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302 Comments
- FyreGoddess, on 10/11/2007, -23/+403The article doesn't state who owned the home. Apparent permission aside, if there is illegal activity going on in your home, then you should have the right to allow an investigation to proceed. If the father was the legal owner of the home and property, then I think this should stand up as he should have control over his own home.
However, if the son is the rightful owner of the property and his parents were living with him, then I'm up in arms and this should be overturned!
But without that information, it's really hard to make a judgement. - j4200, on 10/11/2007, -4/+320It's called a boot disc into linux. You don't have to load windows at all. And without an encrypted harddrive, the files are as clear as day.
Moral of the story: Don't look at child pornography - oddmanout, on 10/11/2007, -22/+174ownership of the house means nothing. I don't "own" the place where i live, I rent an apartment, that doesn't mean my landlord can come look around on my computer all she wants. He was essentially a tenant in his father's house. I agree that he should do time for the crimes committed, but what the investigators found should be thrown out because they were obtained illegally. If we just let investigators do whatever they want, we'll soon find that they will overstep their bounds very quickly.
- moojj, on 10/11/2007, -30/+175Personally I think the guy should stay locked up, but it does raise an interesting issue about digital security.
- aliengoods, on 10/11/2007, -10/+138While child porn is detestable, it's being used in the same manner as terrorism. That is, as an excuse to throw out MY civil rights, and I find that just as detestable.
Notice I said 'my'. If you want to give yours up, feel free, but I'm not obligated to go with you. - Sarki, on 10/11/2007, -13/+88That's a pretty poor analogy, isn't it?
Lesson is: don't live with your parents. - blastin311, on 10/11/2007, -4/+77Passwords are a lock. What's the difference between using a crowbar on a padlock and using a program to get past the password? That is considered illegal. The father may own the land, but if I parked my locked car on his property does he have the right to give police permission to search it? The most they can do is tow it. Any sort of entry into the vehicle is illegal and considered "breaking in" to the vehicle.
The computer was "locked" with a password. The father did not have the password (if he owned the computer, I would have a different view) and allowed access to someone else's property. If this were legal, I could allow you to break into someone's car; so long as it's on my property and I give you permission.
This is an illegal search and seizure, but the son is still a pervert. - alanflores, on 10/11/2007, -16/+89@sarki
Lesson is Dont do child porn - atmablue, on 10/11/2007, -3/+65@Lukeseed
"Oh, and the "forensic software that automatically bypasses passwords" is BS. If this guy had any idea what he was doing that would take some major bruteforcing."
EnCase "bypasses passwords" by simply imaging the entire contents of your hard drive. If the drive isn't encrypted, it allows you to view the files just like if you had stuck your drive in another system. Since Windows isn't being booted at any point in this process, the login password isn't needed. - j4200, on 10/11/2007, -2/+61Tenancy laws give you all the rights you have as if you did own the place. The landlord has to give you notice to do anything and is mostly restricted in what he can and can't do. Living with your parents does not put you under one of these agreements
- explnx, on 04/27/2009, -37/+96Another question here: does the son lose his rights to his intellectual property, because it was being physically stored in his father's house? Keeping in mind the son is an adult so he can have full ownership.
Oh, and the "forensic software that automatically bypasses passwords" is BS. If this guy had any idea what he was doing that would take some major bruteforcing. - totallyAMAZING, on 10/11/2007, -4/+50Rainbow tables aren't a magic password cracking tool. They work really well on weak passwords when you can use smaller tables. If you're going after a good, strong password, your rainbow tables are going to become too big.
Then there is the fact that salts make rainbow tables as useless as brute force.
So STOP SUGGESTING RAINBOW TABLES because you think that hashed passwords are now vulnerable to attack. Rainbow tables were ok, but now are pretty much useless. - leetdood, on 10/11/2007, -9/+55@ Lukesed: Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it only take a simple Ophcrack disk with rainbow tables?
http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ - Boondoggle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+44If a society permits breaking a law, to enforce another law, then that society is *****.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -9/+51rainbow tables are gay
- cogitocogito, on 10/11/2007, -3/+44A more apt analogy is if the police asked the father if they could look in a closet in the son's room that had a flimsy locking mechanism. If they don't test the lock, but just push the door hard open, are they excused from violating case law, which holds that the father's "apparent authority" doesn't extend to locked items for which he doesn't have the key?
