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Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

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Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#11

Post by adulau »

bradleyland wrote: post #8
martincmartin wrote: post #3

"It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?" I suspect that the cops are worried that, if they boot up the computer, it'll have a program which notices something is wrong and wipes the hard drive. So I'd guess t…

EDIT: I just realized that this case was in the UK. I don't know how much of what I'm about to say applies to their judicial system, but I'm going to leave it here anyway for those familiar with the UK to comment on. I did computer forensic work for the US Trustee system. Chain of evidence and the whole deal, because occasionally, our evidence would be handed over to law enforcement and used in criminal cases. I can…

"* If the systems are turned on, record the datetime and shut them down."

Strange, I thought the best way was the keep them running and extract private key or password from memory using some DMA-interfaced buses. For more information: http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/physical-memory-attacks-via-f...

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#12

Post by getsat »

bradleyland wrote: post #8
martincmartin wrote: post #3

"It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?" I suspect that the cops are worried that, if they boot up the computer, it'll have a program which notices something is wrong and wipes the hard drive. So I'd guess t…

EDIT: I just realized that this case was in the UK. I don't know how much of what I'm about to say applies to their judicial system, but I'm going to leave it here anyway for those familiar with the UK to comment on. I did computer forensic work for the US Trustee system. Chain of evidence and the whole deal, because occasionally, our evidence would be handed over to law enforcement and used in criminal cases. I can…

> * If the systems are turned on, record the datetime and shut them down.

Did this ever lock you out of any machines configured to use Whole Disk Encryption or out of encrypted, mounted volumes? You could have dumped the keys out of ram, etc.

> we used EnCase

Did you ever come across any exotic filesystems that EnCase can't read, like XFS?

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#13

Post by tptacek »

solson wrote: post #10
Sidnicious wrote: post #2

I've read a few stories now about property being seized by the police and returned damaged or not at all. What legal options does one have in that situation? EDIT: from the comments: > Yes he has recourse, if the police didn't find anything illegal in their search then ALL damages must be paid for. Fair enough. What if they had found something?

In the US if the authorities use civil forfeiture they can keep your property even when you aren't even charged with a crime and there is little you can do to get it back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture It is generally used in organized crime and drug cases but has expanded greatly in recent years. It is now routinely used to seize cars in DUI cases. They can and do legally keep the property without ev…

Alarmist. Civil asset forfeiture is not carte blanche for local and state governments to take property. There is an elaborate due process system surrounding it. The often-cited statistics about how few forfeiture cases are accompanied by criminal convictions are obviously and clearly biased: much crime goes unpunished, and if you are in fact running drugs (the nexus of the vast and overwhelming majority of forfeiture cases), you're probably not going to go to court to get your Escalade back.

Details:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_0...

In one sense (I'm not married to this argument), declaring all asset forfeiture to be an unconstitutional tyannical abhorrence --- call this the "Radley Balko Line Of Attack" --- plays into the hands of those who would abuse it. There is virtually no chance that the fundamental process of asset forfeiture will be reworked. Both liberals and conservatives, both Republicans and Democrats all support it. Unsurprisingly, because in most cases, you really do want seized those things the government seizes.

A far better way to foil people who would abuse civil forfeiture would be to educate people about the processes made available to people to recover property. One simple point rarely brought up by Reason Magazine: a simple written request filed within something like 90 days of the forfeiture is all it takes to force the government to defend their seizure in court.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#14

Post by pokjhnboi »

bradleyland wrote: post #8
martincmartin wrote: post #3

"It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?" I suspect that the cops are worried that, if they boot up the computer, it'll have a program which notices something is wrong and wipes the hard drive. So I'd guess t…

EDIT: I just realized that this case was in the UK. I don't know how much of what I'm about to say applies to their judicial system, but I'm going to leave it here anyway for those familiar with the UK to comment on. I did computer forensic work for the US Trustee system. Chain of evidence and the whole deal, because occasionally, our evidence would be handed over to law enforcement and used in criminal cases. I can…

Basically the same system in the UK - except they then leave a copy of the data they found in a bar (if it's top secret) or in a cab (if it's financial)

They then show the evidence that they found child porn in court - and on appeal discover that the child porn came from a senior officer's machine.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#15

Post by pokjhnboi »

tptacek wrote: post #13
solson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US if the authorities use civil forfeiture they can keep your property even when you aren't even charged with a crime and there is little you can do to get it back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture It is generally used in organized crime and drug cases but has expanded greatly in recent years. It is now routinely used to seize cars in DUI cases. They can and do legally keep the property without ev…

Alarmist. Civil asset forfeiture is not carte blanche for local and state governments to take property. There is an elaborate due process system surrounding it. The often-cited statistics about how few forfeiture cases are accompanied by criminal convictions are obviously and clearly biased: much crime goes unpunished, and if you are in fact running drugs (the nexus of the vast and overwhelming majority of forfeiture…

Seizing 80 year olds houses because they grandson was caught with weed or seizing the home of a pair of doctors who were giving weed to cancer patients.

