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 live on a corner in my neighborhood. One of my neighbors wi-fi is unsecured. I've told them about it, they didn't seem to care. One of these days they're going to get hacked and their identity stolen by one of the kids around here who are always looking for open networks. It's pretty easy to tell who those kids are, they typically have a small yagi somewhere clipped to their gutter or outside an upstairs window pointing somewhere.
Hmmm, not sure about how that double-post happened. Sorry ‘bout that...
drawn at every ISP that hosted the connection.
According to the article, the ISP had been questioned, and had provided the address of the router from which the requests/data had passed. Of course, they know that ISPs are just service providers, and the law gives them protections as well, so your suggestion is silly.
On the other hand, most of the time when a router has been hosting child pornography, the computers in the house are the ones that were involved.
Even if they could secretly invade the guy's router and dump the information, and found that some other computer had been hooked to the router, it would still be likely that the offending computers were in the house.
They found out about the other computers as a result of serving the warrant on the house and going through the computers and router at that address. Just as they found out about the house by going to the ISP that hosted his connection.
You keep acting like this is some bizarre police action, when in fact it is simply following the evidence, something police do routinely. And yes, that means they question people that they find to be innocent, and those questions can lead them to the next clue.
Check out the D Link DCS-920...Bought 4 for less than 200 bucks from Amazon.... They are great for cheapies. Wireless network cams...no audio but audio is easy to work around.
Free 32 cam software too
Kind of remote here and thinly populated 2 to 5 acre home sites.Plus I monitor what is connected to the network plus Password and WPA2.
Man, they are either idiots or have no identity worth stealing. I always tell my customers it’s like leaving your house unlocked and a big sign on your door informing the mailman you’ll be out of town for a week. You’re right about the kids being on the prowl for unsecure nets. Around here, we also have networks of criminals from Nigeria, Russia or Eastern Europe who drive around looking for open networks. Then they’ll park on the street outside the building and use the networks to stage hacking attacks and other activities.
Using Foscams here. Will look at the DCS-920!
Yeah, all that’s true, but it’s best to presume that they are being cool about it, what with the agreements they have with the ISP and all.
Belive me when I tell you, they're idiots. Living on a corner has its pro's and cons. Pro's being no neighbors on one side of me and a larger yard. Thankfully I live in a quiet neighborhood.
Con's being that every once in awhile I have to walk outside and chase someone away parked along the eastern side of my home (corner) who's picking up the neighbor's wireless. Typically I wouldn't really care but these kids have zero respect for anyone's property and invariably I'll find their junk food garbage on my lawn if I don't chase them away.....
It is funny...no one knows the cams are there unless I tell them. Pizza guy cant figure out how I greet him at the door before he rings the door bell, every time. I have a cam in the upstairs window that covers the front yard and a cam that covers the front porch. Another cam watches the back yard from the upstairs window. I also have a indoor cam looking at the inside front door from the back porch. The inside one is wired to a home brew self defense system. I can defend the front door from the back porch if necessary. The software allows me to record at will to my terabyte external drive.
If you are gonna give me a 35/35 pipe, I am gonna use it :)
Be careful.
naw nothing offensive....just enough diversion to allow us to get to a safe room.....
3G can be cracked and has been (less than 2 hours processing time) already. I don’t know about 4G but unless they increase the cypher strength it would suffer the same fate very quickly. It comes down to making a cypher complex enough that time to decode is what makes it prohibitive to break. Information becomes pretty useless if it take years to break into.
Thanks. I read a lot about WiFi dangers but not 3G/4G.
Just to be clear: Use WPA2 and use a good password. Otherwise it’s still hackable in minutes.
Well, I'm not saying you couldn't get ANY data - just no USABLE data. And to even get that, it would take methods reserved for national security cases.
Quite true. However, in this case, it is generally enough to be more secure than the next guy. Most people who access home wireless systems are just trying to use your bandwidth and, if your security is bad enough, maybe steal some personal information from your network. Why waste time trying to crack your system when there are 5 other networks in the same neighborhood that have little or no security at all? So WPA2-AES is a preyty secure system, unless you just get someone who likes a challenge.
I don't think most of the people here object to the search warrant per se. I think probable cause existed, and a search warrant was justified. I think most people object to the way the warrant was served - breaking down the door in the middle of the night with guns drawn. This could easily have ended with an innocent man (or his family members) or some law enforcement officers wounded or dead, particularly in states where people take the 2nd Amendment seriously. And if they wanted to question them as part of serving the search warrant, they should have mirandized them, as being held at gunpoint by law enforcement certainly qualifies as being in custody.
I don't think most of the people here object to the search warrant per se. I think probable cause existed, and a search warrant was justified. I think most people object to the way the warrant was served - breaking down the door in the middle of the night with guns drawn. This could easily have ended with an innocent man (or his family members) or some law enforcement officers wounded or dead, particularly in states where people take the 2nd Amendment seriously. And if they wanted to question them as part of serving the search warrant, they should have mirandized them, as being held at gunpoint by law enforcement certainly qualifies as being in custody.
And that’s why I don’t broadcast my SSID, because it might keep someone from seeing my SSID and decide to try to break in.
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