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[zman <zman AT gibbon.kungfumonkey.com>]

I absolutely agree. Having worked for a couple of ISPs whenever we got a 
report of a hack we set out to determine if one had actually taken place 
first....  

On Mon, 2 Jun 2003 childers.paula AT epamail.epa.gov wrote:
> 
> OK, gang, sensationalism and overkill aside, let's look at the facts:
> 
> 1. A Citrix server stops working correctly, disallowing administrative
> logins.
> 2. The school officials decide that it may have been hacked (not HAS
> been, only MAY have been), and tell their "campus cop."
> 3. The campus cop calls the local Police Department to get a "computer
> crime specialist" assigned to the case.
> 4. Since that cop was on vacation, two other cops were assigned the
> case.
> 5. Those two other guys were training with an "FBI High Tech Crime Task
> Force," but were not officially members of this force.
> 6. A student tipster tells a faculty member of a "hacking" mention in
> another student's blog.
> 7. The faculty member pases this information to the not-FBI-agents.
> 8. The two not-FBI agents show up to interrogate the student, with FBI
> clothing, business cards, etc., passing themselves off as FBI agents.
> 9. the student is freaked out but informed and willing to stand up for
> her Constitutional rights.
> 10. the Citrix server is found to be busted, not hacked.
> 11. The cops are suspended for passing themselves off as FBI agents when
> they weren't yet.
> 
> Now, let's look at the places this whole process got fucked at:
> 1. Citrix? On Microsoft? now there's a problem ;-)
> 3. Why did the campus cop feel s/he had to call in a "computer crime
> specialist" before there had even been a firm determination of any
> illicit activity actually occuring?  What - was this a "pre-emptive
> strike"??
> 4. how does a maybe, possibly, we-don't-know-for-sure-it-might-be-or-not
> hacked server at a high school warrant the assignment of TWO veteran
> police officers?
> 6. did anyone question why one student might be "ratting" on another?
> isn't this sort of stupid/malicious tipstering why we didn't want
> Operation TIPS?
> 7. Did the faculty member even bother to READ the blog before calling
> the cops?
> 8. If these two cops were being trained by an FBI Task Force to
> understand computer crime, why didn't they do a little more actual
> technical investigating before interrogating a student? Like, say,
> looking over the server with the sysadmin? Discovering if a hack/crime
> had actually taken place or not? The cop in the article says it was a
> "no-brainer" to interrogate the student, and that about describes it :
> no brain was used to think up that plan.   What if the student HAD
> actually been part of something much bigger? These morons could have
> completely screwed up a real case with their "we're FBI, fear us and
> grovel" fake dog and pony show, not to mention they actually HAVE made
> the Chapel Hill Police Dept look like a bunch of fascist idiots.
> 9. The student rightfully deserves to be scared, upset, and feel that
> her privacy has been invaded. There is such a thing as "security through
> obscurity," in that (regardless of POTENTIAL reach) it is highly
> unlikely that many people would ever have even known this student's blog
> existed were it not for these events. It also has to be pretty chilling
> as a 17 yr old to think that The Government is Monitoring What You
> Write, regardless of where you wrote it. Perhaps she did get
> overdramatic, but hell, all 17 yr olds are overdramatic. I am pretty
> damn proud of her for standing up to these morons and asserting her
> Constitutional rights. That took a lot of guts. I wonder how many of us
> would have such guts if two (supposed) FBI guys showed up at our
> workplace?
> 11. I'm just sad they didn't suspend them WITHOUT pay, they bungled the
> whole thing so badly. They are, in essence, getting a vacation on our
> tax dollars. Boy, I'd like to get time off with pay every time I screwed
> something to hell. Not exactly incentive to do better next time, now is
> it?
> 
> If this is an example of the fine quality high tech policework our law
> enforcement officers are being trained in as part of Homeland Security,
> then I for one am disgusted. I just don't know who to be more disgusted
> with, CHPD, CHHS, or the FBI group supposedly training these petty
> thugs.
> 
> YMMV,
> Paula
> 
> disclaimer: these comments are all my own, not those of anyone I work
> for, or who they work for. I have volunteered at NC indymedia, but do
> not know the student involved in these events and have no knowledge of
> the events beyond that noted in the posted articles.
> 
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-- 
Scott H. Zekanis
zman AT kungfumonkey.com
scott AT thehellbenders.com
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http://www.thehellbenders.com
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