6 ms·
Boston College Campus Police: "Using Prompt Commands" May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity
- Anon84 17y agoDriving a car in the vicinity of a Bank may be a sign of criminal activity Fortunately, that is not the case in 99.99% of times.
- tokenadult 17y agoI actually had a police car drive up to my car when my wife and I were resting during an evening cross-country road trip in what happened to be a bank parking lot. The local police did think it was suspicious for a car with out-of-state plates to be be parked near a bank after banking hours. But we just explained that we had been driving for a long time on the nearby Interstate in very bad weather, and were too tired to drive farther until we rested for a while. No big deal, but an illustration of one kind of innocent behavior that can look suspicious.
- something 17y agolet's also point out that in this example, the police did exactly their job. had they seized your car and belongings...
- ja27 17y agoWell, if the bank robbers had left a note with their name and address on it, they would have been justified. D-bag kid's forged emails were traced back to his IP address, which then led to his SMB name and MAC address. It'll be hard to get out of that. Plus, unless I'm mixing up the censor squares, it's his roommate that made the accusation in the first place. So it's not really like they just picked on a random kid with bash skills.
- javanix 17y agoGlad to see I'm not the only one who read the document. I don't see how the police really screwed this one up that much outside of one poorly-worded section of the warrant.
- pingswept 17y agoPoorly worded probable cause would be, "I saw him go into a room that was his with a gun and it was hidden," instead of, "I saw him hide a gun in his room." I think including "Mr. Calixte uses two different operating systems" under the section "Basis of Probable Cause" for search goes beyond poor wording.
- javanix 17y agoMy point was more that there was plenty of other valid probable cause claims in the warrant. If a judge had rejected this warrant on the basis of that paragraph, the police could have just removed it and we and the judge wouldn't have anything to complain about. The grounds for the seizure were plenty strong - the email traces and network authentication would be enough to get any laptop involved in a crime seized. And as for people claiming it wasn't a crime - there is no possible way that there was no malicious intent in sending a personal-attack email anonymously to a large group of people. (edit)In this case(/edit), the free-speech argument kind of loses its luster when you send something without your name attached.
- kragen 17y agoThe free-speech argument kind of loses its luster when you send something without your name attached. Maybe you're not from the US, but the US has a legal tradition of strong protections for anonymous and pseudonymous speech. The Federalist Papers, which were a key part of the political discourse leading to the existence of the US, were published anonymously. So maybe what you say is true in Ukraine or China or Myanmar or wherever you're from, but it's certainly not true in the US.
- jhancock 17y agoI can only assume you and your wife aren't black folk. If so, you may have had a very different experience.
- tokenadult 17y agoWe actually are an "interracial" couple, but I get what you mean. I'm trying to do my part to bring about a world in which we all just look at one another as our fellow human beings, without invidious assumptions.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- chaosmachine 17y agoI learned the hard way back in high school: Don't let anyone see you using a command prompt because the next time something gets hacked, you will be suspect number one. It's sad to see nothing has changed since the 90s.
- warfangle 17y agoBack in college, we were required to take an introduction to computers course - no way to test out of it. It involved labs like, "create a folder with two text files in it." I spent the time configuring a new debian server via ssh. When the teacher caught a glimpse of PuTTY: "OH! You know DOS??!"
- enneff 17y agoI used to flaunt my computer skills back in school, because I knew if/when something got hacked I could explain exactly how it was done, and remind them that I'd warned them it could happen months earlier. (This exact thing did end up happening.) The authorities at my school seemed less prone to complete lapses of logic (as demonstrated by the police in this article) so I wasn't so afraid of being unable to defend myself in the face of unjust accusations. (Logic and reason sufficed, thankfully.)
- cnlwsu 17y agoI wouldn't agree with this completely. In the university I attended, I told the IT staff about security issues with their wifi network. I even gave demonstrations to the other computer science students (via the cs club) on breaking into/decrypting said type of wireless networks. The IT staff was friendly and helpful and updated their security mechanisms. The problems happen at times like this when people with no clue and don't know what is being said get involved. After all, big words I don't understand are scary to me when lawyers talk too.
- _pius 17y agoWow, not too bright are they?
- dagobart 17y agoWe should have an incompetency-of-the-day world map. Just to point out the more numb places. Or where not to go to.
- jdale27 17y agoYeah, like Boston, "the intellectual capital of the US and probably the world." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html
- dagobart 17y agoLater on I actually did what I should have done in the first place -- actually read the thingy the police filed to get approved to search the guy's place. As others have pointed out before me, the police indeed _has_ a point here. The guy fiddled with the students' marks system of the school, and that imho really is something the police should deal with. On the other hand, the quuotes on the eff.org page didn't state that issue at all and instead preferred to point out some exaggerately abstruse line of argue, like: the guy was using a shell and therefore he got searched. I think, the intend of that indeed was to manipulate the readers of that "report", and to get that "report" re-told. So, for me the lesson learned from this incident are actually two: 1) If there's a report of an obviously abstruse reasoning, have a second look and dig into it yourself (unless you're really not interested in it). 2) Never trust a press release, not even if it gets released by some of the good guys, i.e. not even the eff. I think, by accidents like this one, even "the good ones" of organizations loose credibility.