On another note, windows passwords are little more than "don't enter" signs. www.truecrypt.org FTW - Otto, on 10/11/2007, -1/+41>>>"Yes if a car is on your property, you may do with it whatever you wish."
You may indeed remove the car from your property, but you may *not* give the police permission to search the car. The Fourth Amendment trumps your property rights.
Now, I'm not arguing in favor of child porn here, so let's just throw out what they found for starters. Doesn't matter what they found.
The search should have been thrown out. Why? Because you cannot give the police permission to search something that you don't have access to.
Lets say I have a friend over at my place, and I'm out of town or something. The police show up and demand to search the place. My friend gives the okay (because he's an idiot) and they come in. They find a locked basement door. My friend doesn't have the key to it. The police ask if they can bust the door down, he says yes, and down there they find my marijuana growing room.
This was an actual case (can't recall the name of it). The evidence was thrown out because the friend did not have authority to allow the police to bust down the door. The courts uniformly said that if he can't open the door (no key), then he does not have enough authority to give police permission to search it.
The same thing should apply here. A lock is enough to prevent somebody else from allowing a warrantless search and seizure. A password should be enough to prevent somebody else from allowing the same thing on a computer. This is not about actual digital security, it's about the law. If you have an expectation of privacy, then the police must abide by that expectation or get a court to override it (with evidence and a warrant). - Winters, on 10/11/2007, -1/+40"In April, a three judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said yes."
That's funny because the supreme court already said "No." - Conwaysb0718, on 10/11/2007, -4/+42The agents messed up bad. Defense proves the 91 year old father is incompetent and "tricked" into letting the agents in. Makes a case for illegal search and seizure, case thrown out. Another scumbag back on the street who, if the agents had waited just a little while longer, probably would have gotten their warrant and seized the hard drive legally. Prosecution will have to play heavily on the fact that this man is being tried for child pornography, which they did in fact find after given permission to search from a cognizant father.
- MattB123, on 10/11/2007, -2/+39Wrong + Wrong != Right
- justnick, on 10/11/2007, -4/+39flag -- Actually, if you pay rent you are now considered a tenant and your room you pay rent for is considered your private property. The police found a loophole and are exploiting it. It is wrong. The Constitution is not just merely words, it is an idea. It has a purpose to protect people. The police found a way to sidestep the words and shatter the idea of the protection is was conveying.
- jspegele, on 10/11/2007, -2/+31@leftnut
It must have been tough for you, living on the street at age 14. - pathy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+29I'm glad reading the comments here that, so far, it isn't overrun with people that are supporting what happened simply because the guy had child porn on his computer. Yay, we're being logical.
- Winters, on 10/11/2007, -0/+21Georgia v. Randolph.
March 22, 2006 - member57, on 10/11/2007, -1/+22As much as I hate pedophiles, I hope that he walks. The police need to make a solid case with the extremely liberal tools and procedures they have at their disposal. Cheating the court system and the Constitution isn't the way to build an airtight case. This kind of gestapo tactics should frighten us all, imagine you are at work and your spouse is at home, the detectives show up and want have a "conversation" about pirated software/ music/ movies, etc. How many on Digg have at least one category item "illegal" on their computers?.. She gives in and whammo, they use the EnCase program and you are fsck'd. So now does that put it into perspective? The effects are far reaching, not just limited to child pornography. How about the RIAA/ MPAA using this tactic?
- Fafnir43, on 10/11/2007, -8/+27Question: if they chuck the guy's rights away and find him guilty, what incentive do the police have not to use tactics like this in future?
I really ***** hate cases like this - the guy's guilty as hell, and if the morons in charge had just waited a few days for a warrant he'd be in jail getting raped to death by now as he so richly deserves. But noooo... It was just sooo important they catch him *right then* that they had to invade his privacy without probable cause, forcing an innocent verdict from anyone who cares about their own rights. Bloody typical. - pathy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+19FTA:
The Supreme Court expressly disavowed this technique in Kyllo v. United States, where it held that "obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical 'intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,' constitutes a search -- at least where ... the technology in question is not in general public use."
Kyllo v. United States - http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZO.html - Winters, on 10/11/2007, -1/+19News flash: People who live in a dwelling that they don't own also have rights.
Film at 11. - Ninh, on 10/11/2007, -5/+23Zero sympathy with the guy who got busted with child porn, but bypassing a password seems to me like removing the back of a locked wardrobe, which IS protected from search as stated in the article. Police would not get past a judge with doing that, claiming they never bothered to check whether the wardrobe was locked in the first place.
