Techdirt. Stories filed under "crime"

DailyDirt: Cheaters Sometimes Prosper...

Michael Ho — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:00:00 PST

If you're going to commit a crime, there's a certain amount of logic to trying to pull off the biggest crime you can. Why risk going to jail over a relatively small amount of money? If you can get away with a multi-milion dollar heist, you only have to do it once (if you're not too greedy). And if you get caught, you might have the resources to escape the authorities. Here are just a few examples of some scams that might have demonstrated that crime can pay.

In 2012, Italian police arrested 8 people related to a scheme involving $6 trillion (yes, trillion) in fake US Treasury bonds. According to US authorities, these kinds of documents are part of a growing trend of "fictitious instrument fraud" where fake securities are used as collateral in a scam aimed at unwitting investors. [url]
How often do traders misplace a decimal point on purpose? David Miller would have made a killing buying 1.625 million shares of AAPL (instead of 1,625 shares!) if the stock beat its estimates, but Apple's shares actually fell... oops. [url]
The London interbank offered rate (aka Libor) is a global benchmark for financial instruments worth over $300 trillion -- and it's part of one of the largest and longest-running banking scams in history. Traders at several large banks colluded to manipulate Libor for years... because bankers were trusted to report honest numbers. hmm. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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Unintended Consequences, Lead And Crime

Mike Masnick — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 15:49:49 PST

If you haven't yet, you owe it to yourself to read Kevin Drum's recent article for Mother Jones about the possible link between crime rates and leaded gasoline. The article makes a rather convincing case that the massive growth, and then subsequent decline, in crime over the last six decades or so was influenced quite strongly by the fact that automobile gasoline had lead -- and then went unleaded due to environmental concerns. The article cites numerous studies that all seem to suggest the same thing -- and carefully tries to get past the "correlation is not causation" issue by looking at multiple studies that tackle the same question from different angles (different time periods, locations, population types, etc.) to try to eliminate other possible explanations. One of the parts that struck me as most interesting was the data on big cities as compared to other regions:

Like many good theories, the gasoline lead hypothesis helps explain some things we might not have realized even needed explaining. For example, murder rates have always been higher in big cities than in towns and small cities. We're so used to this that it seems unsurprising, but Nevin points out that it might actually have a surprising explanation—because big cities have lots of cars in a small area, they also had high densities of atmospheric lead during the postwar era. But as lead levels in gasoline decreased, the differences between big and small cities largely went away. And guess what? The difference in murder rates went away too. Today, homicide rates are similar in cities of all sizes. It may be that violent crime isn't an inevitable consequence of being a big city after all.

The article has not gone entirely without criticism. Drum has distanced himself from the claim of the key researcher he relies on in the piece that 90% of the rise and fall of crime (not 90% of crime) is attributable to lead, suggesting that 50% might be a more reasonable number. Separately, Ronald Bailey has reasonably taken Drum to task for blithely making statements about "blindingly obvious" things concerning IQ and ADHD that turn out to be... not true. When you take those things out of the equation, some of the report relies on "aggressiveness" and "impulsivity," but as Bailey notes, there is no national data series on aggressiveness or impulsivity. And, having seen way too many "studies" on video games / violent media causing greater "aggressiveness" and "impulsivity," but always failing to show that those traits actually lead to more crime, it pays to be somewhat skeptical.

That said, the data is very interesting, and certainly worth much more research and better understanding. At the very least, it's a reminder of our complex ecosystem and economy, where understanding cause and effect is often incredibly complicated, and the end results may be quite surprising. It is all too easy to jump to conclusions about cause and effect (and, yes, we are just as guilty of this as others at times) -- but the real world is an impossibly complex mixture of inputs and variables, that rarely succumb to simple explanations that follow the initial "most obvious" rationale.

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Protip: After Committing Drunken Hit And Run...Don't Brag About It On Facebook

Timothy Geigner — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 13:47:00 PST

You know those really sweet movies revolving around mastermind criminals? The ones where bumbling police have no shot at catching the guy/girl/team? Maybe it's the worst James Bond ever (barely edging out Timothy Dalton) stealing some artwork while fornicating with the Lethal Weapon girl. Or else it's half of Fight Club, the one interesting character from ER, and most of the remaining acting world robbing everyone on the planet in the most mind-numbingly convoluted manner possible. The lesson here is that criminals are freaking smart. So smart, in fact, that attempting to stop them is only playing into their hands, twisting police and federal agents around into pretzels wrapped more tightly than the knots on the ropes with which the criminals repelled out of the banks. You just can't stop crime, because criminals are too good.

It turns out that Hollywood (shockingly) is wrong. Criminals are stupid. More specifically, they stupidly like to brag about their crimes, such as the woman who robbed a bank and then created a YouTube video about it. And now we can add an idiotic, drunk driving teen to the list, who side-swiped a couple of cars on New Years Day and then rushed to Facebook to post about it.

