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Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

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Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#31

Post by Crito »

alphonse23 wrote: post #16
Crito wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, I imagine a list of students who had finals in those buildings around that time also entered into the equation. Talking to the guy using tor at the time, who had finals at the time, is a no brainer.

he wouldn't have gotten nabbed in a court of law -- all you need is a motive.

I doubt that the "finals list/tor usage" combination would have been enough to convict him, but I suspect it would have been enough to get a search warrant for his computer.

I don't know if he used the Tor Browser Bundle, and if that is even all that clean from a forensic standpoint, but I certainly wouldn't trust it to conceal what I did.

Maaaybe he'd have a chance if he used a LiveCD that they could not find evidence of him ever having. That is a very strong "maybe".

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#33

Post by anigbrowl »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #23
toki5 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "failure" you mention here is his confession. If all they had to go on was what's in the article -- that "the person who used Guerilla Mail used Tor to access it" and "[Kim] used Tor around the same time the e-mails were sent" -- that's not enough to charge him with a crime. It's enough to go and talk to him about it, but if he had wanted to, he could have protected his identity (but possibly prolonged the invest…

Obviously the point at which a hostile government thinks you're a top suspect and interrogates you is the weakest link in the security chain. This guy had it comparatively easy: his interrogators weren't torturing him to death.

That's ridiculous. If police find a print of XYZ-brand shoes near a crime scene and start keeping their eyes open for people who have XYZ shoes, they're not trying to oppress people with a certain taste in footwear. there seems to be a misconception about that police need probable cause before they even ask questions, which is nonsensical.

Edit for clarity: I don't think that following up obvious leads is evidence of government hostility. After all, if Harvard called up law enforcement to advise of a bomb threat and were told not to bother unless an explosion had taken place, most people would consider that pretty remiss (especially given Harvard's proximity to Boston).

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#34

Post by iamjustin »

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #27
moloch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just not confessed; him using TOR around the same time is not going to be enough to convict him.

This. It sounds like he folded as soon as he was interviewed by law enforcement. Don't underestimate the power of the $5 wrench. http://xkcd.com/538/

Yeah, and they didn't even need the wrench.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#35

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #33
throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the point at which a hostile government thinks you're a top suspect and interrogates you is the weakest link in the security chain. This guy had it comparatively easy: his interrogators weren't torturing him to death.

That's ridiculous. If police find a print of XYZ-brand shoes near a crime scene and start keeping their eyes open for people who have XYZ shoes, they're not trying to oppress people with a certain taste in footwear. there seems to be a misconception about that police need probable cause before they even ask questions, which is nonsensical. Edit for clarity: I don't think that following up obvious leads is evidence of…

[deleted]

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#37

Post by mindslight »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #10
Torgo wrote: post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

Serious question: why do people talk so highly of a security protocol which even Harvard students fail hard at actually using in real life? If people who are the global 99.999'th percentile of tech literacy lose their lives and careers relying on this stuff, in what way is it a meaningful solution to third-world victims of repressive governments? I'm assuming at this point that thousands of Syrian, Egyptian, Iranian,…

Well, it starts with being one of the best tools we currently have to preserve freedom of communication, so getting it in wider use is a good thing. But it's hard to get across the necessity of general free communication to most people basically by definition - otherwise they'd just fix things by voting and technical approaches would be unnecessary. But the democratic mob isn't looking to protect individuals from its wrath, and nuanced arguments about assigning an appropriate context to messages from a public communications network haven't had legs either. So the go-to politically acceptable narrative becomes the standard US callous altruism of undermining other governments.

And yes, by the time you're on a short "of interest" list, you're fucked. (with the only real solution to the traffic fingerprinting being to get peer-talking encryption software in widespread use for everyday tasks).

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#38

Post by grugq »

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #27
moloch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just not confessed; him using TOR around the same time is not going to be enough to convict him.

This. It sounds like he folded as soon as he was interviewed by law enforcement. Don't underestimate the power of the $5 wrench. http://xkcd.com/538/

Seriously, enough with the XKCD 538 fallacy. That is not how interrogations work. It just isn't. Violent torture is not how you get people to provide information.

Actual interrogations are far more cunning and complex, involving psychological tricks and play against weaknesses in the human mind. Perpetuating this "they'll hit you until you confess" bullshit stops people from learning actually useful information about how to resist interrogations.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#39

Post by lvs »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #10
Torgo wrote: post #2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192157170/Eldo-Kim-Complaint It sounds like they determined from the email provider that the message came from a Tor exit node, then from there they looked for who had made a connection on Harvard campus to known Tor relays. He had, so they interviewed him and he confessed to everything. I don't see any strong indication of a weakness in Tor from this, but it's a bit concerning that you coul…

Serious question: why do people talk so highly of a security protocol which even Harvard students fail hard at actually using in real life? If people who are the global 99.999'th percentile of tech literacy lose their lives and careers relying on this stuff, in what way is it a meaningful solution to third-world victims of repressive governments? I'm assuming at this point that thousands of Syrian, Egyptian, Iranian,…

Just to be clear, coming up with this pretty obvious hoax to get out of a final exam isn't a good sign of brilliance. Let's not fool ourselves about the population distribution of intelligence at any institution, and the fact that that distribution must have tails.

Re: Harvard Student Charged In Bomb Hoax

#40

Post by mindslight »

anigbrowl wrote: post #33
throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the point at which a hostile government thinks you're a top suspect and interrogates you is the weakest link in the security chain. This guy had it comparatively easy: his interrogators weren't torturing him to death.

That's ridiculous. If police find a print of XYZ-brand shoes near a crime scene and start keeping their eyes open for people who have XYZ shoes, they're not trying to oppress people with a certain taste in footwear. there seems to be a misconception about that police need probable cause before they even ask questions, which is nonsensical. Edit for clarity: I don't think that following up obvious leads is evidence of…

It's "hostile government" when analyzing the failure of Tor, because the tool should have kept this kid off of the suspect list.

I'm guessing you don't even believe this to be a laudable goal, and that's precisely why we need anonymity tools.

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