- tiffani_ 17y agoThis stinks of the stereotypical hacker image people get overdoses of on tv. Pretttttty sad. :\
- frisco 17y agoHas anyone actually read the warrant application? The allegations were made by a close acquaintance of the accused who directly observed him changing grades for students and cracking into other systems; the emails in question were traced back to the accused's hostname. The EFF article completely mischaracterizes a 90% legitimate warrant. http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/EXHIBIT-A.pdf
- CaptainMorgan 17y agoYes. Though, allegations are allegations and what weight do they hold, especially in this case? I argue they don't hold much- it looks more like a civil dispute between two former friends. Plus, keep in mind, 10% is more than enough reasonable doubt- especially in a case where the law and the police are still considered noobs to the game. But this part kills me: "Mr. Calixte has access into ""'s computer as he set it up for him when they were friends and he knows the password. The computer has been looked at by several experts and none of them can resolve the problem." WOW- maybe Mr. Calixte is the ultimate cryptographer and completely disguised his activity so stealthy that the so-called 'experts' cannot find the problem! NO. The problem is that there is no problem. And what the hell is wrong with the computer owner? Someone needs a lesson in password management 101.
- tokenadult 17y ago10% is more than enough reasonable doubt That's not the correct standard of evidence for the allegations supporting a search warrant. Yes, I am a lawyer.
- jhancock 17y ago10% may not be the "correct" standard, but I have seen police arrest and search people with zero evidence.
- tokenadult 17y agoHow often have you seen police arrest and search people? I'm always amazed at how rarely I've seen that, even when living in the heart of big cities.
- CaptainMorgan 17y agoThis warrant almost seems like a disguise for something bigger, something to use to make an example of this kid. There's talk about illegally downloaded content; movies, music, etc. But even copyright is still a touchy subject in the eyes of the law... and, the basis of the case is around "Fraud". We all know the state of affairs with copyright and stealing things like movies and holding a cache of them... But ultimately, peer to peer sharing is not much different than going to your friends house, popping in a DVD you brought(and bought) so that you all could enjoy the entertainment experience. None of this should give the police the right to seize your TV, DVD player, entertainment system, detain you and your parties, couches, and popcorn since you were hacking with your microwave. The significant difference is that you cross the line when you make copies of your content and then try to sell it for a profit. Later, it states that the suspect was traced back to the origins of the emails sent from the BC server and elaborates further about how uncommon Ubuntu Linux is in Gabelli hall and not to mention, the BC network. In the way it was mentioned, it implies that Linux was used as the foundation for an attack- Since the police have based their case on accusations, maybe those at Ubuntu should sue for defamation of character. I'm sure Mac users are feeling left out right about now.
- jrockway 17y agoTwo words for this guy: encrypted filesystem. If you don't want to testify against youself in court, you shouldn't let your computers do it either.
- ecuzzillo 17y agoWhat happens if the court subpoenas the contents of the filesystem? If you don't supply the key, don't you go to jail?
- krschultz 17y agoThis hasn't been resolved in court yet: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011503663.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01... "On Nov. 29, Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier ruled that compelling Sebastien Boucher, a 30-year-old drywall installer who lives in Vermont, to enter his password into his laptop would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. "If Boucher does know the password, he would be faced with the forbidden trilemma: incriminate himself, lie under oath, or find himself in contempt of court," the judge said. The government has appealed, and the case is being investigated by a grand jury, said Boucher's attorney, James Boudreau of Boston. He said it would be "inappropriate" to comment while the case is pending. Justice Department officials also declined to comment. "
- CaptainMorgan 17y agoThere are some filesystem/full-disk encryption programs that claim they can get around this. Apparently (I've never used it), if one is required to provide the adversary or authorities with the passphrase, they only get so far - into the virtual disk, which then presents the illusion that there is nothing else on the disk, further claiming their product makes it literally impossible for them to detect the real contents of the partition... I'd name one of the programs here but I'm generally uncomfortable with listing links to products in forums like this- it's almost spammy like (it's a popular utility and came up when searched for hard drive encryption).
- deleted 17y ago
- blahblahblah 17y ago"In his application, the investigating officer asked that he be permitted to seize the student's computers and other personal AFFECTS because they might yield evidence of the crimes" Wow! In addition to his computers, the police also seized the student's emotional states (presumably to search for evidence of thoughtcrime).
- sown 17y agoI hate this planet.
- pg 17y agoIt's kind of odd to see the EFF using such linkbait tactics. The comments on this thread are much more informative than the article.
- CaptainMorgan 17y agoHmm.. maybe this is what greendestiny was getting at and for that I completely agree, on both accounts.
- tlrobinson 17y agoJust like using a kitchen knife may be a sign that you're about to stab someone?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- hotshothenry 17y agoBC is my alumamater, good thing they didn't have this policy when I was there