Jacob Cox-Brown, 18, of Astoria, Ore., about 100 miles west of Portland, was with friends when, police say, he posted the status update on his Facebook page: "Drivin drunk... classsic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P"

In an interview with ABC affiliate KATU-TV in Portland, Cox-Brown says the post was meant as a joke. But his friends who spotted the update didn't see the humor behind it. Instead, one friend sent a private message to an Astoria police officer's personal Facebook account while another friend called police Sgt. Brian Aydt.

Acting like such an assclown that even the people that know you turn you in to the police... classic! Seriously, if I had to decide which was better evidence that this young man doesn't deserve a driver's license, either the fact that he drank and drove or that he thought it would be okay to say so on a public social media platform after hitting two cars... well, I mean both are horrible, but I think the latter is dumber and I don't want someone that dumb behind the wheel of anything.

No, not even that travesty of an automobile.
Image source: CC BY 2.0

Look, let's make this simple: don't drink and drive. But, if you do drink and drive, make sure you're the kind of moron that posts about it on social media. Better yet, just drive to the nearest police department, park your car on their front lawn, and pass out at their front door. You'll be saving us all a great deal of trouble.

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Anti-Pornography Guy Politicizes 10 Year Old Girl's Murder

Timothy Geigner — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:41:43 PDT

The adult film industry gets mentioned on Techdirt frequently because, as everyone knows, "the internet is for porn." Typically, we get to write fun little stories about silly journalists believing horse-poop statistics on home pornography. Or else an ice cream company is suing an adult film studio over a porno-parody of their silly flavors. Those stories are good for a laugh because, let's be honest, there's something inherently funny about movies of people bumping uglies coupled with the far less fleshy world of news and IP law. What isn't laugh-worthy is when a tragedy occurs, such as the senseless slaying of a 10 year old girl, and the result is a bunch of grand-standing jackwagons lining up to use her death to promote their own false agenda.

Yet that's what is happening with the case of Jessica Ridgeway's murder, now that the accused killer is a young man who reportedly is addicted to pornography. Let's highlight one of the aforementioned grand-standing jackwagons, just so we can identify who is saying what before I get to the elephant-in-the-room-sized problem with his nonsense. Meet the ironically-named Patrick Trueman.

“News that the boy accused of killing Jessica Ridgeway is addicted to pornography will come as no surprise to law enforcement agents with experience in sexual crimes,” says Patrick A. Trueman, president of Morality in Media and former chief of the U. S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in Washington, D.C.

“Pornography consumption causes addiction and leads many, children included, to sexual violence. It’s high time the U.S. government took the issue of pornography seriously again and began vigorously prosecuting the major producers and distributors of hardcore pornography.”

Got that? Pornography, and the prevelance of it, is so directly to blame for murders like Jessica Ridgeway's that our government should be prosecuting producers. Note the lack of nuance in the statement, by the way. All pornography is lumped into this charge. Not child porn. Not porn that in any way depicts violence. Not fantasy rape porn. All porn. So says Patrick Trueman, who, as the president of Morality In Media, must have some evidence for his claims, right? Then we get to his next quote:

“We do not know and may never know exactly how much influence pornography played in these two crimes, but sexual crimes by minors do not happen in a vacuum; porn is almost always a significant contributing factor,” Trueman said.

Well, if that isn't the dream stance of a prosecutor, I don't know what is. He's essentially saying he doesn't have any clue what role pornography plays between the two crimes, but surely it must play some role (presumably because he finds coitus icky), so prosecute all the pornographers. Outstanding. Yet his silliness continues.

“When the U.S. Department of Justice gave up enforcing federal pornography laws, it gave up on our children. Now addiction, sexual experimentation mirroring scenes from violent porn videos, as well as sexual violence are all too common among children. Child-on-child sexual crimes, once unheard of, are also on the rise. The porn industry is directly responsible for these trends and the harm to our nation’s children. But law enforcement officials, such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who refuse to enforce anti-pornography laws, designed to protect children and society from sexual predators, bear much responsibility also,” he continued.

Yes, you read that correctly. The other group responsible for Jessica Ridgeway's murder is the Justice Department, including Eric Holder.

Now, that massive problem I mentioned with Trueman's logic? Well, his entire premise lies somewhere on the spectrum between "pretty dubious" and "ultra-mega-wrong". The prevelance of the internet, on which pornography is so graciously widespread, has risen exponentially in everyone's lives since 1990. This includes its use amongst children, obviously. So, with the massive rise in access to pornography by adults and children, how are the statistics of sex-crimes correlating?

Well, for sex-crimes in general, they're dropping, and fairly significantly so. In the last 20 or so years, the United States has seen a 15% drop in forcible rape rates. That's despite the growth of internet use, and likewise the growth in viewing pornography, and also despite a culture change in which reporting rape and sex crimes is only becoming more acceptable (thankfully -- though society still has a long way to go in encouraging reporting of such cases). And, if you want to drill down to child-on-child sex crimes, which Trueman focuses on, the data there doesn't support his claims either. According to that USA Today article:

The latest juvenile crime data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that arrests of juvenile sex offenders declined by about 25% from 2000 through 2009. That would mesh with a decline in child sex abuse committed by adults, as well as a decline in the overall juvenile crime rate.
But data from New York City, Florida and elsewhere indicates that the prevalence of child-on-child sex hasn't dropped noticeably.

