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Australian Federal Police Raid Major ISPs
pflodo writes "The Australian (newspaper) has an article about Telstra the major Australian ISP and other 'declined to name' ISPs that have been raided by Australian Federal Police to 'seek the identity of particular subscribers' in relation to their activity and files stored on the ISP's servers. I imagine they will eventually raid some domestic homes and make a scapegoat of some unfortunate teenagers."
Why would someone committing computer-related illegal activities store anything on their ISP's servers? That's just begging for the systems administrator to find it themselves, and report you for something (assuming it violates their ethics code).
One of the strongest truths in anything that isn't necessarily legal, or could be interpretted as not legal, is that you don't leave any evidence that others can control. If you're really smart, you leave no evidence at all, period, but if you do leave something, make sure that it is in your control, and your control alone.
The other thing that I'm shuddering about is the possible downtime effects that this has on everyone else who uses the equipment for fully legitimate purposes. Suddenly, the possibility of server outages, network outages, and other miscellaneous service problems ensue, especially if a federal entity decides that equipment itself is to be confinscated as evidence, and they don't take care to properly handle what mess they leave behind.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
It can happen that way.
I've actually seen this first hand (under slightly diferent circumstances). They don't charge in with guns drawn, but they do appear without notice, in considerable numbers, bearing appropriate warrants and court orders, and secure anything that they might consider evidence. Which may be your mail server.
The idea is to preserve the evidence, but the way they go about it is misguided and unnecessary more often than not.
What's really ironic about drug raids is that the "street value" they quote is a function of prohibition, not market economics. Government sets the price of illegal drugs, not drug dealers! The higher the level of prohibition, the higher the price of black market items. The more tax money they throw at the "problem", the more money the drug dealers can make. And the more money the drug dealers make, the better their chances of avoiding the law. It's a win-win situation for government, which profits not only in revenue but power over the people, and it's a win-win situation for drug dealers who are clever enough to avoid the law. The only losers here are the tax payers, who pay not only in tax dollars but liberty (including but not limited to ownership of your own body) and security (which decreases proportional to the violent crime stimulated by the black market).
Am I concluding that prohibition is designed specifically to benefit government at the expense of the people? You bet I am.