- BoneheadFarker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19@modex
You were dugg down because you didn't follow the "He deserved it because he's a pedophile" line. I don't like it, but what can you do. Most people don't realise that someone could merely suspect them of storing kiddie porn on their computer, when really all you have is legal but questionable porn (everyone has some sort of kink that they don't want other people to know about...), or even just mindless rants about how you'd like to show the government a thing or two. Your privacy has been invaded, you've been humiliated and now marked as some freak or worse...a terrorist, and all because someone suspected you of being a pedo. It wouldn't even have to be a real suspicion...the same situation could occur with room-mates who just don't like each other. They could even plant the evidence. You'd be screwed without ever doing anything wrong. Passwords or not, there was no warrant and due process was not observed...the perv deserves to be set free... - Winters, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18I don't really feel all that obligated to link. It takes time to find links and by the time I do people will have already moved on to another story. I just happened to remember that since it was important for a court case I was involved in earlier in the year.
Also, c'mon, stop being so lazy! People expect to be spoon fed links. The case is cited, go look it up yourself! Sheesh!! :P - asdfasdf, on 10/11/2007, -5/+21I highly suggest keeping all private information encrypted. If you're on Linux, at LEAST use encFS. It's ridiculously easy to setup and encrypts on the fly. If you want to encrypt ~/.firefox or ~/.thumbnails, you can make them a symlink to a folder in your encFS encrypted folder. IE, ~/.firefox links to ~/encdir/.firefox/ - Obviously do not set encFS to automount. Do it manually upon boot. Download EnCase (warez) and try it out on yourself to see what you can find.
- surfing, on 10/11/2007, -2/+17The case was Otto vs Springfield.
- AdonisEffect, on 10/11/2007, -9/+23@thealliedhacker (#6832977)
so you can hide your kiddy porn? - Winters, on 10/11/2007, -1/+15Court Restricts Warrantless Searches of Homes (March 22, 2006): Justices rule, 5–3 in Georgia v. Randolph, that if police do not have a warrant, they cannot search a home if one of the occupants objects, even if another grants police permission. “A warrantless search of a shared dwelling for evidence over the express refusal of consent by a physically present resident cannot be justified as reasonable,” Justice Souter writes for the majority. John Roberts, Jr., issues his first dissent as chief justice.
- thealliedhacker, on 10/11/2007, -7/+21That's why I use TrueCrypt.
- rderveloy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13There can be no rule of law if one can simply choose the laws that have consequence.
- rprouse, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Unless you encrypt your drive or your files, Linux nor any operating system will help you if they have physical access to the drive. They just need to insert a CD with their own Linux dist, boot to that and read your drive. They could also just plug your drive into their computer and suck everything off of it.
I guess you had better get TrueCrypt for all of your Roswell, Kennedy, 911 and OJ files ;)
http://www.truecrypt.org - Homunculiheaded, on 10/11/2007, -1/+14xalorous,
"When you rent a house or apartment, the the property owner retains the right to enter and inspect the premises. However, most contracts stipulate that the owner notify the occupant in advance."
That is absolutely false, tenant LAW requires that your land lord, legally must notify you before entering the home/apartment you rent, they cannot just enter and it is not simply because of clause in the lease, this is the law in most areas.
A great example was when I was having trouble with my landlord showing my apartment and then repeatedly leaving the door unlocked and open after the realtors left. After numerous complaints I got in touch with a lawyer and they informed me that I was allowed to require that the landlord call me before each and every visit, and I could also, within reason, require that I be present whenever they enter the apartment. Finally I had the legal right, if my requests were not respected, to CHANGE the locks on my apartment.
So it is absolutely NOT legal for a the property owner to simply enter the renters property at will, or even with out permission and notifications. - Chandon, on 10/11/2007, -6/+19Wow. I'm really amazed at how willing people here are to classify a person as subhuman just because they have a specific category of data file on their computer. The "issue" of child pornography was explicitly created by anti-porn activists in the 70's as a way to prevent people from thinking logically about normal pornography, prostitution, and other similar issues. It was intended to drive people into a mob frenzy against "pedophiles", and based on everyone's comments here that plan has apparently worked.
Stop and look at this rationally for a moment. "Child porn" is a photograph or video depicting a person under the age of 18 engaged in some sexual activity. That activity falls into one of two categories. First, it could be sexual abuse of a minor if the subject is under the local age of consent - in that case, this is evidence of a crime and should be preserved and propagated so the police can track down the criminal. Second, it could be perfectly legal activity by someone over the age of consent (but still under 18) - a situation where a recording of a legal activity is illegal is absurd.