So, while there's less in the way of concrete super-damning data in the realm of child-on-child sex crimes, the general consensus is that its occurence is either dropping significantly, or not changing much. This doesn't seem to mesh with Trueman's warning klaxon about how pornography is turning all of our children into SVU suspects.

The conclusion is obvious, though no less anger-inducing. It would appear we do not have a child sex-crime epidemic on our hands. However, we apparently might have a grandstanding jackass making use of a high-profile tragedy for his own ends epidemic.

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Photography In Public Is Not A Crime

Zachary Knight — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:03:18 PDT

Sadly, we talk way too often about police arresting people for doing nothing other than taking a picture or filming them. The police officers being filmed and photographed make these arrests using various excuses, but frequently the charges get dropped for lack of merit. The reason charges rarely stick when an officer is filmed is because filming police, or anyone in a public space, is not illegal. Some people may not like it, but it is a fact.

The New York Times is waking up to this fact that photography is not a crime. In an interview with Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counselor for the National Press Photographers Association, they get down to the nitty gritty of the legalities surrounding this age old tradition. They also talk a bit about just why such arrests are happening more frequently.

Since 9/11, there’s been an incredible number of incidents where photographers are being interfered with and arrested for doing nothing other than taking pictures or recording video in public places.

It’s not just news photographers who should be concerned with this. I think every citizen should be concerned. Tourists taking pictures are being told by police, security guards and sometimes other citizens, “Sorry, you can’t take a picture here.” When asked why, they say, “Well, don’t you remember 9/11?”

I haven't really thought of criminalizing photography as something to do with 9/11 before. I know that a lot of our rights have been eroded since that day, but the photography aspect never really clicked until now. Just as Mickey can't make heads nor tails of this argument, I am struggling to find a connection here. I don't recall cameras being a part of the plots to destroy the Twin Towers, Pentagon or White House.

Of course there could be more reasons for this increase in arresting photographers. Mickey suspects that part of the reason is the proliferation of the camera. Pretty much everyone with a smart phone has a camera capable of taking some very high quality pictures. Prior to this boom, the police had some modicum of control over the press. They knew the press wasn't going to be everywhere and were used to not being under constant recordable surveillance by the public. Now that anyone could be filming them or taking their picture, they are more on edge and more prone to lashing out.

When this happens, it is important for those accused to know their rights. However, it is also important for the police to know the public's rights as well. While you, as a photographer, may know that you have the right to take pictures or film in a public space, some officers may not know or may have forgotten that fact. That is why the Mickey and others have been working with police to keep officers reminded of that right.

Q. After photographers were stopped from photographing the police clearing Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park, you and representatives of a media coalition including The Times, met with the police commissioner Ray Kelly. What happened at that meeting?

A. It was on Nov. 23. I asked the commissioner if he would reissue the “finest message” from 1999 that dealt with the police cooperating with the press. He did that. It was read at 10 consecutive roll calls in every single station house and precinct.

The finest message is a policy statement on police interactions with the press. It states that officers are not to interfere with videotaping and photographing in public places. It also reminds officers that they have an obligation to assist the press whenever possible. This is very similar to the recent news when the DC police chief laid down the law on filming of officers.

Hopefully, continually repeating this message will help slow down this barrage of arrests for photographing the police. As more officers are reminded of the rights of the cameras-wielding public, we will hopefully start to see fewer future incidents. It would be great if other police departments across the nation follow the lead of NY and DC police in proactively spreading the word about the rights of the public to record and photograph the police.

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Hint: If You Commit A Crime, Do Not Google Every Aspect Of It Afterwards

Glyn Moody — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:33:00 PDT

Techdirt has reported on a number people accused of murder googling for things like "neck snap break" or "how to commit murder" beforehand, and leaving these suggestive details on their computers. Those were some years back, and since then there has been plenty of attention given to the idea that your search histories provide a great deal of information about what you were thinking - and possibly even what you were thinking about doing.

So you would expect people by now would have learned to be a little more cautious – for example, by carrying out searches anonymously at different Internet cafes. But the story of Vincent Tabak, whose case is currently going through UK courts, suggests that message still hasn't got across. The court has been hearing about his intensive use of the Internet to research a range of topics after killing a woman called Joanna Yeates (he admits manslaughter, but denies murder):

The 33-year-old defendant ... looked up satellite imagery of the site where he dumped Yeates's body. He researched the Wikipedia page for murder and maximum sentence for manslaughter, web records from work and personal laptops showed.

While regularly checking the Avon and Somerset police website and local news site www.thisisbristol.co.uk, the Dutch engineer was also checking decomposition rates.

Days after killing Yeates at her Clifton flat on 17 December, Tabak was watching a timelapse video of a body decomposing, Bristol crown court heard.

