Report Security Problems, Face The Consequences 552
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Doing a good deed has caused one man a lot of trouble in the past year. Brian K. West, a tech support junky in a SE. Oklahoman ISP is now facing felony charges due to alerting his competition about a serious security flaw in their systems. The full story can be found at LinuxFreak.org ... I find this rather disturbing that our federal government would do such a thing to someone.." The details of the story lead to some head-scratching.
Interesting Tactic (Score:5, Funny)
PHB: "Good work, Johnson! That'll show 'em!"
Naked Woman Seeks Sex at Airport [slant-six.org]
wierd tactic - details of Title 18 Section 1039 (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with prosecuting under this theory is that as far as I can tell (and the article doesn't really say either way) accessing the computer hosting the newspaper website was not done across state lines (thus affecting interstate commerce - which is why this clause can exist in the US COde at all). Does anyone know weather access to the newspaper website was done across state lines? It doesn't look like it to me.
--CTH
Re:wierd tactic - details of Title 18 Section 1039 (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point about state lines aside, the words "protected computer" jumps out at me. From what I've read, I can only draw the conclusion that the computer is not protected and that, in fact, the suspect in this case was contacting the other company to inform them of this fact. Sounds to me like this FBI team are just looking for something to do to justify their existence.
Re:wierd tactic - details of Title 18 Section 1039 (Score:3, Interesting)
Along the same lines, could weather or not a computer is protected be established by how difficult it was to gain access? Perhaps the computer could be said to be not ptotected because the guy didn't have to take any special measures to gain access (except click the 'edit' button in FrontPage. This is a legal question and not one I have the answer to.
--CTH
this is not a new thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:this is not a new thing (Score:3, Informative)
Even big stupid companies [theregister.co.uk] do it!
Whistleblowers take 3Com to court over unsafe kit claim
By: John LeydenPosted: 15/02/2001 at 18:43 GMT
3Com is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit from former employees claiming it knowingly sold unsafe products and conspired to file false police reports against them when they reported problems with its kit.
yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
But seriously, this guy deserves a medal, not time in jail, or fines. If a worker at a car company knew of a serious fault in another companies car, and didn't come forward, he would be guilty of murder (assuming people died from the flaw). If this guy didn't come forward, he would be partially responsible for the damage caused by the security flaw.
I doubt this case will go that far, though.. I just wish the government would realize how fucking stupid they are being.
Re:yeah (Score:2, Funny)
Depends.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Depends.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't his intent count for anything?
If think a ground floor window is unlocked, should I just talk to the homeowner or should I least verify it?
Re:Depends.. (Score:2)
I have met the FBI's "top computer expert" special agent in Oklahoma. He is probably a good cop, but he doesn't know shit about computers.
He asked for my card as a technical resource, but then I left that company (another SE Oklahoma ISP, as it happens, that doesn't have a lot of overlap with the two in this story) and I never heard from him.
Re:Depends.. (Score:2)
This is, of course, why my $300 went to the EFF [eff.org]
Pick your analogy (Score:4, Informative)
ENTER HERE -->
TAKE EVERYTHING IN MY HOUSE! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT IT! IF I DID, WHY WOULD I PUT THIS SIGN UP AND LEAVE MY FRONT DOOR OPEN?
So, the guy looks at the mailbox to find a house number, looks up the number in the neighborhood directory, and calls the owner to make sure he's aware of the situtation.
We can start an entire thread on analogies for things like what Brian did and what portscanning is, but it just becomes subjective depending on how familiar you are with the technology. To many of us, open up a file that contains contact information after Frontpage accidentally goes into editing mode instead of read-only mode (or whatever) and then contacting someone about it seems trivial. But to your average FBI cybersleuth, it's just as trivial to spin this in an insanely dark direction.
Isn't it more fun to catch cybercriminals than to wander around determining that those people are actually innocent? Try to convince your average cocky FBI boy of that.
Re:Depends.. (Score:2)
None of these changes alter the appearance of the web site, but they test if you can upload, change and delete a file on the server.
As to if this is illegal or not, one element of determining if something marginal like this is illegal is intent. This is akin to noticing if the lock on a gate is broken--you may wind up crossing a few inches inside the gate to determine if the door opens inward, so technically you are tresspassing. But only the most anal DA would try to have you put in jail for crossing six inches into someone else's property to check a gate latch that you then promptly warn them about.
Re:Depends.. (Score:3, Insightful)
One incredibly important thing to take away from this communication is that if you are ever actually asked to do any kind of security audit, get a plenary release in writing that ANYTHING you do is authorized. If they don't want to do that, consult a lawyer who knows this area before you even begin to think about doing the gig. -- Its amazing how many accesses become "unauthorized" after the fact, depending upon the interests or politics of the day. Don't let this happen to you.
He's a witch... (Score:3, Funny)
This sort of thing seems to be typical (Score:2, Interesting)
The only thing I see as a possible remedy to this is for people to actually start using all those anonymous remailers that are floatin' around, otherwise, be prepared to get bent over for trying to be helpful. I can relate to this personally, the only good thing about it is that I only got fired, not arrested. But how much more BS are people going to take before they start to take a stand against this kind of crap?
Donations... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Donations... (Score:2)
Re:Donations... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't say that all of them came from Brian West, does it? I'll bet a bunch of them were just Code Red....
The affadavit said many of the attempts were efforts to access the files and scripts that cause the web site to operate.
Like what? index.html? Or dir.gif? favicon.ico? Or maybe 4 shift-reloads of a page with 50 gifs?
