking to him. I'll say it again, whether you are guilty or not, the only words out of your mouth when you are accused of a crime should be "I'd like to speak with a lawyer"
  - ars 15y ago
    Like the poster above you, you are confusing the court and the cops. > Obtaining a lawyer does not in any way imply guilt To the court. But to the cops it most definitely does imply guilt. After arrest it's worth it - they already think you are guilty. But before arrest it's not. > whether you are guilty or not, the only words out of your mouth when you are accused of a crime should be "I'd like to speak with a lawyer" That will help you in court, but doing that guarantees arrest. You may be released later, but I'd prefer to avoid the arrest in the first place.
    - drivebyacct2 15y ago
      Wait, you're implying that bringing a lawyer with you is grounds for arrest? You need to get a better lawyer if that's happening. You realize that cops can't just arrest you for whatever right? They have to have grounds to arrest you, and in a case where you're getting voluntarily called to the station, someone has signed off on it and has either said that they can/can't arrest you for reason X, Y or Z. Walking in with a lawyer doesn't give them cause to arrest you, and if they do so, any lawyer worth their salt will ask why they're arresting you. There are legal limits to how long they can hold you for questioning without an arrest.
      - ars 15y ago
        > Wait, you're implying that bringing a lawyer with you is grounds for arrest? It's not grounds. They already have grounds or they wouldn't be talking to you in the first place. But if they are unsure (which they usually are) a lawyer will tip the balance toward definite arrest. A good lawyer will get you out later sure. But he can't prevent the arrest in the first place. > There are legal limits to how long they can hold you for questioning without an arrest. If they are "holding you" you are basically arrested.
        mootothemax 15y ago
        It's not grounds. They already have grounds or they wouldn't be talking to you in the first place. But if they are unsure (which they usually are) a lawyer will tip the balance toward definite arrest. A good lawyer will get you out later sure. But he can't prevent the arrest in the first place. Citation, please. A good lawyer will absolutely prevent arrest by stopping you from saying something that implicates yourself, regardless of whether you're innocent or not. If they are "holding you" you are basically arrested. Please expand.
- asnyder 15y ago
  It's a slippery slope, if you're the main suspect in any case by talking all you're doing is giving them information which they can use however they want against you. If you give them no information the burden on them is to dig up whatever they can, if they can't, too bad. For example, in this case clearly the author is technical enough to have perpetrated this crime, and by divulging your technical knowledge you just make yourself more of a suspect. Also, better to have a lawyer with you advising whether you should answer such and such question. Remember, the police are not your friends, as much as they would like to make it seem that way, they want to charge someone with a crime and close the case, everybody says their innocent. It's real tough as lawyers are very expensive, and the police, feds, etc. will make it seem as if you don't need one, lies, all lies. At most, say it wasn't you, I was at such and such, any further questions, refer to my lawyer.
  - ars 15y ago
    You are confusing the court and the cops. Everything you write is true about court. But it's not true regarding cops. Cops do not need proof to arrest someone, they simply need to be suspicious. You want them to not be suspicious of you, and the easiest way is not to act guilty.
    - epoxyhockey 15y ago
      The police were already suspicious of the guy as he received a letter in the mail to come down to the police station. Why are you so insistent on talking to police without a lawyer? People watch too much TV to think that "not acting guilty" will get you bonus points in the real world. Also, police job performance is not measured by letting innocent people go. It's measured by arrests and convictions.
    - bullseye 15y ago
      Asking for a lawyer does not fall under probable cause, which is what they need to arrest you. "He looks guilty" is not probable cause. And if they already have cause, you really want to have an attorney present. I don't understand why this isn't completely obvious. I'd suggest taking the time to speak to someone in law enforcement about how difficult it actually is to perform arrests. I think you would be surprised.
- milkshakes 15y ago
  Maybe in Europe. Here in the USA, law enforcement is much more manipulative and narrow minded. If they're talking to you, they already think you're guilty, and they're trying to twist everything you tell them to fit their story. Don't ever interview with police without a lawyer present.
  - ars 15y ago
    That interview you are thinking of is after arrest. In which case get a lawyer 100%. Before arrest they are much softer since you can leave at any time. And Europe is no different.
    - milkshakes 15y ago
      I'm sorry, but no. You're wrong and this is horrible advice. The whole point of bringing the lawyer to any interview is to prevent you from saying something that could be twisted against you later. It doesn't matter if they're 'much softer' before they arrest you, anything you say at any time can and will still be used against you.
    - furyg3 15y ago