That's a reminder of just how much detailed information about past Internet activity can be gleaned from computers, and how incriminating that might be in certain circumstances. On the other hand, perhaps we should be grateful that people committing crimes are still making it so easy to convict them on the basis of their tell-tale online activity.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

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Spanish Court Reverses Course: Says Linking To Infringing Material Is A Crime

Mike Masnick — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:04:46 PDT

We've noted over and over again that Spanish courts have quite reasonably interpreted Spain's copyright law to mean that a site that just links to infringing content is not liable for the infringement. This makes a lot of sense. You should not blame a third party for the actions of its users. Yet the entertainment industry has made these rulings out to be an absolutely horrible miscarriage of justice, and have -- with the support of the US government -- pushed hard for draconian new copyright laws within the country. While public outcry (and leaked State Dept. cables showing that the US was really behind it) helped derail the effort the first time around, supporters are still trying to push it through.

However, while the existing law stands, it's a bit surprising to see that one Spanish court has gone completely in the other direction and found the operators of a couple sites to be guilty of criminal copyright infringement, for which they may face a year in jail, in addition to fines. The lawyer for one of the guys suggests that this ruling is a result of politics, not the law. It's hard not to think that way given how it appears to fly in the face of most other decisions in Spain. I would imagine that there's still going to be an appeal in the case before it's really settled.

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Swedish Teenager Turned Over To Police By School Headmaster For File Sharing Acquitted By Court

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:58:00 PDT

Last week, there was a lot of attention to criminal charges brought against a 15-year-old kid in Sweden, after his school's headmaster turned him over to the police after discovering some downloaded films and file sharing software on his computer. It did seem absurd to charge him with a crime, rather than civil infringement, but that's what happened, and the prosecutor in the case seemed almost gleeful about the possibility of convicting the boy of a crime. Except... it took just a few days for the court to acquit the boy. The ruling involved a head judge and three "lay judges." From my understanding of the Swedish judicial system, "lay judges" are somewhat (though not exactly) akin to a jury in the US (Swedes feel free to chime in and clarify). There was apparently a split among the lay judges, with two voting against conviction and one being in favor. The split resulted in acquittal. The prosecutor, rather than recognizing the sheer absurdity of the case, instead insists that it's "absurd" the kid was acquitted, and now vows to appeal. Because there's nothing more important than convicting someone of a crime for sharing a couple movies. Honestly, if Swedish prosecutors wanted to draw more support for the Swedish Pirate Party, I don't think they could have picked a better strategy.

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Once Again, Basic Detective Work Tracks Down Criminal Activity Done On Open WiFi

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:00:00 PDT

One of the things we hear over and over again about the evils of "open WiFi" is that it allows criminals do horrible things on a network with no way to track them down. We've always pointed out how ridiculous this is. Just because someone does something on a network, it doesn't mean they don't necessarily leave other clues that can be uncovered through basic detective work. And, time and time and time and time and time again, we see stories of basic detective work being used to catch criminals on open WiFi networks.

Here's yet another example. In a case involving a disgruntled former IT worker logging into his former employer's computer systems and pretty much deleting everything important (including "the company’s e-mail and BlackBerry servers, as well as its order-tracking system and financial-management software"). These sorts of things happen every so often, and the responsible party almost always gets caught.

In this case, Jason Cornish used an open WiFi network at a McDonalds to do his dirty work. But there was enough evidence to link the crime to Cornish (beyond basic motives). For example, investigators discovered that he had made a purchase of some food at that McDonalds about five minutes before the deletion began. Honestly, it looks like he wasn't particularly careful in a variety of things that he did -- but that's kind of the point. The fear about how open WiFi will be regularly abused and there will be "no way" to track down those responsible is a huge exaggeration. Perhaps there are some users who are careful enough not to leave a trail, but those sorts of people will figure out a way to do what they want with or without open WiFi. The fear of untraceable hackers on open WiFi is way overblown.

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RIAA Wants To Put People In Jail For Sharing Their Music Subscription Login With Friends

Mike Masnick — Thu, 2 Jun 2011 09:36:08 PDT

Ah, the RIAA. Just as you're paying attention to some ridiculously bad law with awful unintended consequences they're pushing in one place, they pop up with a different law they've already (quietly) convinced politicians to pass somewhere else. Today's entry is a new law that has been approved by the legislature in Tennessee at the urging of the RIAA, which will make it a criminal offense to share your "entertainment subscription" login info with anyone else. You're a college student, and you decide to go halfsies on a Netflix or Rhapsody subscription with a friend? Watch out, you may face a year in jail and thousands of dollars in fines. If law enforcement decides that the "value" of the content you watched is high enough, you could be charged with felony charges, and face much larger fines and longer jail sentences.