I have yet to hear any sane theory as to why Brian would intentionally probe a website -- knowing that his accesses would be in the server logs -- only to phone them up and say that they have a security weakness. What would his motive be?
Occam's Razor applies. The simplest explanation is Brian's. Even if he was probing for weaknesses, he still did the right thing when he found them.
Re:Donations... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that's what happened, just that you can't be sure that it's not what happened. People need to find out as much as they can from both sides of the fence before contributing to a "defense fund".
Re:Donations... (Score:2)
Naked Woman Seeks Sex at Airport [slant-six.org]
Re:Donations... (Score:2)
http://www.amazon.com/paypage/P3EMCVKJQX404O [amazon.com]
I just donated. You should too.
Re:Donations...( I *do* know him ) (Score:5, Interesting)
If he's guilty of anything perhaps it's a bit of overexuberance and a naive belief in the goodwill of others towards "Good Samaritans" in reporting the problem, but last I checked my moral compass, those aren't worth of a *FEDERAL FELONY* conviction.
I donated to Brian's cause, because a support technician for a local ISP in OK, he doesn't have thousands of dollars stashed away to cover the costs of a lawyer in a federal criminal case ( which this has suddenly become ).
If you don't believe in this case, donate to the EFF [eff.org] instead.
Entrapment? (Score:2)
I'd be tempted to call this entrapment...except for the fact that he didn't actually commit a crime.
Re:Entrapment? (Score:2)
And THAT is exactly what is wrong with this case. He commited no crime but they'll create a law and set some evil precident to make sure that what he did is in fact punishable by law.
Wasn't long ago that somewhere over in Europe someone discovered that one of those wired park benches allowed long distance for free, at Microsoft's expense? When those guys reported it, did THEY get arrested? No? Why?
Because Justice is supposed to protect people, not relentlessly punish.
Our system is screwed up pretty good. With laws and courts like these here in the US, who needs foriegn enemies?
The DMCA strikes again! (Score:2, Funny)
Generic Slashdot paranoia? (Score:2)
Important lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you call an editor-in-chief who has no experience with computers instead of, I don't know, say emailing the webmaster? Contacting someone at the hosting company?
Re:Important lesson (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks to me like he simply wanted to sway the customers over to his company, and use the security flaw for the reason.
ya ya ya, I'll get modded down for this, but I do think there is more to the story.
He should have contacted the other company, and the FBI should do better things with their time.
Re:Important lesson (Score:2)
Way too often, you get hold of someone incompetent. When that happens, more likely they realize they're in over their heads and that their fanny is showing and it needs to be covered up. I've dealt with webmasters and sysadmins before, and usually things don't get taken care of. But in the cases where I was able to get hold of someone in management that gives a damn (even if he isn't a techie) things do usually get taken care of and often quite quickly. So in the current (sad) state of affairs, if you can get hold of someone higher up in management that can at least understand that their is a problem, that is the best way to do it. I do realize that may come down hard on someone at the bottom who may simply have made a typographical error. But in the majority of cases I've encountered, were I the management in charge with what I know about these things, at least one head would roll.
Re:Important lesson (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Important lesson (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you call an editor-in-chief who has no experience with computers instead of, I don't know, say emailing the webmaster?
If I were this guy, I would talk to the editor-in-chief rather than the techies working on the webpage in the first place. If no authentication is needed, the webmaster may not have been using a password him/herself. Since it would appear that no effort had been made to secure the page, then I would think the webmaster was slightly on the incompetent side and report it directly to somebody who might oversee the webmaster instead.
Wrong Lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally wrong. Somebody who knows the technology must have been involved even before the called in the FBI. And I'm sure the FBI and the U.S. Attorney also have technical experts.
Undoubtedly Cyberlink has a policy of referring all security breaches with to the authorities. They probably call it "zero tolerance" or whatever the get-tough buzzword is this week.
Common sense says that West behaved responsibly. He inflicted no actual harm on the Daily News web opeation, and indeed probably saved them some down time, or worse.
Unfortunately, common sense is not relevent here. When somebody gets caught in a technical violation of the computer security laws (even when the violation is matter of interpretation, as in this case), the authorities have every motivation to "send a message" and go after the "culprit". Brian West's criminal intent, or lack of it, is simply not to be considered.
The ultimate safeguard is supposed to be the trial jury, which would presumably see that Brian is anything but a criminal. But in order to avail himself of that safeguard, Brian has to expend all his financial resources in an expensive trial.
So the U.S. attorney offers Brian a plea agreement involving no jail time. Brian gets to walk away with some of his finances intact, and the feds get to chalk up a conviction. Everybody's a winner.
Outragous? Yeah, some people would say so. Stupid? No argument from me. Counterproductive? Actually making things worse? Absolutely. Unprecedented? You've got to be kidding. This is the way the justice system works, and this sort of thing happens every day.
I've long had a policy of never reporting security breaches, unless the victim is somebody I know and trust. I've had brushes with the "shoot the messenger" mentality before, though never anything as nasty as this. I'm not suprised, but it's a little chilling to see my worst fears so thoroughly confirmed.
Everyone a winner? (Score:2)
a felony conviction can rip you
a new career asshole on a semiregular
basis for the rest of your life.
Give me an I (Score:2)
Not the whole story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not the whole story... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the whole story... (Score:3, Informative)
And I think that the "hundreds of attempts" mentioned is just their normal daily load (their advertising claims to reach "over 1000" readers daily, and this is over a year later, right?). And if only *some* were trying to access these files and scripts, why even bother mentioning "hundreds of attempts" - that number is irrelevant!
