Use a Honeypot, Go to Prison?

scubacuda writes "Using a honeypot to detect and surveil computer intruders might put you on the working end of federal wiretapping beef, or even get you sued by the next hacker that sticks his nose in the trap, according this (old) Security Focus article. Honeypots could be federal criminal law calls "interception of communications", a felony that carries up to five years in prison. Because the Federal Wiretap Act has civil provisions, as well as criminal, there's even a chance that a hacker could file a lawsuit against a honeypot operator that doesn't have their legal ducks in a row. "It would take chutzpah," said Richard Salgado, senior counsel for the Department of Justice's computer crime unit, "But there's a case where an accused kidnapper who was using a cloned cell phone sued for the interception of the cell phone conversations... And he won.""

Comments

oh no!

[fjordboy]

I always knew that something bad would come of Pooh and his addiction...

Who knew that honeypots would lead to jail? I bet even Owl and Rabbit didn't know that!

Re:oh no!

[Just Some Guy]

I am screwed. So screwed. My main server is kanga.honeypot.net, and my workstation is pooh. My wife's iMac is piglet, and my FreeBSD firewall is gopher. Save me a soft bunk in prison.

Heh.

[k03 kalle]

The computers you own are not actually yours. They are owned by the United States govt. Everyone go download their new distributed CPU project called "Count The Votes". Oh, wait, they installed it for me. Thank you govt. :D On a serious note though. Its getting to be that regular Americans can't do anything without fear of getting sued or suing someone else. McDonalds coffee anyone?

Exploit

[DJ Rubbie]

I can see this might happen:

1) Find Open Windoze SMB share (or any open, insecure systems)
2) "Hack" into it
3) Try to get caught (log files, whatever)
4) Claim that was a honeypot
5) Sue for profit

It does seem this easy.

Just changed my MOTD

[deadfishhotmail.com]

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System Administrator. It usually boils down to these four things: #1) Respect the privacy of others. #2) Think before you type. #3) Everything is being recorded #4) You've just rooted my server, before continuing your hacking please read the complete TOS in /usr/share/tos. If you do not agree to the TOS you must stop hacking my server immediately. root#

That outta do it!

Something doesn't add up here

[Hamstaus]

Wait a minute!

No anti-MS sentiment... posted by Taco... not a dupe...

This story is a honeypot! Whatever you do, don't post any comments! It's a trick! It's a tri^&T3ATZ
NO CARRIER

Re:Err...

[outsider007]

next we'll see handicapped burglars suing homeowners for not providing wheelchair access to their valuables.

Anybody notice?

[cmburns69]

Anybody notice how "Honey pots" backwards is "Stop yenoh!". A quick google of the word reveals it to have to do with food, so "honey pots" is code for "Stop food!". This madness must be ended!

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