- Police IT team tracks it to specific IP and address
- Contacts owner, she says (incorrectly) the WIFI is secured with only the two people at the address having access
- Regular police is sent to collect all computers at the address
- When the police IT team realizes the computers weren't connected to the scam, they are returned within two weeks.
The only thing that really went a bit bad is the reported attitude of the regular police officers sent to the address.
Of course it would have been better to have sent someone better at both IT and english. If either of those had been different they might never have taken the computers, but the two weeks to clear things up are pretty good as government organizations goes.
Agreed, other than the bad attitudes everything went as it should. The police only keeping the computers for two weeks and then handing them back personally is better than I expected and shows the Danish police is professional.
* did police payed the damage caused by confiscating computers? It could be easily thousands euro.
* crime was a few stolen theater tickets. Confiscating stuff seems like over-reaction, when bike is stolen (similar value) they do not even bother to come to crime scene.
As much as I normally hate political/police over-reactions of anything because it's digital, I think it's not reasonable to make a tickets--bike comparison.
They weren't there because someone stole theatre tickets, they were there because someone stole credit card numbers - which is more serious, largely because it's a lot more scalable than stealing a bike.
I think it is fair comparison. There are gangs stealing bikes, it is also frequently target to vandalism. And it is scalable to the level, that is not safe to leave your bike without lock.
Also article only talks about single credit card.
We should not make difference between crimes, just because one has strong bank lobby behind it.
It's pretty easy to sell bikes...We have several specialty bike stores around here and if you walk in with a decent road bike in good condition you can walk out with $500 easily.
Surely someone from the police IT team ought have been there to save everyone the hassle. It should have taken only a few minutes for a person of average intelligence to determine that he was in innocent.
This was 2008, things have moved on a bit and hopefully everyone is a little more savvy. I think give them the benefit of doubt and hopefully things are a little more intelligent now...
Having a 2008-tech-savvy cop in 2008 is just common sense. If the description is accurate, the two guys who came to confiscate the computers were completely clueless and would be easily fooled by anyone reasonably knowledgeable with computers.
> The two cops are at the door, holding our computers.
That's service. When the German police took away my computer and I turned out not to be guilty I had to get it back from the police station in the next large town. The computer was pretty much destroyed. I don't know what they do in 'computer forensics' but I assume it has something to do with slamming a hammer into the main board and playing soccer with the hard drives ...
The exact same thing happens in the US. About 2 years after your equipment is confiscated, you get a letter stating that you can come get your stuff within the next 6 days or they are going to auction it off. So you've got to spend the gas to make a 2 hour drive to wherever they took your stuff, and then everything will be broken anyway. It's obsolete by now. And it's all covered in evidence stickers that don't peel off but at least give your case some 'street cred'. They always manage to break the case in about 5 places and the hard drives always come back DOA.
And it used to be they didn't have an Mac monitors, keyboards or mice, so they'd take ALL your Mac stuff. But for a PC they just take the tower.
The cop I asked about what happened to the computer said something along the lines that they got it in that desolate state and they had protocols (records) to prove it.
Later I asked my lawyer what to do about this. He told me it was pretty pointless to try and I should see it a 'cost of doing business for living in this great democracy'.
Did not expect this is a country like Germany, all my trips Germany and interactions with Germans have been exceptionally pleasant. I've always had the idea that German government has it's shit together quite well. (Maybe that's just because the public highway rest stops are so nice in comparison to most of europe :P )
I will remember to photograph all my equipment thoroughly (including the latest newspaper in the picture) before I agree to someone taking it... Thanks for sharing!
German goverment pretty much has its sh* together quite well. What has been described here shows how that is: While Germany offers a lot of freedom with "basic rights" (the constitution starts with an enumeration comparable to the Bill of Rights), there is a certain expectancy in the law that the state will not ever fail. There is no good damage compensation for damages done by the state. (We do not have punitive damages anyway here in German law, so expect to get the value of a pair of used glasses when a police officer mistakingly destroys yours.) This is a general line. You don't get much for being in jail when it turns out you've done nothing wrong. There's no "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine that forbids the use of proofs in court that were gotten illegally. You get basically nothing for the time that your stuff got seized when it turns out in the end (after 12-15 months typically) that you've done nothing wrong. Please come and pick up your 486 machine, we're done analyzing - otherwise we'll get rid of it (on your expense).