Basically, he did a bit more than click on "edit," but it sounds like he really did just find the hole and check to be sure.
Re:Not the whole story... (Score:2, Interesting)
LinuxFreak:
The lack of authentication meant that anyone could edit the Poteau Daily News website by using FrontPage, without ever having to provide a password.
Oklahoman News:
Burchett told authorities that West said he accessed the web site by obtaining user names and passwords.
The newspaper said its user logs indicated hundreds of attempts to contact the web site Feb. 1. The affadavit said many of the attempts were efforts to access the files and scripts that cause the web site to operate.
Hmmm. Oklahoma news vs. Linuxfreak on a technical issue
Let's canonize him. Seriously. Next you'll be telling me that accessing
Let's adopt the same philosophy the FBI and the prosecutors have - if we are wrong about this one, they are guilty ten other times that we can't prove. I don't have any problem treating them like they treat others!
Don't trust the Oklahoman - HORRIBLE REPORTING (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the whole story... (Score:3, Insightful)
But since you've placed me in the "them" corner, let's look at a motive. How about... for money? The oldest motive in the book. Here's a hypothetical;
Don't believe everything you read.Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2)
It was infected by a trojan that replicates off of unprotected C drive shares in Windows...I was looking at his C drive...and I thought about replacing everything on his desktop except for a note telling him he was infected with a trojan and his HD was open to the world.
Thank God I wised up...He could have had me prosecuted!!!! God I'm so starting to hate the government.
"I've never been to Vegas, but I've gambled all my life" - Ryan Adams
Re:Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2)
God I wised up...He could have had me prosecuted!!!! God I'm so starting to hate the government.
Damn right. And you would deserve to be prosecuted. I'd have no hesitation on throwing your ass into court.
Bottom line, I don't want you or ANYONE regardless of their intentions modifying my computer. Chances are you would fuck something up while trying to "help me".
Just like you wouldn't walk into someone's house just because they forgot to lock the door, there should be zero tolerance for people breaking into computers for whatever motive. The "hacker ethic" that it's OK to break into people's property for "learning purposes" or "curiosity" must be put to cold, hard death.
Re:Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2)
And if your computer is like a runaway train, screwing things up for everyone else? And if you are a clueless Win2k PC owner who has been 0wned for weeks and still hasn't read about Code Red or applied patches? And your PC is attacking everyone else around you, repeatedly? I such a situation, I think you should lose just a bit of protection.
An infected computer is sort of a "public health" issue. It's like having the house next door on fire... I think you should be able to throw water on it. Or at *least* go tell the owner what's up.
But I can't do even that. I can't email the chump at 65.3.142.xx because he doesn't have a domain name. And the ISP isn't doing anything, so how can we help this person to clean up their mess?
The "hacker ethic" that it's OK to break into people's property for "learning purposes" or "curiosity" must be put to cold, hard death.
Agreed. But...
It would be nice to have a law passed that explicitly made it okey-dokey for people to merely inform a Trojaned luser of their situation, so long as no harm was done.
Unfortunately, we will have to wait until today's Nintendo generation is in office before such laws have any chance of being introduced. If my mom is only now coming to grasp PPP connections, how can I expect people of similar age and experience in the legislature to understand things like the Code Red virus? All they know is "computers scary."
Re:Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think that law is needed. I don't see any reason why people informing trojaned lusers cannot do that safely. I have got countless Code Red probes in my Apache logs and have seriously thought about trying to warn those people (it's just there are too many of those).
There's no way that could be illegal.
I won't be trying to "verify" if the root.exe exploit is available on those machines, since that could give me some serious trouble of someone were to pursue a claim against me.
No matter what my intentions are, that would be gaining unlawful access to someone else's machine.
The problem with your statement "(...) so long as no harm was done" is hard to objectively maintain.
Suppose a server I am sysadmin of has a security hole. You're trying to help me and being a white hat hacker you enter my machine and take a good look around and after doing so you create a nice summary of problems and even the necessary fixes.
At first sight, that really is commendable.
However, since I don't know you or your intentions can I safely assume you ment no harm and did no evil things to my machine? Should I take your word for it? For all I know you're just helping me to patch up my machine so no other evil hackers get in and you are the only one that is able to get into my now mostly-secure-but-now-backdoored-machine.
The consequence of you trying to help me is that I would have to retrace all your actions on my machine, which might not have been necessary if you didn't try to "help" me by gaining access to my machine without getting asking me in advance.
Surely I'd have to do a full security audit anyway, but now there is more information in the logs to be checked out.
No matter what your intentions are and how stupidly I misconfigured my machine, your attempt to help me just cost me a whole lot of extra time and downtime.
Informing people is fine and totally legal. Gaining access to their machines without their consent is illegal and rightfully so, as far as I'm converned.
The law I would like to see is one that holds people accountable for problems caused by those people not securing their machines (Code Red anyone... think of all the bandwidth wasted by that little prank). Better still, don't make it a law, ISPs could take it up in their conditions they are allowed to pull the plug when such problems aren't fixed within a certain period!
Re:Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2)
Damn right. And you would deserve to be prosecuted. I'd have no hesitation on throwing your ass into court.
Bottom line, I don't want you or ANYONE regardless of their intentions modifying my computer. Chances are you would fuck something up while trying to "help me".
Just like you wouldn't walk into someone's house just because they forgot to lock the door, there should be zero tolerance for people breaking into computers for whatever motive.
