Cryptome Log Subpoenaed

PaulBu writes "Stopped by on Cryptome tonight... It seems that their logs have been subpoenaed by Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General Chief, Corruption, Fruad (sic) & Computer Crime Division. Cryptome's answer was that "logs of Cryptome are deleted daily, or more often during heavy traffic, to protect the privacy of visitors to the site." (Good job!) See here"

Comments

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be interesting...

http://130.236.229.26/cryptome-log.htm

Simple Fake Email

[Deton8]

I read this story on Cryptome before the /. effect took hold -- what happened is some jerkoff is sending around fake emails with forged headers which purport to come from a legit company essentially trying to extort money from people to keep their personal data private. Obviously, the DA has a suspect and a grand jury has been empaneled to try to indict the guy behind the joe job, and they are hoping that the perp has been accessing the cryptome site (less likely, but possible, is that it's a fishing expedition and they will simply check everybody who surfed that page during the timeframe in question). The story has almost nothing to do with the true mission of the cryptome site. As far as posting the subpoena, there is a clear notice on the cryptome site declaring their intention to post the contents of all such legal notices unless it is illegal for John Young (a resident of New York IIRC) to post them.

Here's what they're after...

[imag0]

about 1/2 way down the page you get the gist they were looking for anyone who visited the page http://cryptome.org/sec-con.htm

Of course, the page was taken down / slashdotted, I guess. Google to the rescue!

Re:"or more often during heavy traffic"

[watchful.babbler]

If you've been served with a subpoena for documents, you can't destroy them, even if your policy is to dispose of them (I have another post around here that doesn't make that clear, so there you have it). So, yes, you are legally liable for obstruction of justice if you don't stop the cronjob.

It's also worth noting that, in some cases, you are obligated to retain documents even though no subpoena has been served: if you have reason to believe that a subpoena will be served on you, destroying related documents may be grounds for an obstruction of justice charge. See, for example, U.S. v. Gravely, 840 F.2d 1156 (4th Cir., 1988).

The burden of proof would, in such a case, be satisfied by showing that the subpoena was served before the deletion took place. After that, the burden is on you and your organization to show that the deletion was impossible to stop -- and, no, a coffee break is not an affirmative defense. ;)

Cryptome logs

[ssimpson]

John Young has posted quite a lot of information about his log policy before....It's pretty widely known that he deletes them very regularly to prevent this kind of thing.

People have asked why logs aren't just sent to /dev/null - that's because John does scan the logs for "interesting" visitors - see e.g. his previous stories about catching various US departments and agencies (FBI, Whitehouse) looking at his site.

The site is currently down I wonder if it has been slashdotted, or.......