Then strangely not applying the same law when the mayor/governer's kids are caught with a joint.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#16

Post by tptacek »

pokjhnboi wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alarmist. Civil asset forfeiture is not carte blanche for local and state governments to take property. There is an elaborate due process system surrounding it. The often-cited statistics about how few forfeiture cases are accompanied by criminal convictions are obviously and clearly biased: much crime goes unpunished, and if you are in fact running drugs (the nexus of the vast and overwhelming majority of forfeiture…

Seizing 80 year olds houses because they grandson was caught with weed or seizing the home of a pair of doctors who were giving weed to cancer patients. Then strangely not applying the same law when the mayor/governer's kids are caught with a joint.

What's your point? How many cops get speeding tickets? Did you know that technically, it's just as illegal for them to casually run red lights in their squad cars as it is for you to? Shall we do away with red lights?

My point isn't that asset forfeiture is invariably defensible. It is obviously abused. My point is that it's being built up into a bogeyman. This perspective, perversely, robs people of their ability to defend themselves against it.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#17

Post by patrickaljord »

getsat wrote: post #12
bradleyland wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: I just realized that this case was in the UK. I don't know how much of what I'm about to say applies to their judicial system, but I'm going to leave it here anyway for those familiar with the UK to comment on. I did computer forensic work for the US Trustee system. Chain of evidence and the whole deal, because occasionally, our evidence would be handed over to law enforcement and used in criminal cases. I can…

> * If the systems are turned on, record the datetime and shut them down. Did this ever lock you out of any machines configured to use Whole Disk Encryption or out of encrypted, mounted volumes? You could have dumped the keys out of ram, etc. > we used EnCase Did you ever come across any exotic filesystems that EnCase can't read, like XFS?

> Did this ever lock you out of any machines configured to use Whole Disk Encryption or out of encrypted, mounted volumes?

That read weird to me too. My file system is totally encrypted and the easiest way to get a copy of it is to not turn the machine off but make a copy of the mounted hard disks first. That's true for any encrypted file system, sounds like a pretty big faux pas in the procedure.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#18

Post by maeon3 »

Folks we are losing our basic human rights a little bit at a time here. It's like back thousands of years ago where if you wanted to convict someone of a crime you sneak them away in the night, torture them, set their house on fire, attempt to manufacture some evidence, then wreck their life then leave them alone for a little while. Vigilante justice, get 12 men together, and what they want is the law.

It seems like some government agencies are turning into old vigilante justice squads. Going around, setting people's lives upside down, being judge jury and executioner, then the victim is left to pick up the pieces where the real criminal escapes justice from the law because the other branches of government don't care.

It's like the 1200's all over again. We made laws against this sort of thing for a reason. If you want to challenge the legality of some entity or transaction then you can't just go and set their house on fire and then go hide when it turns out you were wrong.

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#19

Post by pokjhnboi »

tptacek wrote: post #16
pokjhnboi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seizing 80 year olds houses because they grandson was caught with weed or seizing the home of a pair of doctors who were giving weed to cancer patients. Then strangely not applying the same law when the mayor/governer's kids are caught with a joint.

What's your point? How many cops get speeding tickets? Did you know that technically, it's just as illegal for them to casually run red lights in their squad cars as it is for you to? Shall we do away with red lights? My point isn't that asset forfeiture is invariably defensible. It is obviously abused. My point is that it's being built up into a bogeyman. This perspective, perversely, robs people of their ability to…

My point is that once local politics - remember it isn't cops that seize property it's DAs - kicks in then laws which are only for use against terrorists/makejor drugs dealers/organised crime can be used against ordinary people.

And given the population sizes of terrorists/drug dealers/etc compared to ordinary people - they are almsot always used against ordinary people

Re: Police Return Seized Hardware to Victorious BitTorrent Admin, Trashed

#20

Post by tptacek »

pokjhnboi wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? How many cops get speeding tickets? Did you know that technically, it's just as illegal for them to casually run red lights in their squad cars as it is for you to? Shall we do away with red lights? My point isn't that asset forfeiture is invariably defensible. It is obviously abused. My point is that it's being built up into a bogeyman. This perspective, perversely, robs people of their ability to…

My point is that once local politics - remember it isn't cops that seize property it's DAs - kicks in then laws which are only for use against terrorists/makejor drugs dealers/organised crime can be used against ordinary people. And given the population sizes of terrorists/drug dealers/etc compared to ordinary people - they are almsot always used against ordinary people

Cite evidence for that last sentence. It is an extraordinary claim: that law enforcement is in fact a massive criminal conspiracy used to defraud ordinary people of their lawful property.
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