Germany as a state grands you a lot of rights, but expects you to do your share as a citizen - like not becoming a suspect.
Don't bother. They also took my digital camera. And my fax machine. (disclaimer: It was 2004 - nowadays I don't have a fax). :)
The thing is not about if you can prove that something was damaged by the police. The thing is how much time and energy do you want to spend on getting a small compensation for that stuff.
If you want to prove a point: go on but don't think that there will be any consequences for a police officer because of this.
In my case for me it was just not worth it. The PC was pretty old and suing through 3 instances would have taken some years.
I learned from the thing one lesson: Don't run an open wifi network in Germany - because even if you're not guilty the process of a criminal investigation will fuck up your daily routine. (That's also why I don't run TOR nodes even though I think it's an important project.)
I can't help but feel that since the landlord believed that the wifi was secured and the only person with the password was the tenant the only decent thing to do was actually cooperate with the police. Wasn't it?
Yes, but the tone throughout the story feels otherwise, don't you think? It was more like an impression of how the text felt than this actual final line acknowledging it.
It's really the title. The story isn't about him being ratted out to the police, it's about the police officers sent not having the most rudimentary understanding of technology, and maybe a bit about the language barrier.
Even knowing that the wireless network was unsecured would not have stopped them from taking his computers and the router (as there was no particular reason to think he hadn't unsecured it knowing they were coming).
Kinda - dealing with the police is, ideally, the same regardless of how good their suspicions are. You can tell your side of the story in an interview room with your lawyer there, or when it gets to court.
Don't answer any questions, (unless the law requires you to,) they can lie about it later or they might misremember. Say you're not going to discuss anything without a lawyer, ask for a translator if you don't speak their language well. If they don't have a warrant (if that sort of thing's applicable where you are) don't let them into your home, (if I'd been him, I'd have met them on the doorstep to my flat with the door closed and locked behind me.)
What you say can hang you, especially when you're talking to people who don't know what you're talking about.
I was questioned by police a year ago. I hadn't done anything and was at the police station voluntarily but after an hour I exercised my right to leave - the 2 officers knew absolutely nothing about the crimes they were meant to be investigating and everything I said was either not understood or they believed that what I was saying wasn't "how it worked".
Their ignorance would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that some people have been arrested and convicted of crimes for which they were innocent of because of it.
It is also a bit surprising that the police force is using regular police to do technology heavy investigations. Would it really have killed the budget to send along a adviser who know the difference between a computer screen and a hard drive.
Say he had been guilty. He could "given" the police the nice clean computer, while the real evidence sits on a NAS/cloud somewhere, or been encrypted, or have done anything that would confuse people who don't have a clue where digital evidence actually resides. It becomes a designed system to catch innocents, while guilty people can run circles around the system.
Not only that, they let him dick around on his computer in front of them. A quick "rm -rf" would have made evidence retrieval a fair bit harder, wouldn't it?
Not really, at least for most filesystems. Now "cat /dev/urandom > /dev/sda &" or equivalent while stalling the cops by looking at emails on the other computer, that might be something of a problem.
That's how I decommission drives and other media assuming I can't physically destroy (which I usually can and do, but sometimes it happens). Overwrite with random data. Sometimes multiple times if I'm in no hurry. Much easier if the device is in an external reader rather than being your boot disk of course. Sometimes it takes awhile.
I still have scar on my hand from snapping my first glass platter. Hmm platters from this era, were always metal, yeah that's what I thought before it shattered.
That's not the point. The point is that they let him touch the computer while the police were present. He could have his computer set up where if he unlocks it with a "special" password, it behaves normally while zeroing all the sensitive data in the background, for example.
The point is, there's no limit to what he could do once he's allowed to touch the computer.
That's not the point. The point is that they let him touch the computer while the police were present. He could have his computer set up where if he unlocks it with a "special" password, it behaves normally while zeroing all the sensitive data in the background, for example.
The point is, there's no limit to what he could do once he's allowed to touch the computer.
Denmark isn't a big country so they might not have had any specialized police available for such a thing in this particular location. Maybe the officers in question just overstepped on their authority, thinking "How hard can it be?"