Excuse me, but I don't recall having observed my neighbor's house walking over to my house and checking to see if the front door was locked, or tampering with the locks so that other intruders can get in, then causing my house to behave in the same way.
I think I can safely say that if I saw your house walk over to my house and start jiggling the locks, your house would be toast.
Re:Wonder if I could be prosecuted (Score:2, Troll)
He'd left his door unlocked, and I was looking at his living room. I thought about leaving a note on his TV telling him he left his door unlocked and his house was open to the world.
Thank God I wised up...He could have had me prosecuted!!!! God I'm so starting to hate the government.
I once did something like this...But won't again! (Score:5, Interesting)
Shortly after we got our first T1 connection a few years back, we saw a bunch of strange computers show up in our network neighbourhood, This puzzled me, so I clicked on one of the computers and found out that it had a bunch of shares available. Sure enough, the shares were wide open. I didn't quite no how to respond, so I waited a day to see if the problem went away. It didn't.
I figured that if I could see the shares other people could to, so I opened a share and started looking for a document name that might give me a clue as to who was unwittingly making all this stuff available. I found a document called "Letterhead" or something like that, opened it up, and found a company name and number. I then called the company and told them what I had found.
They too had just gotten a connection, and the consultant that was in charge of configuring the firewall had not done things very effectively. The lady I spoke with was profusely thankful, and the problem was remedied in short order.
However, after reading this article, I'd probably just add some rules to my own firewall to stop their packets and leave it alone.
Re:I once did something like this...But won't agai (Score:4, Insightful)
The big question is, would this guy have been as greatful if he knew the methods my co-worker used to figure out who he was? It's a fine line. Maybe being an anonymous good samaritan would be the better route.
What to do? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a crappy situation.
Re:What to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or better yet, contact the FBI and let them take care of it, even if a phone call to a competent admin could have fixed the problem.
And the moral of this story is... (Score:2)
...never be a good samaritan, because no one will appreciate your efforts.
Imagine this conversation in your street:
Guy 1: "Hey neighbour, you've left your front door wide open and I think the local hoods are eyeing over your TV and VCR system."
Guy 2: "What? You say you saw my front door open? How did that happen? I couldn't have left it open, not me. You opened it, right? I'm calling the cops buddy."
Only in America.
tragic, but not surprising. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only those things that can be used against you are considered.
Where is there news here?
I have made it a point to NEVER, under any circumstances, connect to any service beyond web pages linked by their own site, without written permission of the owner, on their corporate letterhead.
Exposing security problems is considered to be a nasty evil thing. Dont do it. Let them be hacked. Do not do it yourself. If you accidently find a hole, dont access it, Dont tell others of its existance, just go on about your own business.
You, a computer knowledgable person, represent a good tasty meal for the FBI's new computer crime group. They must somehow prove their worth to congress. You provide them with opportunity by providing a community service. Dont provide it.
Re:tragic, but not surprising. (Score:2)
Yep, that's exactly what you are doing by helping them out. If we, as a profession, quit making victims of ourselves, the problem will take care of it'self. For one thing, the government is as likely as incompetent with computer security as it is with almost everything else it does (such as deliver mail). What it's VERY efficient at, unfortunately, is using force, and at manufacturing crime for profit (drug war).
Remember, FBI and other law enforcement types are trained and propogandized to believe the WORST about us. Don't play into their hands. I know I'm sounding off the deep end on this, but with our government UNANIMOUSLY rubber stamping laws like the DMCA, why should anyone be surprised at ALL that they will do such things even to those of us who try to, GOD FORBID, do someone a favor?
The only mistake this guy made was in not demanding $thousands up front as a "CONsultant" from the site in question.
Sad, very sad (Score:2)
I suppose in today's legal climate, the only way to treat your neighbor is callousness, at least, and stay out of jail. Help your neighbor, get 1-5 years.
My suggestion to all those who are admins/coders/hackers/engineers, keep it to yourselves. I suppose we'll secure our systems, and let the government and the rest fall prey to script kiddies and our silence until they learn the Darwinian lesson of the consequences of their stupid 21st Century "digital age" laws.
No good deed goes unpunished (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No good deed goes unpunished (Score:3, Insightful)
where's the rest of the story (Score:2)
part of the problem is incompetent sysadmin (Score:5, Interesting)
My first encounter with an incompetent sysadmin came many years ago when I was compiling an index of files located on public FTP servers. This was even before the Archie indexing system was set up. I gathered lists of servers from Usenet and ran an indexer on them. The indexes were made available by FTP. The indexes were re-run about weekly. There were about 4 FTP sites at JPL in the list. I received a threatening letter from a sysadmin at JPL "informing" me that I was accessing a "secure government computer without authorization". Secure my ass! It was wide open, had files of clearly public interest, had no files I could tell from their names (since I didn't actually download any) would be anything confidential or secret, and was advertised as a public server on Usenet. After a few exchanges of email with this sysadmin, it became apparent that he was not only totally incompetent and utterly inept, he wouldn't even lift a finger to even try to fix his security problem. Were it not for the fact that its often very hard to get rid of the incompetent in government, I would have tried to get this guy fired. Of course today it would only get me arrested. I did remove that server from the list. If only there had been a slashdot in those days, but there wasn't even a web.
The law is today basically covering up for administrator incompetence. An administrator mistake that leaves a site insecure is one thing. But trying to cover up the mistake, or otherwise avoid doing the job ... is what is the indicator of the incompetence. We know about the bug in IIS that spawned life to a red worm. Microsoft even fixed it well before the worm started. The two Microsoft admin types I know had their servers all patched up and secure before the worm ever hit. But clearly there are hundreds of thousands of servers run by the incompetent.
