Date: Sun Sep  4 06:44:45 2005
From: chromazine at sbcglobal.net (Steve Kudlak)
Subject: RE: Computer forensics to uncover illegal
	internet use

dave kleiman wrote:

>Steve,
>
>Inline..
>
>  
>
>>Hate to play alwyer here but doesn't all of this get shot down by 3rd
>>Circuit Federal Court of Appeals decisions regarding the FBI's
>>Innocent Images project?  It basicly shot down the concept of  "you
>>clicked on a chold porn link therefore you're guilty."
>>    
>>
>
>Well that applies to when it is determined that it was innocent.  This could
>be via pop-up, trojan, or maleware of some kind.
>
>
>
>  
>
>>This is all enshired in Federal
>>Cases. No one must admit that a good prosecutor can indioct a  ham
>>sandwich and all that. But overall that doesn't happen.
>>Now Federal Prosecutors and Investigations staffs are very  good at
>>sort of getting warrants and raiding someone's house  or business and
>>going thru everything. But if the person  doesn't scare and cop to
>>something they never did, then  federal prosecutors generally have to
>>back off in cases where  it is just things accumulating on disks etc.
>>    
>>
>
>Well they do not usually prosecute ham sandwiches, BLT's maybe.
>
>I love how everyone is quick to say things just magically accumulated on
>their H/D.  However, they tend not back of when a file structure is found
>with hundreds of images, often burned to CD's.
>
>  
>
>>Futhermore in
>>states with a high privacy expectation like California there is a good
>>reason to say "We don't go through our customers data looking for
>>things out of the ordinary". One might argue it to be different it
>>were one's employees. However if you are offering a primo privacy
>>service then you can legitimately scrub disks as a part of the biz
>>plan.
>>    
>>
>
>Well that may be, of course you missed the beginning of these threads, where
>Mr. Combs suggested after discovering contraband on and employees H/D, to
>make a copy of it take the copy to the companies attorney. Wipe the original
>and "best course of action is to purposefully falsify the record of the
>company's response to the incident"
>
>The full threads can be read here:
>
>http://seclists.org/lists/security-basics/2005/Sep/subject.html
>http://seclists.org/lists/security-basics/2005/Aug/subject.html
>
>
>  
>
>>Much of Law Enforcement and theiir Public Providers of services
>>depends on scaring people and businesses into good behavior when it is
>>neither necessary or ethical. My suspicion is that one can ignore this
>>tactic if one wishes as one is reasonably careful.. I am sure that
>>people will be offereing  "Computer Forensics Services" to find the
>>scary things on your compnys disks for $500 a pop but no good reason
>>one has to engage in such silliness.
>>    
>>
>
>
>Yes that crazy scaring people into good behavior....... Oh wait that is
>right only reasonably prudent people follow the law, criminals tend to not
>care if there is law against something, they are not scared into not
>committing crimes, that is why they are criminals.
>
>Kind of like the lawlessness that is occurring in the situation you
>mentioned below.  Some people would say that the devastation has turned
>these people into criminals. Although, the reality is the people committing
>the crimes are the same ones that were committing them before the
>devastation.
>
>  
>
>>Excuse my flipness. I just got through friends caught up in this call
>>people stranded and alone by the hurricane in the SOuthland and all
>>these other things do ring silly right now.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Regards,
>
>Dave
>
>
>
>  
>
For a long time I sysop'd an open system, I dunno how much time I ended 
up deleteing "girl with vaccum cleaner" pictures. This is getting 
weirder and weirder because with photoshop people can create things that 
do not exist in real reality. Of course you have really funny things 
like this one image that was from Japanese advertizing. They had a 10 
year girl with this incredibly large pretty phallic looking squirt gun 
which she was squirting with a look of bliss on her face. It was pretty 
funny. It was funny how when showed this image it became a "cynicism 
filter". People would divide into the group that thought this was 
completely enmgineerd from the get-go and those who thought it was just 
some werid thing that came out and no one noticed it, or that it was the 
product of the fact that much of  Japanese Culture doesn't quite go 
looking for all possible suggestive variants.  It really became a filter.

Now my suspicion about people in the US Southland is that it is a bit of 
opppurtunism in the face of despair and the feeling that "whitey has 
been shitting on us for centuries". Me being on the North American  West 
Coast doesn't notice that because there were no slave quarters and slave 
markets in California, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and we are 
apt to think a "quadroon" is a small gold coin that would be nice to 
find in one's progentitors coin collection. I don't think it is because 
there is just a massive criminal element hidden from us. Now some of the 
behavior sounded like what I found in my tenure at a small residential 
hotel. From the last week of the month to the first week of the next 
month a number of curious items would end up for sale. It was always 
curious to imagine where these items came from, some were legitimatgely 
obtained, others probably not. There was always an argument among the 
low rent district types that universally almost always aligned as "crazy 
white guys accusing mexicans of shop lifting and reselling, whereas many 
of the items they had could be seen as coming from equally questionable 
sources.

Now if one talks to Federal Proscutors they will tell you that they feel 
comfortable with their "Vacuum Cleaner" approach. They feel if they do 
go and get everyone questionables stuff and go through it, then one will 
be able to determine how many folks had thing accumulating on their disk 
and how many actively collected it etc. Now interestingly with the Third 
Circuit's Decision which is close to rock solid at this point in 
precdent, people like journalists would sort of get wide descretion 
especially if they were working on stories and doing investigations etc.

Two other things come in here. In both the US Ninth Circuit and Upper 
Level Courts of British Columbia it has been held that one can not 
commit crimes against "virtual children" or "animated descriptions of 
children etc".  This means the general belief in liberal democracies 
that "thought crimes" are questionable is beginning to be enshired in 
code and precedent. I am pretty sure this is well embedded in North 
American Culture and is apt not to go away even with the idea, darfe I 
say spectre two very conservative reversalist judges on the Supreme 
Court. Note I have not had time to study how things work in the EU or 
even Australia.

Now technoculturally want this may eventually provoke is the use of high 
grade encryption by more people. Right now I know even artists who hqave 
become more technologically saavy and who encrypt things even when legal 
code is on their side overall. In the 1970s and 1980s there were a 
number of legal razzlements of artists who used their children as nude 
models no matter how innocent. This went too far and eventaully what got 
established is the concept that "simple nudity is not obscene".  It is 
interesting because artists are not usually seen as users or consumers 
of secuiity products and things like encryption.

Anyway this is all very interesting and we do live in interesting times. 
So it will be interesting to see how this will go and whether the 
bizness idea of trying to safe from all possible wrongdoing or perceived 
wrongdoing will win out overall. I know lots of vendors and security 
consultants have been hoping that "porn protection" would turn into a 
lucerative field but so far it doesn't compare to virus and malware 
protection.

Interestingly in artist circles the whole imaging thing has turned into 
"sousveillence" and artists have been having way too much fun turning 
the cameras back on the people who usually use them.  It is interesting 
that people like Sudo Chiles House who was one of the first people to 
install a "cam" which in her case was a 35mm camera that took pictures 
regularly of her bedroom is all buit forgotten in the modern 
installatiion of cams in various public and private spaces. Note the UK 
and places in Florida have been very much into the "you are being 
watched" theory of crime control. I also have heard tales of  "spy 
camera destroyers" who have been running around spray painting cameras 
but I think that is not widespread at this point.  Hmmm, indeed these 
are interesting times. whether it is a blessing or a curse is an open 
question.

Have Fun,
Sends Steve


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