The way the law works is to add the "entertainment subscription" phrase to an existing law concerning unauthorized access to cable or satellite TV services. Not surprisingly, Mitch Glazier (a man famous for selling out all musicians by allegedly sneaking a clause into a bill in the middle of the night that took away the rights of musicians to reclaim their copyrights... just months before taking a high paying RIAA job which he still holds today) is insisting this law is necessary to protect the music industry:

Mitch Glazier, executive vice president of public policy for the RIAA, said the bill is a necessary protective measure as digital technology evolves. The music industry has seen its domestic revenue plunge by more than half in 10 years, from $15 billion to $7 billion, he said.

Either Glazier is lying here or the reporter is quoting him way out of context. It may be true that revenue for the record labels that Glazier represents has declined. But the revenue of the music industry -- which includes things like concerts, merchandise, publishing and other areas has actually done pretty well. Besides, the idea that Glazier has any interest in protecting "music" is pretty laughable. His job is to protect labels, often at the expense of musicians.

And this particular piece of legislation is particularly stupid and shortsighted on the part of the RIAA. For the most part, if people are buying one of these subscriptions with the intent to share, at least they're still buying a subscription and paying money to the industry. In the absence of that, it seems quite likely that they'll just go straight to full on infringement. Furthermore, the ability to share a single login with a few family members or friends is often seen as a part of the value. That is, a family may decide that it's worth it to buy such a subscription, because they can split it among a few different people. But, make that a crime and you've just massively decreased the incentive for people to buy such subscriptions.

The bill still needs to be signed by the governor, but it sounds like he's buying the bogus claims of Glazier and the RIAA on this one, saying that "I don’t know enough about that legislation, but if it's combating that issue [infringement], I would be in favor of it." Update: Annnnnnnd... signed. Of course.

And, of course, this is just a foot in the door sort of move. Once the RIAA has this in Tennessee, expect to see similar, if not identical legislation popping up in lots of other states as well.

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Craigslist A 'Cesspool Of Crime'? Or Are Bad Reporters A Cesspool Of Repeating Dubious Research?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:25:00 PST

Slashdot points us to an article at the "International Business Times," that reports on a study from the AIM Group which claims that Craigslist is 'a cesspool of crime.' Interesting claim. What seems to be totally missing from the IBTimes report is the fact that AIM Group works for Craigslist competitors and, in this case, the "research" was funded by Craigslist wannabe-Oodle. That's not mentioned in the IBTimes report at all. In fact, the only mention of Oodle in the article is a quote by the CEO of Oodle mocking Craigslis and playing up Oodle... but never mentioning that he paid for the research in question.

As for the actual "research," it seems laughable, at best, and should immediately raise questions about any AIM Group research. The "research" basically scoured news reports and found a grand total of 330 "crimes" in the past year that have some sort of loose connection to Craigslist. I have a hard time seeing how that makes it a "cesspool" of crime. That's a very small number, especially considering the hundreds of millions of posts and transactions that take place via Craigslist. This seems like a massive cheap shot by both Oodle and AIM Group, and it's sad that a reporter would repeat the claims without noting the obvious problems with it. That's not journalism. That's being a PR service.

Meanwhile, looking at the "details" from AIM Group make the results even less compelling. They play up that 12 murders had a loose connection to Craigslist, but a bunch of those appear to be from one deranged individual. It seems pretty ridiculous to blame Craigslist for that.

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Should Everyone Who Uses A Phone Or A Computer As Part Of A Crime Get A Longer Sentence?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:42:00 PST

We've noted just how far the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has been stretched lately. The law -- which is supposed to be used against those involved in malicious hacking -- actually breaking into computer systems and such -- keeps being used in ways totally different than intended, such as claiming that just visiting a website you weren't supposed to can now be deemed as "hacking." Michael Scott alerts us to another unintended consequence of the broad interpretation of the CFAA, involving a sex offender who got an extra 28 months on his prison sentence because he used a phone.

Now, as the article notes, if there's anyone out there who deserves a longer prison sentence, it's a sex offender who victimizes minors. But that doesn't mean we should condone stretching a computer hacking law in a ridiculous manner. In this case, because the CFAA allows increased sentencing for someone who used a computer in the commission of the crime, the judge decided that a rather standard mobile phone counts as a "computer" under the law. Even though it was a standard mobile phone, and not a smartphone or feature phone, the judge quoted Steve Wozniak in pointing out that "Everything has a computer in it nowadays."

Of course, that should be a reason why we should worry about this kind of sentencing. The idea that anyone deserves more time in prison solely because they used a mobile phone doesn't make much sense. It continues to make a mockery of the law. If the guy deserves to be in prison longer for the actual despicable crime he committed, then the law should allow such longer sentences. But the courts shouldn't twist the CFAA to accomplish that goal.

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Brazilian Telecom Authority Claims Sharing WiFi Is A Criminal Offense

Mike Masnick — Thu, 3 Feb 2011 11:01:00 PST

Marcos points us to a story coming out of Brazil, where a guy who had an internet connection with WiFi, and agreed to share that connection with two neighbors is now facing two to four years in jail (Google translation of the original). Not only that but the Brazilian telecom authority ANATEL has seized his computer, modem and router, and have fined him approximately $1,800. They're claiming that sharing his WiFi was "providing an internet service without authorization." The guy is obviously fighting this in court, saying that it's ridiculous to claim that a guy sharing his WiFi should be classified as a regulated service provider...