Something similiar happened to me (Score:5, Interesting)
The FBI, in particular, is very ignorant about computers and securty. Read this Month's crypto-gram [counterpane.com] (one link from the page I lined to) for a story on how sensitive FBI documents were passed on to the internet at large via SirCam.
About a year ago, there was an (mumble mumble) on-line community that I was a part of. They had a number of mailing lists. Discovering that they had a Majordomo-style interface, I proceeded to send the list-request address a LIST request.
Instead of just listing the mailing lists that exists, the program gave me a list of all mailing lists, and all people subscribed to the lists.
Later on, someone on one of the lists wondered out loud how many people were on a mailing list. I told them.
At this point, the people freked out. They though I had broken in to their system or some such. I explained how I got the information, and then said that I was going to leave. I knew that this was something that could get me in to trouble.
Thankfully, the moderator of the mailing list was a member of out family's church. I wonder what could have happened if we were not on friendly terms with these people.
Finally, I wonder why the FBI persues crap like this, and not stuff like legitimate problems where the FBI could really help [grc.com] (scrool down to the section where he describes his dealing with the FBI).
- Sam
Something similiar happened to me (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people who are ignorant of computers have this belief that anyone who knows what they are doing can hack any computer easily. They do not believe that any form of computer security can exist.
The FBI, in particular, is very ignorant about computers and securty. Read this Month's crypto-gram [counterpane.com] (one link from the page I lined to) for a story on how sensitive FBI documents were passed on to the internet at large via SirCam.
About a year ago, there was an (mumble mumble) on-line community that I was a part of. They had a number of mailing lists. Discovering that they had a Majordomo-style interface, I proceeded to send the list-request address a LIST request.
Instead of just listing the mailing lists that exists, the program gave me a list of all mailing lists, and all people subscribed to the lists.
Later on, someone on one of the lists wondered out loud how many people were on a mailing list. I told them.
At this point, the people freked out. They though I had broken in to their system or some such. I explained how I got the information, and then said that I was going to leave. I knew that this was something that could get me in to trouble.
Thankfully, the moderator of the mailing list was a member of out family's church. I wonder what could have happened if we were not on friendly terms with these people.
Finally, I wonder why the FBI persues crap like this, and not stuff like legitimate problems where the FBI could really help [grc.com] (scrool down to the section where he describes his dealing with the FBI).
- Sam
Re:Something similiar happened to me (Score:2)
- Sam
Well, what did YOU do ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Feel free to copy this and send it off if you like. With luck, either the DOJ will quit, or we'll get a better explanation. Hopefully we can create an awareness that VOTERS ae watching what happens in these matters, and that we expect reasonable action and competence.
Contact Wally Burchett and the Poteau Daily News (Score:3, Informative)
the Poteau Daily News has something coming to them if they think they can get away with this.
Everyone should start writing letters, call the editor, etc. From their Web site:
Address:
Poteau Daily News & Sun
P.O. Box 1237
804 N. Broadway
Poteau, OK 74953
Office Hours:
7a.m. - 6p.m. Mon.-Fri.
8a.m. to Noon Sat.
Phone Numbers:
(918) 647-3188
(918) 647-8198 Fax
Email:
pdns@pdns.com
publisher@pdns.com
If you write letters, direct them to Mr. Wally Burchett.
As with all the causes we at
For all the security holes I've pointed out to various sites, if people called the FBI on me I would be in jail for the rest of my life.
In a related story (Score:2)
The squad alleged they broke into a house because it was burning, and they received an emergency call that said there were people trapped inside it.
Instead of innocent trapped civilians, they unknowingly tried to rescue undecovered FBI agents.
The firemen broke the main door and entered into the burning house, when they were immediatelly charged for vandalism, trespassing and attempted burglary.
They alleged they were trying to save lifes, but this is no excuse to FBI agent Smith, that said:
"What we are facing here is a very serious crime. The entered the house without written permission from its owner. They work doesn't matter. Or do you think a teller can enter a bank's safe and get money without permission ?"
If the firemen don't get convicted, then the prosecutor woult try for arson.
This (fictional) story ends happliy (Score:2)
The firemen, having no one left accusing or prosecuting them, returned to life as usual, and the nation breathed a sigh of relief as good samaritanism was, if not legal, at least accepted again as there was no one to prosecute the cases left.
Common Sense and Peeping Toms (Score:2, Funny)
Concerned Citizen: "Mr. Smith, I'm calling because I noticed that your bedroom blinds are partially open and I can see your wife walking around in the nude. I thought I'd bring this to your attention so you can remedy the situation before more malicious sorts exploit the breach in your window dressings."
Smith:"Are you sure about this?"
Concerned Citizen: "Yes sir. Just to be sure, I pulled out my binoculars. I can tell you that your wife has a pierced left nipple and a tattoo of Bugs Bunny on her right butt cheek. Oh, and I'm sorry about your lack of gift. They say that size really doesn't matter anyway..."
Smith: You bastard!!
Letter via email (Score:2)
Hello,
I just read about a case involving Brian K. West. The URL is:
http://www.linuxfreak.org/post.php/08/17/2001/134
From everything that I have read, this person did absoultely nothing
wrong. I fail to understand why he is being persecuted for simply
notifying somebody of a *VERY SERIOUS* security hole on a service they
offer to the entire world.
