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 ...
Actually, SSD’s are much worse than disc based for that! They’re finally get some real utilities for them I believe that’ll overwrite and destroy the data, but.. SSD firmware will intentionally block overwrites whenever possible because the technology is limited by how many it can do. If you use a disk shredder type utility they’ll report they overwrote files, but in fact the firmware took over and sent the data someplace else.
Also, everyone be sure to use WPA2-AES for your router. MAC filtering and WEP are both as good as nothing. Broadcasting your SSD doesn’t matter either, on or off it’s still transmitted in the clear if you have the right software to show it.
Used against him in court? Used against him as a basis for arrest?
Interesting. So you’d need a special utility to actually overwrite the SSD.
No. Even using an electron microscope and the NSA's supercomputers you couldn't recover any usable data.
But wait...what if I sent 80GB of data to an 80GB SSD drive? It would have to write it to the drive. If it did...then can you recover the old data? If so, how many writes does it take to clear out the remnants?
Please, elucidate for me how they are going to "jeopardize their case".
They are serving a search warrant. Anything they find can be used. There isn't ANYTHING he can say at that point that is going to jeopardize their case.
If they have found incriminating material, he would have been arrested on suspicion, and then he would have been mirandized. Without that material, they probably don't have enough to effect arrest. But, while they're searching, they're not questioning.
"...decided to just torment him and his family instead."
Sure, that's just how his attorney would put it. Completely believable. /s
In fact, I think some of them simply can’t be done at this point. Some of them you can go into the firmware apparently and do it. I don’t have one yet, so I’m not entirely sure but I’ve seen several security articles on them that say the best thing to do is use something like Truecrypt on them with full disk encryption, that’s the only way to make sure it can’t be recovered.
Well, I’m in Maine. I’m recommending this, or the study of the feasibility of this, in situations where wi-fi won’t be available.
I’m aware that there are 11 channels. Not sure what exactly that means, practically.
What is happening now in Maine is the “three ring binder” project, where fiber is being paid for (in part) by fedgov, and being put where there is not fiber currently.
What I’d like to see, as a pilot project, is when this fiber goes in, in the middle of nowhere, blazing fast free wifi. This fiber is 1Ghz, I think, really fast.
I’m not going to argue that my proposal is practical, and does not face technical challenges that can’t be overcome, but I’d like to see if it could be done. wifi routers are cheap, large towers aren’t. I’m not recommending building towers, but, I dunno, we know that the 3rb fiber is basically following rt 1. Put an antenna on a house on a hill on rt 1. Can look at a topo map to determine likely sites, go check them out, and then give out free 300mbps Wireless N, based on the blazing fast fiber that isn’t being used at that time. When ISPs want to start using that fiber, providing the QoS that people want, then get rid of the free stuff.
I’m not making a political argument, but I think it would be cool to do so.
Most roads are free, upkeep is from the government / taxpayers. There are some toll roads. And they call the internet the “information superhighway”. So, sure, the govt can provide internet without too much complaint, but I definitely can understand why someone might call it awful terrible socialism. Certainly ISPs who have no real interest in serving rural areas would call it that.
Some counties in Maine are larger than Rhode Island and have less than 100K people. It’s the kind of thing that Maine can say “wow, look at us”. These counties are being served by the 3rb project. Hancock, Washington, Aroostook among others.
In full agreement, FRiend.
Yes, if you force it to fill up that’ll do it too. The drive will try to avoid overwriting unless it has to.
They go in there accusing him of this stuff. Telling him to admit it. He acts confused. Cops want a confession as it makes everything easier and wraps the case up in a nice little bow.
So you mean to tell me they wanted to run the risk of this guy talking and not being able to use it. If he said he did it and he just can't help himself. But they found no evidence...they'd still arrest him and get a conviction. And let's face it...that's all htey care about. Cops want to make a good bust and prosecutors want convictions. So let's put all that at risk while we search for something we may not find.
They go in there accusing him of this stuff. Telling him to admit it. He acts confused. Cops want a confession as it makes everything easier and wraps the case up in a nice little bow.
So you mean to tell me they wanted to run the risk of this guy talking and not being able to use it. If he said he did it and he just can't help himself. But they found no evidence...they'd still arrest him and get a conviction. And let's face it...that's all htey care about. Cops want to make a good bust and prosecutors want convictions. So let's put all that at risk while we search for something we may not find.
One in the same.
Here's how it works. First, these aren't "cops", they're federal agents and this isn't their first rodeo. They don't want to have a conversation while they're serving this warrant. They just want the occupents to sit there and shut-up.
What they want to happen, is they want to find something quickly that is irrefutably incriminating. Then, they want to take that incriminating evidence over to whomever they suspect of commiting the crime and they say...
"Just listen for a moment. During the search of your home, under your bed/in your closet, we have found XXXX. We don't need any statements from you to make our case. We have everything we need to make our case beyond a reasonable doubt. Now is the time to help yourself, but before you do, I need to read you your rights, they are..."
The LAST thing a professional investigator want to do is to mirandize someone before they can apply a little pressure, because as soon has he invokes, you can't tell him what you found in the house because that would be badgering. You've got to wait until his lawyer gets there. As an investigator, that's EXACTLY what you don't want.
But hey, you read on the internet how it works, so I'm sure you know better than I do.
Oy, yes I have but this calls for a long, long technical response.
In short, IDE, EIDE, SCSI etc. have format routines that are accessible only by manufacture written software. That is, the internal drive electronics can only be initiated using specific commands....the ones that erase the drive completely.
Most drive types have layers, or imprints that data remains on, shadows if you will. The idea of overwriting to the point where those "shadows disappear is valid because those layers only runs so deep...usually 2-3 passes worth.
The ultimate drive data would require a low level format, a degaussing and then physical destruction and buried in the ground where it couldn't be found to be absolutely sure and in peace of mind.
True story, the Military used to pile their old hard drives and then let the Soldiers have at them with some firring practice....lots of fun to be sure but not practical.
The hardest place to find free wi-fi, I’ve found, is the urban areas. Because a lot of people live within the signal range in an urban area. A free wi-fi hotspot on a top floor of an apartment could easily get overwhelmed.
You must be confusing your respondents.
Sorry, I copy and pasted the wrong name. My bad.
“No. Even using an electron microscope and the NSA’s supercomputers you couldn’t recover any usable data.”
Thanks. Didn’t think so, but I’ve read about data recovered from some pretty messed up disk drives...
What they want to happen, is they want to find something quickly that is irrefutably incriminating. Then, they want to take that incriminating evidence over to whomever they suspect of commiting the crime and they say...
And you're here defending the very Gestapo tactics that we're arguing against.
Get a clue, tool.
That's all right, this thread is like a SWAT ICE fire drill.
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