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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"
Coming soon: legislation requiring access to any U.S. hosted site to be logged and stored for at least 72 hours.
The constitution protects criminals also.
This is a fundamental problem with freedom. If you want freedom, your neighbor has to expect that same freedom, even if he is a bigger criminal than you.
Of course, everyone is a felon. Most people just haven't pissed off the correct person yet.
I'll bite.
/. effect is already in force so I can't get to the article, so I can't help but wonder if theres an actual criminal investigation that these logs were needed for, or if they're looking to start one from those logs. If it is an ongoing investigation, what information would be gleaned from those logs that would possibly be helpful to them? That the person in question reads cryptome?
Who exactly are the criminals they are protecting here? people like me who read the site? Did someone pass a law while I was sleeping: "Thou Shalt Not Read Cryptome"?
This kind of behavior should definitely be considered a "chilling effect". The
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
We, as true Americans, aren't obligated to collect and archive every little drop of information about ourselves, our neighbors, and our customers on the off chance that it may someday be useful to law enforcement in solving or preventing a crime. Especially when you consider that the potential for abuse of randomly-collected information is much higher than the potential for its utility.
As has been said elsewhere, if they deleted the logs regularly (i.e., not in response to a subpoena), it would be hard to pin "obstruction of justice" on them. Naturally, IANAL and all that. But that would be like pinning an obstruction charge on a janitor for sweeping the hallways like she does every night because this time some evidence was swept up.
You havn't ever actually maintained a web site, have you?
Logs typically get compressed nightly, and deleted frequently.
I've maintained sites that literally filled GBs of disk with log data. And it gets much more expensive (CPU cost) to process huge files. Typically, you end up picking some time frame which you compress the files at, and maintain a regular deletion cycle.
Of course you would also create reports for management and marketing, but those reports contain very few specific details like IPs, and lots of details about counts per page/directory/product item.
You really can't maintain an interesting site without frequent log deletion. I'm surprised they took the "protect the privacy of our users" route- it would be a Bad Thing [TM] to have someone get a court ruling made that websites must save all logs for a period of 5 years or something equally insane.
Anyone worth their salt who is doing anything bad is using a proxy anyway.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
I am not sure where "Maeryk" is located, but in the United States, this is 100% untrue: "freedoms granted by the government"
The US Government does NOT grant freedoms. The people have them by RIGHT. The people have granted (albeit altered by judicial fiat) the *government* limited, enumerated powers. That is all.
PEOPLE are NOT agents of the government and are therefore NOT REQUIRED TO TRACK OTHER PEOPLE. That is a police state, a la the Soviet Union et al.
Regarding this:
"You cant have the freedoms granted by the government (laughable as they may be at times) without also following whatever rules make those freedoms a reality.
i know i'm coming in way late here, but JYA pays for cryptome traffic out of pocket. it's his hobby (or mission, the point is that he doesn't get recompensated for it).
so don't lay waste to his site if you don't have an interest. it's coming straight out of his wallet.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
That is just appalling: "If you are worried about your IP being logged when you get into a server or access online content, dont get online."
Have you ever heard of 'chilling effects'? Do you have any idea just how noxious this idea is to freedom? One of our fundamental principles has always been that you are free to think and read anything you wish; that information (with a very, very few exceptions) should not be suppressed in this country. No matter how noxious the current government may find the spread of some ideas, some of them are undoubtedly going to be right. There is little that makes authority figures more uncomfortable than the truth.
And finally.... freedoms ARE NOT GRANTED BY THE GOVERNMENT. I hope you're not a US citizen... if you are, you should just pack up and move to China. Government can only grant privileges. You have rights, many of which are enumerated in the Constitution (but it was never meant to be an exhaustive list) that cannot be taken away by the government. Instead, we grant the government certain limited powers which it uses on our behalf for the greater good.
They work for US, we don't work for THEM. The fact that you could be mixed up on this issue is scary. The fact that you could be modded up to +5 is even more frightening. What the hell is going on in this country??
Not it wasn't. 9/11 was a direct result of US foreign policy, most of which the US population is completely obvious to. They don't teach it in school, and there aren't any movies about it, so you can all be forgiven for this lack of knowledge. More so now that Bush has flat out lied to you and said the old classic "they hate freedom and democracy".
The USA (amoung other countries) has started, aided and funded coups and wars that resulted in democratically elected governments being replaced with ruthless dictators. Who do you think got Saddam into power? Then sold him masses of tanks and the equipment to build weapons of mass distruction (the idea being he'd be attacking the Iranians)? Who is aiding Israel in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinions from their own homes? Who put the vicious Saudi government in power, and is defending them right now with your tanks, troops and finances? This is what the terrorists don't like, and they have said this many times.
If you want to stop terrorists attacking you, first learn what is being done in your name around the world, then let your politicions know that you aren't happy with them killing children to secure better access to oil, for the benefit of their corporate "sponsors". It's a much cleaner solution that asking for log file retention.
1) if I have a client request a restore of backed-up data, I bill them T&M for the procedure (especially if tapes have to be retrieved from off-site storage). Does the government ever pay for such a service?
2) If I'm subpoenaed, to what effort do I have to go to make the data usable to the prosecutor? Can I hand over a DLT? Can I print out the log files and hand over multiple reams of paper? Can I provide them the data on media without an obligation to provide them hardware to read that media (say, a really old syquest)?
This subpoena says "bring with him/her all logs recording the I.P. addresses and/or users who visited" but makes no mention of an obligation to provide them in the format most usable to the AG.
And a third thought, I'm curious as to how a Facsimile was delivered to a voice number :-)
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Well, approximately 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence and the 10th Amendment disagree with your position, so I guess it's *you* who need to go back to your high school civics class.
The Bill of Rights grants nothing to the People that they did not already have under "natural law" which was the leading theory in legal philosophy at the time. Does the phrase "government of the people, by the people and for the people" mean anything to you? How about "government by the consent of the governed"?
When it was written the framers of the The Bill of Rights couched it ENTIRELY in "reservation of rights" language with the intention of making it crystal clear that these rights were fundamental and that the federal government is prohibited from infringing them. This position is made even more clear by the 10th Amendment which explicitly reserves all rights and powers not expressly granted to the federal government to the States and to the People.
The intention of the framers of the US Constitution was to create a limited government that had only those powers necessary to fulfill its unique functions as a national government and "granting rights" to the people is NOT one of those functions.
If you read the history of the framing of the Bill of Rights, you will discover that there was MAJOR disagreement whether it was even necessary given the fact that the Constitution granted such limited powers to the federal government. However, after a number of the larger states, including Virginia and Massachussetts, made it clear that they would NOT ratify any Constitution that LACKED a Bill of Rights, the delegates to the convention agreed that something akin to the English Declaration of the Rights of Man would not hurt anything (more on this to follow, below).
The difference between the Bill of Rights (which RESERVES rights safe from government interference) and the English Declaration (which does, indeed, grant rights) is that in the US all political power arises from the People, while in England (at least in theory) all power flows from the Crown. This fact lead to the arrogant conduct of George III which led, in turn, to the revolution, and the colonists, having recently wrested liberty from the Crown by force of arms, were not kindly disposed to giving it back to another central government founded on the same principles, ergo a written Constitution was necessary to delineate the limits of government power.
utter rubbish