Please consider throwing this case out. Mr. West has undoubtedly
already lost much time, money, and reputation due to this injustice.
Had he done the same thing for me, I would have immediately sent him a
message of thanks and IMMEDIATELY secured the site. Aparently, weeks
after the initial warning that Mr. West was so kind to give the poteau
daily news website administrator, this hole (really a misconfiguration
on the administrator's part) still was not closed.
Allowing frontpage publishing to the entire world is a serious
potential vulnerability. Doing the same with no authentication
mechanism is just plain stupid, especially for a news site whose
integrity is at stake.
If you would like to see other people's views on this incident, please
visit:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/18/17025
-- greg, webmaster@no.slashdotting.desired
--
Greg Spath
gspath@no.slashotting.desired
http://no.slashdotting.desired
Hey, I got an idea... (Score:2)
For all of those tempted to donate money, make sure you check out the story first!
What about MS? (Score:5, Funny)
Good samaritan laws (Score:2, Interesting)
The way we make laws is a security flaw (Score:3, Interesting)
--Blair
"Democracy is a wonderful thing. I wish we had some."
Death of a hobby (Score:2, Interesting)
You try doing chemistry as a hobby at home today you will find yourself in jail. Even if you never make any drugs or bombs, it will be assumed that you are making drugs and bombs. The possession of any chemicals which could conceivably be used for making drugs or explosives will be taken as evidence that you are making drugs and explosives - even if you aren't. Even if you have careful notebooks which explain what you're doing, it won't help you. People have been sent to prison for possession of three-necked flasks and triple-beam scales!
Computer security has, I think, gone the way of chemistry. Don't do it at home! I am by nature a paranoid person - perhaps this is to compensate for my lack of ability to "read" people and take hints - it would never occur to me to do any white-hatting and give my real name. I would have notified the newspaper jerks by email from an anonymous terminal or by disposable calling card from a payphone. The boy in this case should have told his boss at his company, and let his company decide whether to call or not. Instead, he goes off and gives the impression that he goes around finding holes in systems, on his own, all the time! If security is your hobby, go and get a job at an actual security company and do it full time. Or don't do it at all.
letting no good deed go unpunished (Score:2)
Moral: Stop reporting security holes!
Parallel Senarios... (Score:3, Interesting)
Police: "Stay there for a while sir and watch things until we arive."
<I>15 Minutes later...</I>
Passer-by: "I'm glad you made it. I was getting tired and..."
Police: "You're under arrest for theft and breaking and entering."
Yea, that makes a lot of sense.
Entrapment and other issues. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the company asks me to demonstrate breaking into their website, then thats the same thing as inviting me into your house then having me arrested for trespassing.
Also understand, that prosecutors don't usually offer plea agreements unless they know they're not going to get anything better. This guy might actually have a good case, the only problem is, the government has the ability to put too much pressure on the average citizen and force them into an easy out.
All that aside, what do we do? Should we not bother to help the world secure itself? Should we just worms and secretly release them so they fix all the problems and we just look the other way knowing that one way or another things will be secure and nobody will probably ever know about it anyways.
How DO we deal with this? Law Enforcement either doesnt' have a clue, or doesn't care, and probably its both. If the only proper actions are illegal (or will be treated as illegal) what can we do? We can try to educate, but I don't think Law Enforcement WANTS to be educated. Nor does anyone else for that matter. They want to just install their insecure microsoft crap and have it work, and microsoft certainly isn't going to take any blame for it.
This is kinda scary.. Imagine you're walking down the street and glance in someone's window and see a crime being committed, you report it, then get arrested for invasion of privacy. How different is this really? Because they involve computers and networks, people don't understand anything, they don't know what to do, so they panic and get law enforcment involved and they take every call so seriously because of those damned "hackers" that the public is so concerned about.
As I see it... we do our jobs. We don't talk to anyone, we just do what we're supposed to do. If we find a problem, we fix it and say nothing or we ignore it and let it fester (especially if its not OUR problem). Don't try to help anyone. If that user is having difficulty with their computer, if you're not responsible for maintaining it, then don't even think of touching it or even advising that user what to do. Tell them they're SOL unless they can find someone else to help them. Or hand them a book and tell them they'll have to figure it out on their own. This is not the world I want to live in, but what choice do we have? How can we risk it anymore?
-Restil
Geeks are so one-dimensional (Score:2)
I find it so ironic that geeks and programmers (myself included) are so one-dimensional about life. On the one hand, we spend enormous amounts of time and resources securing machines from outside intrusion, and ridicule those who don't (e.g., Microsoft).
On the other hand, our entire lives are an open book to any law enforcement agency, businessperson or non-tech professional because we just don't know enough about how life works.
Here's a clue: don't let an angry guy you don't know record you on the phone! Federal laws are very strict about the legality of recording telephone conversations. If both parties do not agree to the recording, the person doing the recording is commiting a crime.
Maybe if we secured our own lives as well as we did our servers these problems wouldn't happen to us. Why do we blame the sysadmin if someone breaks his insecure box yet blame the government if they break into his insecure life?
He has not been charged! (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, several years ago, I walked near an area where a sexual assault had taken place. The police saw me, and you can imagine what happened. I was a perfect target -- single, no alibi, just walking between two places alone.
They questioned me, took my info, and left. The next day they started calling me at home and at work, trying to get me to confess, trying to get me to "accept" a lesser charge.
They stated that if it went to court, they had enough circumstantial evidence to convict me, that if I didn't take the offer, they would go for the most severe charge. I would be in jail for "years", and (obviously) lose my job.