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Bulgarian Security/Cybercrime Researcher Missing For Months

Mike Masnick — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:31:38 PST

This one's a bit scary. Security and cybercrime researcher Dancho Danchev, who has blogged about organized crime and online terrorist activities, has apparently been missing since September. ZDNet, where he sometimes blogged, has published a notice asking for help tracking him down, and publishing an email he sent shortly before he disappeared. That email included photos of a device he found planted in his bathroom, that he believed was from Bulgarian intelligence services. ZDnet has been trying to reach him for months -- and recently received information from a source in Bulgaria that Danchev is alive "but he's in a lot of trouble."

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UK Man Convicted Of A Crime For Letting Drivers Know They Should Slow Down To Avoid Speed Camera

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Jan 2011 11:55:50 PST

Last year, we discussed the growing backlash against speed cameras in the UK. However, many are still in place, and one man has now been convicted of a crime and fined for simply flashing his brights to warn oncoming motorists of a speed camera (found via Glyn Moody). The details suggest police clearly abusing their authority.

After flashing his brights at oncoming cars, to warn them of a mobile speed camera he had spotted, Michael Thompson was pulled over. This, alone, seems pretty questionable. After all, shouldn't the purpose of speed cameras be to get people to slow down? Thompson's actions probably did succeed in getting more people to slow down. But, of course, in many cases the real reason for speed cameras is money, so interfering with that is seen as a problem. Now, it does appear that, after being pulled over, Thompson got a bit belligerent and questioned the fairness of being pulled over. The officer responded by saying he was going to let Thompson off with a warning, but had changed his mind -- and was going to charge him with "perverting the course of justice." It seems ridiculous to think that warning people they should obey the law is "perverting the course of justice."

In the end he was not actually charged with "perverting the course of justice," but instead with "willfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties," which is a criminal offense. Lawyer David Allen Green, who wrote the article I link to above, points out that warning other motorists to obey the speed limit is hardly obstructing a police officer:

Preventing police officers from seeking to impose as much criminal liability as they possibly can is not the same as "wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties". Police officers' ability to arrest and charge is not an end in itself, but just one means of serving the wider interests of justice and the public. The criminal justice system does not exist solely for the satisfaction of a police officer wanting to coerce another human being.

And yet, the court found Thompson guilty, and fined him £175, along with having to pay £250 in "costs" and an extra £15 "victim surcharge." He sure does seem like a victim, alright. UK government prosecutors have defended their pushing forward with the case, still claiming that the police officer's job was obstructed, but failing to explain how. They also told Green that the UK highway code forbids flashing of headlights for any purpose other than letting people know where you are. However, Green points out that this still doesn't support the lawsuit and the fine, since a violation of the highway code is not a criminal offense.

It seems like the police and the UK prosecutors simply decided that getting people to actually follow the speed limit gets in the way of police making money -- and thus, it's an obstruction.

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Time To Stop Being So Fascinated With The Cyber- Part Of Cybercrime

Mike Masnick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:01:55 PST

In the past, we've noted that when technology is somehow involved in a crime, suddenly people (and especially the press) seem to forget about the actual crime that's happening and focus just on the technology. It appears others are noticing this as well. Slashdot points us to a nice rant by Neil Schwartzman pointing out that it's silly to single out "cybercrimes" as being "cyber" at all: they're just crimes. The fact that you're using a computer or the internet as part of it doesn't change facts when a crime is being committed, and at times people seem to get so focused on the cyber- part that they miss the seriousness of the crime itself:

When someone is mugged, harassed, kidnapped or raped on a sidewalk, we don't call it "sidewalk crime" and call for new laws to regulate sidewalks. It is crime, and those who commit crimes are subject to the full force of the law...

Some of these crimes involve technology. So what? Criminals have used technology before.

Some of these crimes cross borders. So what? Crimes have crossed borders before.

He similarly attacks the concept of "cyberwar" and the fact that various governments are hyping that up these days:

While we are at it, we should mention 'cyber-warfare', something often conflated with cyber-crime. Cyber-crime is not "cyber-warfare." There may be state or terrorist agencies copying the tactics and methods of these criminals, but that does not mean that the criminals must be left alone until new cyber-warfare agencies have been created and funded.

But, of course, by naming it "cyberwar," it creates something that seems "new," and with something "new," money can flow. The reason for these new "cyber-war agencies," is money. The suppliers want to sell to the government, so they hype it up. The folks who want more power get to set up an entirely new group -- and in an area that's considered "hot." The use of "cyber" is generally there to mislead people, and often for the sake of money.