Pardon me, but shouldn't it be compulsory that if the police know they're dealing with a foreign national they speak to him with an interlocutor of his preference? I mean - why should the onus be on the accused to blurt out his rights and then do the entire merry-go-round. I'm sure it won't be that difficult to arrange for 1 English (global business language) interlocutor in Copenhagen. The onus should be on the police to allow an opportunity for explanation.
On the other hand, if you're a guest in a country, shouldn't you be responsible for making sure you can understand and be understood, either by learning the language or knowing someone you can call?
Personally, I think a middle term would be more appropriate - police agents should have a decent grasp of English (i.e., better than mine), and visitors to the country should know either the local language or English. An "interlocutor of his preference" seems an excessive requirement.
That's usually the case in Copenhagen. I'm surprised it wasn't here. You can typically interact with civil servants (and banks, and just about anyone else) in English. Official government forms are usually available in both Danish and English (but not, as you note, in any arbitrary choice of language). Even the online citizen-service portals typically are translated.
I would say Denmark is somewhat undecided what to do about language. Whether the norm should be "if you move here you must integrate", or whether it's good that Copenhagen has foreigners from all over who use English (rather than Danish) as the lingua franca, is one of the actively contested areas of Danish politics. The business sector is increasingly using English internally, and wants to put out an image to expatriates that Copenhagen is an international city where they're welcome, and where everyone speaks English. But some Danes are understandably worried about the implication that they will not be able to get a job in their own country speaking only Danish. This is already the case, sometimes de-facto and sometimes a formal requirement, for many professional jobs, but perhaps not for police. And there are also cultural worries about what it would mean if Copenhagen becomes more of an international, English-speaking city than a Danish city (Berlin has some similar cultural debates, but Germany's government and big businesses are less English-accommodating than Denmark's).
Unless you make that a legal and well-known requirement for residence in a country, that's just not okay.
Do I agree with the general idea, that 'guests in a country' (i.e. foreigners with a working permit) should learn about the local culture, the language? Sure.
But
- the author claims that he knew some danish. Learning the local language to flirt, order a beer and talk about the weather isn't the same as defending yourself in a legal case
- you need the translator anyway for short-term visitors that you want to charge (unless you ask people to learn the language before they go there as a tourist)
I'm speaking from the perspective of someone that worked in Tel Aviv for a year. I cannot speak Hebrew (well.. words, stupid phrases. I cannot speak a coherent sentence). That's unfortunate, since I tend to like the parts of the language I know. Languages are just .. hard, for me. Learning a language while you're working full time is worse. Being shy about using it -> even worse. The idea that a cop would've expected me to defend myself in Hebrew is .. a nightmare.
Frankly, if I'd be charged in London I'd ask for a German translator. I think antirez wrote an article (during that 'accent' discussion) recently that struck home: Even if you know a foreign language, you're often limiting yourself to the same topic. Smalltalk in English? Why not. Talking tech stuff? Sure thing. But I wouldn't try to argue with a cop just like I wouldn't feel comfortable discussing arts or doing pillow talk in that language.
Well, I did say you could have someone to call; in your case, you could have the number of a German translator who you'd call if you were to be arrested. My question is mostly whether arranging for that translator should be the police's responsibility or the foreign national's.
We are talking about something serious out here - someone is alleged of a grave crime. Therefore, it should be necessary that the person is allowed a full and fair opportunity to defend himself. This can only happen if the person talks in a language he's comfortable in. Considering this case, it is only rational to make such a requirement.
Your point on local culture/language may be applicable in other scenarios like speaking to local clients, buying groceries, shopping for clothes but alleged involvement in a crime which can lead to time (years?) in prison is a different matter altogether.
I'm not saying that the person should be required to know the language; a translator would be fined. My point is whether it should be the police's responsibility to arrange for that translator.
I never said it is the police's responsibility to arrange for the translator. I said that the police should maintain status quo (with a definite time period) and allow the accused to arrange for a interlocutor of his choice. I said that it was the police's responsibility to upfront state that to the alleged instead of asking questions and trying to exploit the loophole of the accused not knowing his rights.