In no case does driving people who trade in child pornography to hide themselves and the data they're trading help children. It just makes it harder for police to become aware of and track down actual child abuse, and it *encourages* child abuse by raising the price of new recordings. I know it's comforting to jump to the conclusion that anything that hurts "pervert kiddie diddlers" is good, but policies have consequences - and the current child pornography policies are hurting everyone's rights without helping any children. And no, I'm not a pedophile, although I sometimes wonder if the strongest supporters of harsh child porn policies aren't people who secretly get turned on by baby rape photos and hate themselves for it. - Mooco, on 10/11/2007, -1/+14My primary thinking of this is that, when you purchase your hard drive, it essentially becomes your own, personal real estate. Although you don't necessarily have a lease on it, it is still your property. You've put the effort into getting it up and running, you've put the effort into protecting it from outsiders, and you utilize it to go about your daily life, just as anyone would with real estate.
A password-protected computer IS that sign that says 'no trespassing.' And even houses and homes without that sign are still protected from illegal search and seizures. I believe there needs to be a very real difference between physical real estate and virtual real estate, as just because one exists within another, doesn't give one the authority over the other. A computer is a portable device, and should not bound to the property it resides within. It is its own property, with the name of the owner embedded within.
The old man had no say over that property, as it was his sons. The cops had no warrant to search that property, even after completely ignoring the possibility of a 'no trespassing' sign. I don't care what happens to the 4chan reject, this is too great an importance. - airquotes, on 10/11/2007, -6/+18This is tough because I hate perverts, but I also hate big brother. But if someone is living in your home, and you think they are suspect, kick them out. Otherwise it is their home too and without a warrant you should need their implicit consent. Otherwise why dont I have permission to allow agents to invetige other people on my street? Since I live right by them they affect me as well. Should I be able to authorize a search of someone elses property?
- spudnic, on 10/11/2007, -10/+21I realise what I'm about to say will probably get me dugg down into oblivion, but hey, what the hell...
All he was doing was looking at the photos, that's a world apart from child molestation in my opinion; it's still detestable, but lumping the two together in terms of how bad they are is lazy.
Presuming he didn't pay for any of the pictures you can't even argue that he was in any way causing child abuse to happen.
Let him do the time and come back out again, he has to live with his conscience and the stigma for the rest of his life, that's punishment enough. - rderveloy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei - Winters, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11This is pretty much the most elegant and simple way to put it. Well done.
- AJH16, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10@johnhummel
If the files were encrypted, using a admin password overwriting utility would be useless. While it is very easy to force a change to a windows user's password by overwriting files, part of the file that is overwriten is the encryption key used for encrypting files. This is the same reason why unless your system is setup to use a reversable hash on your password, an administrator can not give you back access to encrypted files if you forget your password. (On a Windows box of course.) - Otto, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10>>>"I have full control of my house, and if there is any possibility of illegal activity happening therein, I am the liable party."
False. You are only liable for your own actions. Not the actions of others on your property.
Now, you may be liable (committing a crime) if you are fully aware of these actions and allow them to occur. But if not, you are not liable under any interpretation of the law.
>>>"By all means, search the damn kid's computer!"
If the kid is under 18, you have that right.
If the kid is over 18, he's legally an adult with all the rights and responsibilities thereof, and you do *not* have that right. - asdfasdf, on 10/11/2007, -5/+15The lesson is not to stop looking at child pornography. Yes, child pornography is terrible, but it could have been any other illegal activity. What if the guy did something harmless like grow pot or shrooms, and had pics on his PC? The lesson is to use encryption to hide things you want kept private. Most people who get caught are careless; Leaving their evidence around in the open, or blogging about what they do.
- asaturn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11not making an excuse for the child porn, but I think the police had no right to go through his computer - password or not. even if it was the man's house - they had no warrant and the father didn't own the computer.
that would be like me taking someone else's mail into my apartment to open it, no warrant or anything... then using the contents as evidence in court. it's still illegal because it's still not mine.
again, not sticking up for the creep if the porn is indeed as they claim - but the police had no right. end of story. the judge is just another example of some geezer who doesn't understand technology. - zmigliozzi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9It should be OK then to intrusively hack into that courthouse's computers.
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