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Bank Robber Outs Himself After He Fact Checks Local News Reports On His Crimes

Mike Masnick — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:41:25 PDT

You know what they always say: when there's a news article written about you, the facts are always wrong. Of course, in most cases, that's bad, and the fact checking you try to do afterwards is a bit useless. However, in some cases, you would think it would be good. Such as if you were a bank robber, and they had the description about you all wrong. Unfortunately, vanity sometimes gets the better of some people, and apparently a bank robber in Germany contacted the press and the police to correct the "errors" in their reporting on the crime, noting that they got "his age, height, mode of escape and accent wrong." Of course, emailing that info made it easy to track him down, and a few hours later he was in custody. Perhaps that's the trick in capturing overly vain bank robbers. Just get them to do their own fact checking by inserting errors into the police reports...

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If The Public Library Was Invented Today, Would The Gov't Call It Organized Crime And Shut It Down?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:25:36 PDT

We've seen authors in the past complaining that libraries are engaged in book theft, which is an argument that is pretty laughable -- though, has, at times been suggested by various publishing groups. But, in general, most people recognize the public service a library does by helping to educate people. So when some folks in Bulgaria decided to try to set up a user-generated online library of sorts, you wouldn't think that the site would get raided by the police, be declared "damaging to culture," and have its organizers described as an organized crime syndicate. But, that's what happened.

The site, Chitanka.info let anyone upload works for a Bulgarian audience -- so there definitely were some infringing works on the site. However, the site was quick to take down any material upon request. The effort was strictly non-commercial, with no ads appearing anywhere on the site. In fact, many authors uploaded their own works, as they realized what a great resource it was.

However, the Bulgarian Book Association flipped out, and once it flipped out, the Bulgarian government had its organized crime law enforcement group raid the site, and describe the organizers as a "gang." Users of the site also took issue with the claim that the site was in any way damaging. They said it was regularly used like a library, but since you could only read the books on a computer, it likely resulted in more sales (or visits to physical libraries). A user of the site told TorrentFreak:

"I can't understand how any library can damage the the culture of any nation. And, as there are virtually no e-readers sold here, the only way to read the downloaded books, was on the monitors of PCs,"...

"Anybody that has ever read a book on a screen knows that it isn't very comfortable. So, lots of paper books have been bought, because when someone starts reading on the screen, likes the book, but is not comfortable, he goes to the book shop and buys it."

There's a great detailed legal analysis of Chitanka's position, noting that the law is a bit ambiguous here, but the site may have a reasonable defense, and qualify as protected under safe harbors by making its works "publicly accessible" as a library.

Either way, all of this makes you wonder: if traditional public libraries were just being founded today, how much effort do you think publishers would go through to shut them down by claiming they were illegal and violations of copyright law?

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Using An Online Map As Part Of Your Criminal Activity Gets You A Longer Sentence In Louisiana

Mike Masnick — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:20:37 PDT

Here's a bizarre one. Reader withersteen alerts us to a strange new law that has been passed in Louisiana, which will add from one to ten years to your prison sentence if you use an online map in the process of committing a crime:

A bill headed to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk would increase penalties for crimes committed with the use of an Internet-generated "virtual street-level map."

Senate Bill 151 by Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, provides for an additional year in prison for crimes committed using the maps, including acts of terrorism or other criminal offenses like burglary or stalking.

An act of terrorism using the maps could mean an additional 10 years behind bars.

Apparently the bill passed by a vote of 89-0. I'm trying to figure out what the rationale for this law is, and the best I can figure out is that this is a bizarre kneejerk reaction to services like Google's Street View, and the claims from some that such services could be used to "scout out" crime locations. Of course, the same is true of driving by a location. Will Senator Adley add a new bill that increases your prison sentence if you first drive by the location before committing the crime?

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Maryland Police Confiscate Biker's Computers After He Catches Questionable Activity On Helmet Cam

Mike Masnick — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:59:00 PDT

sceptic writes:

"A motorcyclist was showboating and recording himself doing it using a helmet cam. While stopped at a stop light, an off duty police officer stepped out of his (unmarked) car with his gun drawn. The rider received a citation and posted the whole episode on YouTube. 4 days later MD state police seized his computers and helmet cam and threatened to arrest him because it is illegal to record someone without their consent."

You can see a long version of the events (without any sound) which shows the 3 minutes leading up to the incident here:

Or if you want to just see the part where the off duty cop pulls the gun (with sound), it's here:

The laws against audibly recording someone without their permission are not designed for situations like this one. They're designed for eavesdropping or things like recording phone calls. Using such a law to crack down on a guy showing an off-duty police officer totally overreacting to a traffic stop by drawing his weapon seems like a clear abuse of this sort of law.

However, now that we're reaching an age when everything anyone sees will soon be able to be recorded -- and for years, various research groups have been working on tools to make that easier -- these kinds of laws may need to be revisited. If many people are wearing devices that record everything they see and hear, suddenly such laws become a bit ridiculous -- even outside of the clear abuse above when such laws are being used to punish a whistleblower.