"Backups" suck - it's a hassle to restore them, and due to all kinds of reasons how hardware can die, some restoration is needed every now and then. On the other hand, if all your [important] data automagically syncs on the cloud, you can take any blank computer and be productive within 30 minutes.
If your everyday environment is VM's on the cloud then you don't need even that and you're good to go from any device instantly, but it's a bit too limiting for me - but keeping all data + portable executables with config on Dropbox is simple, and leaves actual backups only as emergency precaution for cases if the cloud services screw you somehow.
I haven't checked Dropbox t&c's but I wonder whether backups come under its 'suitable for' uses. Ie: do they consider it a highly reliable form of storage.
Personally I wouldn't trust any cloud storage with hundreds of gigabytes of family photos and movies. I have multiple disks on site and one truecrypt terabyte disk offsite which is rotated regularly.
For work/code though the vm + cloud is a good solution.
T&C is a fairly useless as a suitability measure of anything. Sure, I'd use another "proper" backup service - but the expectation is that I'd use Dropbox in 99% of restoration needs and the other one only in the chance that, say, Dropbox dies - which hopefully happens less often than my computers die.
For personal data, Dropbox's versioning has been a lifesaver for me - if I have overwritten or changed something, I can get back also the previous versions; quite a few backup solutions don't keep the history. But for me the important data is various documents, so it's not that large - for example, I personally don't see the reason for making family videos, as even for our wedding video we just browsed through it once and haven't touched it in all the years afterwards, there's new stuff to do instead of watching old stuff.
Once (in 2005 or so) I was robbed, my backpack taken with my laptop inside. I was working as a consultant at the time and just got out of a meeting.
I lost the last changes that weren't on the Subversion server (2005, remember). I resumed work the next day, from the slightly older/slower/noisier laptop the one in the backpack replaced.
The importance of off-site backups cannot be exaggerated.
I was thinking something along the same lines, I think it's illegal to comment on ongoing investigations. The case might have been dormantly open until recently, when it was closed because of a lack of new information.
guys what's the law in the USA (and if anyone knows, in Canada) with respect to running an open wifi router? If you pay for your internet service and you leave a wifi router open, are you liable for any activity that occurs?
As far as I'm aware, there's no precedent. You could make the argument in court, and I don't know which way it would go. In a civil case (copyright infringement), my guess would be you'd be found responsible unless you could prove through other means that it wasn't you. In a criminal case, perhaps not.
As far as I'm aware, you can't absolve them of a statutory duty, you don't have the authority. You can only absolve them of things that you could bring to bear against them personally - and even then I know that contract law is complicated enough to make that a dicey proposition.
Open WiFi in this day and age is kind of stupid. I have to think that with BabelFish, or what ever they had in 2008 I could secure a router regardless of the language.
> Open WiFi in this day and age is kind of stupid.
Why? I genuinely want to know. What harm is there if my WiFi is open? Is there a danger that someone will use up my bandwidth? (I don't really care.) Is there a risk that evil [child pornographers / terrorists / whoever it is we hate this week] will use my open WiFi connection and thus be completely untraceable (which they could never have achieved without my assistance)?
If your IP is traced to images of child abuse then you will at the very least have a lot of explaining to do. Is it really worth running the risk of someone using your open wifi for this?
Firesheep is another example of why not. If you use WPA then even plain http traffic is encrypted from your computer to the wireless router. If you have completely open wifi then the traffic between your computer and the router is in the plain for everyone to inspect freely.
I'm not an expert in wifi security, but aren't most securing methods pretty hackable? In 2008, what are the odds that his landlady had a WEP router that could be hacked in 30 seconds?
Many routers sold use their own serial number as the WPA key though, and have a lot of the serial number in the default SSID. It's something I'm constantly telling my friends to fix.
- Internet crime is reported
- Police IT team tracks it to specific IP and address
- Contacts owner, she says (incorrectly) the WIFI is secured with only the two people at the address having access
- Regular police is sent to collect all computers at the address
- When the police IT team realizes the computers weren't connected to the scam, they are returned within two weeks.
The only thing that really went a bit bad is the reported attitude of the regular police officers sent to the address.
Of course it would have been better to have sent someone better at both IT and english. If either of those had been different they might never have taken the computers, but the two weeks to clear things up are pretty good as government organizations goes.