Posted on 04/24/2011 9:10:24 AM PDT by decimon
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents.
That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought.
"We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night," the man's lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, "Doldrum."
"No, I didn't," he insisted. "Somebody else could have but I didn't do anything like that."
"You're a creep ... just admit it," they said.
Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I've checked my hard drive to see what pics I have. Searching on *.jpg should bring up most of them, I think.
It has to be a lousy feeling to have your PC hijacked like that. I once had my name hijacked on a political forum and my thoughts towards the hijacker were homicidal.
Whether they have enough probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant is less clear. Did they have ability to determine in advance whether the router was secured? How close were the neighboring residences? These are questions that should have been asked by the judge who issues the arrest warrant, and which should have been determined by those seeking it. If they were not, there is a breakdown in the system.
Even if they obtained an arrest warrant, once inside the house and determining that the internet access is not secured, and the homeowner denies being the one doing the downloading, probable cause for an arrest vanishes. The resident becomes a suspect. Probable cause, if I remember correctly, can disappear if subsequent facts come to light that negate the facts on which it was originally based.
In no event are they permitted to lay hands on the homeowner.
Yeah, I'd sue the hell out of these cops (actually, their employer), and take this case on contingency. Cases against cops are exceedingly hard, but between the false arrest and the police brutality, I think the defenses that cops have can be overcome, and that a jury's outrage would result in a pretty good result.
So you’re saying it’s best when you plan to sue someone to announce it to the world before you’re ready?
Interesting theory. I find that a bit counter-intuitive though, so I’ll stick with the idea that the person is keeping his secrets secret and evaluating a possible lawsuit.
Finally, we agree. I'm sensible. That's a start.
A destructive delete takes a little more work than a mouse clike or a key stroke. You can 'delete' the files, but that only deletes the directory entries. The goods are still there on the hard drive and can be recovered.
The car is parked in a place that is accessible to all people in the neighborhood, the car is always running, and if a neighbor uses the car, the homeowner won't know about it.
You like to call everyone names on this thread instead of dealing with the facts.
But I you know what they say. When you can’t win an argument resort to name calling is your only option.
uh...he can always manually set the DNS too though. Or use an onion router via IP address.
I thought people were jumping to conclusions. After all, a lot of companies offer free internet if you use their stores, and there was not nearly enough information to know that’s not what was happening here.
In fact, I expected RobRoy would come back and explain how he had spoken with his good-neighbor business, who had told him it was OK to use the internet, after all he used their store so it was a friendly relationship.
On the other hand, having to click on an “accept terms and conditions” doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean you are allowed to use the internet. What did the “terms and conditions” say? For example, many hotels I stay in give free internet, you have to accept the terms and conditions first. The terms and conditions state that you are staying in the hotel.
So sure, anybody who lived near the hotel COULD log in and “accept the terms and conditions”, but they would be lying because they aren’t staying in the hotel.
I imagine McDonalds and other eateries have the same type of “terms and conditions”, that say the connection is for their customers.
So yes, if you are hooking into someone else’s internet, and you haven’t received permission from them, you could be found to be stealing. They could find your mac address in their logs, call the police, and you could get arrested for it, and charged with theft.
When deciding whether something I’m doing makes “sense” morally and ethically, one point I find is useful is to ask “what if everybody did the same thing”. In this case, if everybody in your community stopped buying their own internet, and instead all tried to use this local business internet, the business wouldn’t have enough bandwidth for their jobs, and nobody would get a youtube video because you’d all be fighting over a small slice of bandwidth.
Anyway, if you did get permission, that would be a better way to silence those who posted here saying you were doing something wrong. And if you are sure you are doing nothing wrong, you should go tell the business.
If you are afraid to tell the business that you are using their internet, it probably means that you do think there might be something wrong with what you are doing.
Are you someone seperately aware that an arrest warrant was obtained, or that this man was arrested? I have seen no indication that either of those things occured. He was not arrested (as best I can tell), and their was no arrest warrant obtained.
While what the technical implications of detention during the service of a search warrant can be very complicated, and highly dependent on circumstances, the Supreme Court held in Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981), that...
"Of prime importance in assessing the intrusion is the fact that the police had obtained a warrant to search respondent's house for contraband. A neutral and detached magistrate had found probable cause to believe that the law was being violated in that house, and had authorized a substantial invasion of the privacy of the persons who resided there. The detention of one of the residents while the premises were searched, although admittedly a significant restraint on his liberty, was surely less intrusive than the search itself."
"Yeah, I'd sue the hell out of these cops (actually, their employer), and take this case on contingency. "
You'd lose.
This doesn't secure it one bit. In fact, some argue it makes it less secure as it invites hackers to screw with you. It really doesn't do anything other than keeping your clueless neighbors from trying to connect...but a strong password will keep them out.
It is very simple, even I could to it. I also hid my SSID. I used to have my wireless locked down to the specific MAC addresses of the computers in the house. I didn’t carry that over to the next wireless router, but now I might.
When you use the Verizon broadband, there is also an option of using local hotspots so your minutes aren’t used.
To be clear then, your position is that people are free to describe me in any manner possible, and if I respond in-kind, I have "lost the argument".
Fascinating.
I swear I don't know what to do if in that situation. Do I shut up and get my lawyer to deal with it. But in the meantime I'm arrested, possibly lose my job, get hit with legal bills and other inconveniences. Or do I take a chance I'll say something they will take out of context and use against me?
I concur with the fact that the man may not have been arrested; however, being called a pedophile could be slander or libel—could it not?
I know it has to be said by someone with stature in the community—the cops calling you a pedophile would definitely meet that requirement. Or is it ok for the cops to call you a pedophile in front of other people?
The only reference to guns was the guy telling the reporter that he was laying on the floor with “assault weapons” trained on him.
I don’t lend any credence to the ability of the guy to identify an “assault weapon”. It could have just been normal police guns. And yes, I expect that when the police are arresting someone, they are going to have their guns drawn.
There is nothing in the story to suggest a SWAT team invaded his home.
How long after an action occurs does one have to file a law suit for violation of his 4th and 14th Amendment rights?
Is it typical that the fact one wants to sue released to a report who is just asking about the situation? Or does the release of that info typically occur after the law suit is filed...or at the very least at a press conference scheduled by the plaintiff’s PR or legal team?
Good point!
Let me translate this for the less technical..."Their Advice: Password-protect your wireless router so it makes our job easier."
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