      The police are trying to accomplish at least two objectives in the "information gathering" (pre-arrest) phase: 1. Figuring out what happened here, broadly. If you didn't do it, it truly seems like a good idea to help them with this function. It's easy to conceive of a situation where talking to them can help you here. 2. Collecting information to enable them to charge and testify against someone with. You really don't want to help them with this phase if the someone is you. Which it is. It's much better to deal with this area in court, where you get to see/evaluate/challenge their evidence before making statements. The problem with talking to the police in this pre-arrest phase is that you don't know what objective they're trying to achieve. Truth is, they don't either. They get to decide retroactively if something you said to them at this phase will be used as evidence against you, as evidence against someone else, or just discarded. Worse: in the US, what you said to them can never help you in court. "He told me he was at the scene of the crime" will help convict you, "He told me he he wasn't anywhere near the scene of the crime" will be thrown out as here-say. Given this situation, hindering objective #2 outweighs helping objective #1.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  >That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested). >By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was. That is incredibly, unsafely naive. I wish I were still naive.
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yea, I'd say the opposite instead. Even then I still would recommend bringing a lawyer.
- jasonzemos 15y ago
  There's an old saying that a good prosecutor will convict most guilty men, and a great prosecutor will convict a few innocent ones too. The sole purpose of law enforcement is to collect evidence to convince a trial jury of guilt. Whether or not you're guilty, have a lawyer, do a song and dance in the interview room -- it makes no difference to the police. They will only extract whatever they need to build a case. You can't expect "good faith gestures" to give you any bonus points -- there are only negative points.
- mootothemax 15y ago
  Wrong, as this very article proves. Hang on just a minute - you're saying that only the guilty take legal advice? That's crazy! I wouldn't go along to a sales pitch without a decent salesman, why should the law be any different? If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. By then it's too late; try googling "Miscarriage of justice." It's not unknown for the police to frame suspects - if you go along lawyered-up, the chances of the police fabricating evidence from your confusion will be greatly reduced.
- radu_floricica 15y ago
  Ok, HN, what's with you? I see no trace of anything offensive, trollish or off-topic in parent's posts, and yet they're all downvotted to oblivion. Come on!
  - iwwr 15y ago
    This appears to be an actually consequential discussion, compared to what normally happens on HN.
  - danssig 15y ago
    Ars' posts are exactly the kind of thing that should be downvoted into the stone age. It's horrible, naive and (worst of all) dangerous advice. Anyone listening to this clown could end up in prison. Personally, if I had powers here I would have banned him by now. He clearly hasn't got any idea what he's talking about but continues to shit all over the thread with his moronic advice.
- danssig 15y ago
  Every post you've made in this thread is absolutely appallingly bad and naive advice. I hope no poor soul believes this uninformed nonsense you've written here and gets their life ruined because of it. I don't mean to have this kind of attitude on HN, of all places, but you obviously don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about (all of your "advice" is about how you would see it, i.e. less than worthless) but insist on continuing to blather on and on with your anti-advice. Please stop. A cop's job is not to catch bad guys, it's to solve cases. If they are having a hard time solving a case and some naive person walks in and explains everything then they've just found someone with opportunity. Now they just need a plausible motive and their work is done. EDIT: Spelling fixes
peteretep 15y ago
This seems to be an American thing - many Europeans really trust the police. Certainly in the UK I expect police to be helpful, polite, and fair; from everything I've read, that doesn't sound like the case in the US
- yuhong 15y ago
  FYI: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/why_you_should.html#c292986 http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/why_you_should...
- arethuza 15y ago
  I'm also in the UK - while the individual police officers I've had any dealing with have always been extremely helpful and polite I think it is dangerous to extend this to uncritical trust of the police force as an institution.
  - philbarr 15y ago
    I think trusting the police, or any institution is a big mistake. People are just people, and the police or medical profossionals can be just as lazy and inept as anyone else in any other line of work. In fact, I would say in the police it's worse as they learn to dissasociate with people's problems since they see them every day. Case in point: We were involved in a car crash. The guy crashed in to the side of us and span us 360 degrees. Immediately after the crash I checked on my wife and she said she was ok (I think she was in shock, though, later she had to be cut out of the car, needed oxygen, and was taken to hospital). I got out to see if the people in the other car were ok and saw them try and drive off, but their car was too damaged and they just drove into a few parked cars. I had a clear view of this. When the policeman arrived that night to take our statement it was clear he'd had a long day for whatever reason. I told him I saw the other car attempt to drive off. "Are you sure, sir?" "Yes. There were other people there, didn't they say the same thing?" "No." "There must have been damage to the other parked cars, though, what about that?" "The only damage was your car and their car. Remember, you'd just been in a crash, perhaps you're misremembering?" "But I could've sworn...." "Are you sure you wish to pursue this? No one else reported this." "Er, ok, er...." It was only many months later, when we received the witness accounts from the insurance company, that we realised the witnesses said the same thing as me. Neither the insurance company not the police cared. Maybe there's an extra form to fill in if someone tries to drive off.
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runjake 15y ago
If you had read the posted link, you'd see that the author isn't American and they aren't afforded the same rights as those of us in the US. We don't get letters from the police mentioning that we're a criminal suspect. Usually such notifications come in the form of a door kick or finding a magnetic tube on the underside of our car.