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IBM Helps Florida Predict Just How Delinquent Your Child's Going To Be

Karl Bode — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:03:00 PDT

We've covered several different instances where the country has been taking baby steps toward the kind of precognitive crime prevention featured in the movie Minority Report -- sans naked gibbering women floating in bathtubs. The most recent effort was courtesy of the Homeland Security Department, who is busily developing a body language analysis prediction system dubbed "Future Attribute Screening Technologies" (FAST) -- which aims to detect "shifty" people who may be getting ready to commit a crime of some sort (or just drank way too much coffee).

More common approaches simply involve software that analyzes a database of offenders and cherry picks out the most likely future offenders (very popular in the UK), or analyzes crime patterns to predict future criminal trends. Along those lines, it looks like the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has decided to start using IBM predictive analytics software (via Gizmodo) to help them determine which of the 85,000 kids who enter their system each year poses the biggest future threat. IBM has this to say about the new system -- which was an upgrade from Excel:

"Predictive analytics gives government organizations worldwide a highly-sophisticated and intelligent source to create safer communities by identifying, predicting, responding to and preventing criminal activities. It gives the criminal justice system the ability to draw upon the wealth of data available to detect patterns, make reliable projections and then take the appropriate action in real time to combat crime and protect citizens."

Of course many of these patterns simply become evident when people bother to pay attention and use their intellect, and these tools are often just an extension of that. When prediction technology is used, the technology will only be as good as the people using it (in this case to choose rehabilitation paths for kids). But you still have to wonder how accurate these kinds of systems are and how independently verifiable the evidence will be. Can kids who feel they were unfairly, preemptively declared to be bad asses in 2014 see the "reliable" source code?

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Teens Face Felony Charges Over Girl Who Committed Suicide

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:32:00 PDT

In a case that at least brings to mind the Lori Drew lawsuit, prosecutors in Western Massachusetts have figured out how to charge nine teenagers over the suicide death of a fellow student. Like the Drew case, there's an emotional issue here: which is that the bullying and the suicide are horrible stories, and it's a situation where certainly people have a natural inclination to want to punish someone. But it's a lot trickier than that. Punishing people because someone commits suicide sets a really dangerous precedent that could encourage more kids to commit suicide -- thinking that it will get their tormentors "punished." Now, there may actually be much more to this case -- and some of the charges at least suggest there's a possibility of additional activities, such as statutory rape, that happened with some of the teens. However, all of the news reports seem to focus on the fact that these charges were brought because of the suicide.

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More Myth Debunking: File Sharing Is A Gateway Crime

Mike Masnick — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:04:33 PDT

There's been plenty of coverage of Clay Shirky's recent talk at SXSW where, among other things, he discussed the impact of Napster on our culture. As per usual with Shirky, he made a bunch of fantastic points, often presenting a perspective that is unique and makes you think. I just wanted to pick up on one point, however, because I've been hearing the following argument a lot lately: file sharing needs to be "stopped" because this widespread "illegality" is teaching kids to not have respect for the rule of law. Even Larry Lessig has been known to make this point. Yet, Shirky quickly debunks it in his talk:

In the Napster era, some attributed the ascent of pirated digital music to a supposedly criminal-minded nature among American youth. The argument didn't work. "It coincided with the largest fall in the rate of crime in recorded history," Shirky said.

People aren't file sharing because they don't respect the rule of law. They're file sharing because that particular law doesn't make any sense to them. The idea that people jumping on the file sharing bandwagon will start breaking other laws appears to have no empirical backing whatsoever.

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UK Man Jailed For Refusing To Decrypt His Files

Mike Masnick — Wed, 2 Dec 2009 01:53:07 PST

Two years ago, a US judge ruled that a guy with an encrypted hard drive did not have to hand over his encryption key to the police, as it would be a violation of the 5th Amendment (the right not to self-incriminate). The argument there is that the encryption key is a form of "speech." This is quite a reasonable ruling -- but it appears that over in the UK they view encryption keys quite differently. Last year, we wrote about a UK court ruling interpreting the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) to mean that people could be required to hand over encryption keys, since encryption keys were not "speech" but an object that could be demanded. Unfortunately, this has now resulted in a schizophrenic man being jailed for refusing to decrypt his files. As many are noting, this seems to be an abuse of law enforcement, as the purpose of the RIPA law was supposed to be about stopping organized crime and terrorism, not dumping the mentally ill in prison.

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Oh Look, Some Police Do Know How To Use Craigslist As A Tool

Mike Masnick — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:01:00 PST

We keep hearing stories of law enforcement officials, such as Sheriff Thomas Dart of Cook County Illinois, trying to blame Craigslist for the actions of its users, rather than recognizing that Craigslist can be a great tool for actually monitoring and tracking down crime. Some are realizing this, and Eric Goldman point us to the latest example of this. Police in Palo Alto, California (right in the heart of Silicon Valley, so it's a good sign that they get this), used a Craigslist ad to help track down a bicycle thief. This is, obviously, a rather simple example, but it does make you wonder why more law enforcement agencies don't regularly do similar things. It has to be better than suing (or threatening to sue) Craigslist for the activities of its users.

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