If I would just confess to a lesser charge, they would "guarantee" no jail time, and no fine. After seven years, it would be like nothing happened, there would be nothing on my record.
There was just one problem with accepting the blame : I was not the perpetrator; I commited no crime.
So I was scared. I spent some money on an attorney ($75) and the guy wanted thousands "up front" to "insure my freedom".
As it turns out, most lawyers are lying bastards. I talked to my Dad's attorney about this, and he started laughing. He said "My God, this is America! You haven't even been charged! They're blowing smoke up your ass to try and get a free conviction for doing no work!"
He recommended that I call the Detective and state:
"My attorney and I will surrender to your department when charges are filed, please contact me at that time. I have no intention of fleeing; I would like to avoid the embarrassment of being arrested at my home or place of work".
Total cost for a real attorney : $0.00
I was never arrested, charged or contacted again!
Know your rights! You do not have to speak to the police...you should respect them and answer rudimentary questions with honesty, but once it becomes clear that you are a target of the investigation, stop talking! Simply tell them you intend to turn yourself in when charges are filed.
Re:He has not been charged! (Score:3, Insightful)
The detective was pushy with me, insistent. Remember, I was not charged, arrested or mirandized. More or less, it's consenual communication. I had little experience with the law prior to this incident, other than things like tickets.
It's been decided by the supreme court that the police are not bound to tell you the truth during an interview. There are bounds, but they can say odd things like "What if I tell you I have an eyewitness? Will that help you make the right decision?" (BTW, the detective used this exact line on me!) Note that he did not claim to actually have an eyewitness.
Now that I look back on the whole thing, I have to say these people are pros. They have guidelines, and they know exactly what they are saying and doing. They have years of experience and training in getting convictions, in any way possible.
Another tactic was telling me that "The truth, your guilt or innocence, does not pay my salary. Convictions do. I can convict you -- I've been convicting people for 15 years, and I've never lost sleep over it. I'm one of the best. I hate to see you make a decision to go to trial and ruin your life. Do the right thing and take the lessor charge."
Probably the thing that hurt me most, and I know now it was all an act, was when he recounted a horrible murder that occurred some years earlier. Everyone in the city knew the details, the rape and murder. This detective claimed to have busted the guy, and he gave me a horrible look and said "You're just like him, aren't you? I know criminals, and when I look at you I see a monster. I'm going to keep coming after you, and I won't stop -- ever". Well, for someone like me, I almost started crying, as ashamed as I am now to say that. The bright lights, the investigation room, the two of us alone, eye-to-eye across the table. The big police banner above his head on the wall -- everything made him look correct and invincible.
Another reason it's not harrassment is that he did not call again once I asked him to stop. My dad's lawyer made that clear -- that I should not be asked any more questions or called again until charged.
Hope this helps people understand what they might have to face someday -- always help the law, but don't hurt yourself in the process. When you sense that the line has been crossed -- that they are considering you a suspect -- stop talking!
I hate to think how many "people of lessor mental capabilities" have taken the fall for things because they simply believed the detectives about all this nonsense.
Re:Who-hoo! Land of the Free! (Score:2, Funny)
Erm... (Score:2)
Re:Who-hoo! Land of the Free! (Score:3, Interesting)
No, Canada requires it as well.
[OT] Re:Who-hoo! Land of the Free! (Score:2, Informative)
Think about it this way: Suppose you embark from Podunk, Idaho on your way to Frankfurt, with a connection in LaGuardia (New York City) each way. (Assume that Podunk Regional Airport has no customs and immigration facilities, but it wouldn't matter if it did.) On your way back, you'll go through customs and immigration in New York, because after New York, it's all domestic flights.
It works the same way going abroad.
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about an analogy that the 'joe bag-of-donuts' crowd can understand. Suppose you get letter in the mail that says
"Hi. I just wanted to let you know that I stopped by your house the other day, and I was able to easily break into your home. I was able to jimmy the back door, and slide open two of your windows. After I entered your house - since I saw that the exterior was insecure, I decided to see how secure the inside of the house was. While doing this, I was able to find your credit cards in your wallet, so your personal information isn't safe in your house. And, you left your gun cabinet unlocked. I just thought that I should share this with you since I am only interested in your security.
The Cracker"
I would argue that 99.9% of the people in this country would say that this person has broken the law and should be arrested, but you are arguing that since they didn't exploit what they found, that the clueless cops should leave this person alone. Common sense dictates that the person should be arrested, and the cops aren't clueless when they do this.
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:2, Insightful)
What he did was walk by the house and see the front door hanging open when no one was obviously home. He then walked up to the front door and saw that sure enough the door was open. He never went inside. So he came back the next day and said heh, your front door is open.
No one in their right minds would arrest a guy for that.
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:2, Insightful)
The business owner should have been grateful upon hearing, "Hey, there is a massive security hole in your web page. Here's how to fix it."
Instead, he felt threatened, recorded the callback, and called the police. Why?
That's what I want to know. I want to hear the tape.
Free the tape!
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:3, Informative)
While I certainly would agree, on the surface, this looks stupid, we may not have the full story. AND, accidental or intentional, he is almost certainly guilty of "computer tresspass". The "door" analogy is a little flawed... one cannot "see" that a password is not required without actually trying. Look at it more as walking up to knock on a door while blind-folded. Bascially, a locked door looks just like an unlocked door; you have to try to open it to tell one way or the other. And thus, the law is broken (bent, whatever.) Laws that apply to the physical world don't always have an equal in the virtual world.