ars 15y ago

Anyone else impressed that the police are actually taking this kind of thing seriously? How many stories do you read about "xx got laptop stolen and police won't do anything" - here it's hacking, and police got involved.

CWIZO 15y ago
Here in Slovenia they tend to investigate cases like this. I'm usually on the "give us the IP of this user" side of things (we run a social network page), so I usually don't know how things get resolved (and how long it takes if they do).

younata 15y ago

There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook? First reaction: AWESOME. I won't see any spam about that in the feed (which I rarely view anyway). Second thought: This cannot end well. It's so easy to spoof stuff that a lot of innocent people will have to deal with similar situations before the law gets repealed (if it gets repealed, most likely it'd just stop being enforced). Unfortunately, most people would never think about how bad it could end, just about how people won't be annoying them on facebook.

pmjordan 15y ago
There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook? I think you'll find that to be the case anywhere that has laws about "computer crimes" - the laws are usually phrased as gaining access to or manipulating systems or data for which you have no authorisation.

wladimir 15y ago

Ouch. That'd be a very Kafkaesque situation to be in. You know you didn't do anything, but they claim to have your IP in the offending logs. Luckily, it sorted itself out. This is really scary. With the little the police knows about IT, there's no way you could prove yourself innocent... even in the case of an accident like this. I don't even want to think about cases where hackers would plant an IP address in the logs on purpose to get someone into jail.

dermatthias 15y ago

Same thing happend to a german professor in 2008, where they also accidentialy swapped IP numbers. The accusation was child pornography, the news got hold of it and, of course, his reputation was deeply damaged. Original german article: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Unschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291506.html http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Unschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291... and translation: http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fct%2Fartikel%2FUnschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291506.html http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl...

Shenglong 15y ago

How did they get the police to actually act over a facebook account hack? Someone deleted a good 30,000 entries on my mySQL DB - I'd like to press charges for that.

pavel_lishin 15y ago

> So, should you ever get into a situation where you are wrongfully suspected, make sure to let people know that there is a possibility of an error, even if they tell you otherwise. Isn't this sort of obvious? If I'm charged with a crime I know I didn't commit, of course I'm going to tell them there's been a mistake.

dagw 15y ago
Then again if I'm charged with a crime I know I did commit, I'd probably also tell them that there's been a mistake.

harshpotatoes 15y ago

When I began reading the story, I was worried it would be about a NAT problem (since it involved his phone). While I'm glad this guy got his situation cleared so easily, I wonder how you would defend yourself in this situation. Police ask telecom, "who has this address?" Telecom says: "this person has that address" (while failing to mention who else has that address). How would you refute such charges, since it would be true that you did have that ip address in this hypothetical situation?

losethos 15y ago

"none cane be justified by the law, all fall short... by faith" "A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere" "Judge not lest you be judged" "If you so much look at a woman with lust in your eye... adultery, pluck-out your eye" God says... clave items swine speaketh widows unkindled vengence impression preparing sacrilegious truly sports tumult Predicaments thereupon psaltery tired education trust mount upbraided dispensers useful supereminence spider's fantasies oppresseth silenced wives' truth retiring speaketh endangers restrains thinketh Predicament plenteousness confounded

losethos 15y ago

"none cane be justified by the law, all fall short... by faith" "A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere" "Judge not lest you be judged" "If you so much look at a woman with lust in your eye... adultery, pluck-out your eye, cut-off your hand" God says... clave items swine speaketh widows unkindled vengence impression preparing sacrilegious truly sports tumult Predicaments thereupon psaltery tired education trust mount upbraided dispensers useful supereminence spider's fantasies oppresseth silenced wives' truth retiring speaketh endangers restrains thinketh Predicament plenteousness confounded Cops and shrinks are taught how to pigeon hole people. If you fit multiple breakfast club cliques, they label you schitophrenic. WhatEVAR!