(The lack of formal charges would suggest nothing will ever come of this stupidity.)
Per the fbi afidavit (Score:3, Informative)
So, going back to the house analogy, he is guilty of going inside and looking around.
The details of the affidavit are from Brian West's own web site, http://www.bkw.org
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:4, Interesting)
That analogy does not fit. A more correct one would be:
Using the wrong analogy could leave people who just don't understand in the first place with a misunderstanding of it. As to the specific facts about the case with PDNS.COM, I don't know if I have them all or not. But based on what facts have been presented that I have read, my analogy is the correct one. The only reason 99.9% would say this guy is wrong is if they are judging him based on your flawed analogy. Common sense dictates that the case should be investigated. Maybe LinuxFreak.Org didn't really do a very good job of gathering the facts. But until they all are available, this is what we have to go on, and it makes the feds, idiot small town newspapers, and a certain sysadmin, look bad.
Re: Has common sense become less common? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you make an anology, you gotta make a correct one:
(Note: In real life, thie might constitute trespas. However, there's no such thing as digital trespas. In real life, you'd probably just call the police.)
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:2, Interesting)
Or, a better example. After closing hours, you are walking down the street. Your shoelace becomes untied, and you lean up against a storefront, to tie it. Oops, but the door isn't latched, and you tumble inside. Now, do you rush off, and never get caught? This guy didn't.
Do you do like some do, write a small note, and place it inside (the analogy would mean leaving a webadmin.html with the info), which while technically illegal is still in good faith? This guy didn't.
He calls them up on the phone, and informed them of the security flaw. He didn't publicize it, thereby inviting script kiddies. His access is something that is publically and technically acceptable, and he didn't even take a single step beyond it. He acted in good faith, even though competitively he shouldn't have aided the competition, nor was he obligated to do so, ethically or legally.
The only real crime here, is being committed by the prosecutor. He should be charged with false proseuction, and if there is no law for that, treason. Subverting the laws of this country, and attempting to convict someone even though you know them to be innocent, is certainly treasonous. Plus, treason allows for the death penalty, if I'm not mistaken, a just punishment and excellent deterrent.
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:2, Insightful)
What about good samaritan laws?
Can one be prosecuted in some states for finding a problem and NOT reporting it?
Re:Has common sense become less common? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a fairly obvious difference between cracking a system, and exploiting the problems found, and coming across a problem by accident and reporting them in a sensible manner.
How is what he did sensible? He works for company X. On day 1 he finds a misconfigured server run by company Y, his direct competitor. He spends this day poking around two of the sites hosted there, testing out usernames and passwords that he found on at least one of them. Does he tell anyone who could fix the server anything? No. Not until the next day does he let anybody know about it (assuming he didn't share the info with his buddies), and when he does so, does he call the server operators? No, he goes to company Y's customer and tells them. And he doesn't tell their IT department, he tells it to a newspaper editor. He's not some good samaritan, because he never did tell company Y about the problem with their server. He was still showing people the hole 10 days after he found it.
The sensible thing to do, which I've done a few times, is as that the instant he realized that there was a hole in the server, he should've immediately quit playing around with it and immediately called or emailed the customer or company Y. That is, if he really wanted to wanted to be a good samaritan. If he didn't want to be a good samaritan, that's fine, he doesn't have to call, but you don't sit there poking around the hole after you realize that it's there.
Re:Let him rot in jail! (Score:2, Insightful)
Now... it appears that you would rather have the white hat see that your computer is vulnerable, not notice you because he doesn't want to go to jail. And start programming something else. Then, a few weeks later a script kiddie comes by, sees a vulnerable machine, grab all the passwords. and deface every computer on your network he could find.
Take your pick!!!!!
Re:Wire Fraud (Score:2)
Re:Wire Fraud (Score:2, Informative)
Here [cornell.edu]'s the law entry for what he's charged with, and Here [usdoj.gov]'s the reference for the Oklahoma wire fraud law.
Re:Wire Fraud (Score:2)
Morally, yes, legally, no, because it'd be a different charge.
Remember, the "justice" system is about nothing of the sort. It's about the SYSTEM. Justice is, at best, an INTENDED side effect. Which can be done away with when you have corrupt judges, law enforcement, and prosecutors. And there plainly are some or all of the above in this instance, even though it may not be DELIBERATE, but instead incompetence.
However, of those with the power to use force to take away freedom, and the power to imprison, I believe incompetence=corruption. There IS no excuse, be it deliberate, or a case of ignorance, for the abuse of government force against the individual. Just as ignorance of the law is no defence for the citizen, cluelessness shouldn't be for the government.
Re:Better off dead (Score:2)
Ok, so you're saying there's a fixed number of "alive"s before "dead."
My only question is: How can I lenghten the polling on that status check?
Re:taping conversation illegal? (Score:2)
The legality of phone call taping is, as far as i can tell, governed by state law. Therefore the legality of taping a phone call without the consent of both parties would vary depending on what state the phone call took place in. (If the call happened across state lines, i assume federal law would have jurisdiction.)
I found this rather informative webpage [pimall.com] on google, and it claims that in Oklahoma you only need the consent of one of the parties involved in order to record a phone conversation. So your answer is: No.
(P.S. : That page also claims further down the page that federal law only requires the consent of one party, and that federal law also takes jurisdiction if you go and make the call from an indian reservation or the lobby of a federal building. Which is kind of interesting and probably totally accurate, but not very relevant considering both parties involved here were in oklahoma.)