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Alternative Browsers Impede Investigations
rbochan writes "Allegations in an article over at CNET propose that alternate browsers such as Firefox and Opera impede law enforcement and investigation efforts because they "use different structures, files and naming conventions for the data that investigators are after", which can "cause trouble for examiners.""
Switch back to IE, it's the best Homeland Security Friendly browser on earth!
While the summary sounds like a "problem", the article clearly indicated that someone has already figured how to deal with these alternative browsers and is sharing with the law enforcement agents.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Well these examiners must be idiots then, I would much rather sort through the files in ~/.mozilla/firefox and a swap partition than scattered IE files and the Windows registry.
Oh come on, it's nearly impossible to find the URL history! Ctrl-H is a very, very complex cracking method.
...the terrorists have already won.
In other news, bad guys hide in secret hideouts, which makes it hard for the Police to do their job.
Damn I have deployed TOR for nothing. Installing Firefox was enough.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Help me out, /.!!!
1. Submit patent.
2. ???
3. Profit!
Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
Now I understand why the police or 'special' agencies can't find their terrorists: they rely on MS in general, and IE in particular! ;-)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
And then I realized that they were serious.
Now I weep for them.
RTFA again for the best results.
So with a few low-res pictures of some metal objects in Iraq we can determine they have biological weapons... but the 'trained professionals' working for the police can't figure out how to find Firefox's internet logs?
...Firefox... on Linux! "Find what they've been browsing? Hell, we can't even find C: !"
Let me see now (Jon Stuart grin), the police haven't learned how "alternative" browsers store data. Users of these "alternative" browsers even have been known to "flush" their data caches. This , um, "flushing" is a suspicious behavior - AND these "alternative" browsers are resistant to spyware that we normally use to "spy" on our "citizens."
I say, if these "citizens" don't want to be "spied" on, they are SUSPICIOUS! SEND THEM TO GUANTANAMO!
Meanwhile, in Soviet Russa...
Actually, FireFox Deer Park (pre-1.1) which I am using right now has a right-in-your-face menu item to remove this kind of data. Those bad evil criminals don't even have to dig through the options to purge the evidence for their wrongdoings. Clearly, this browser must be a work of the devil and should be banned.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Well, you just proved the authors point.
;)
On the BeOS version of Firefox it's ALT+H, not CTRL+H!
Oh come on, it's nearly impossible to find the URL history! Ctrl-H is a very, very complex cracking method.
Good job. Now you've flagged yourself and the FBI is undoubtedly on its way. Giving away what is most likely a National Secrect! Please don't let them look here.
-Valiss
It's about time someone linked the use of open source software to the War on Terror(TM). I was beginning to wonder if the authorities were asleep at the wheel...
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Somehow we just never realized this... we should also encourage businesses to only use ONE accounting method, so that embezzlement investigations can be simpler. There should only be a single gun manufacturer, with only one kind of gun available... imagine how much simpler investigations would be? "Well, we already know it was a Glock 32 handgun...".
What are people thinking, that businesses and products might exist to serve the needs of the people paying for and using them? What nonsense! Only law enforcement matters!
Seriously, even if this were a serious question, don't investigators get MORE useful data in the variations of people's setup? The more unique your suspect's setup, the easier it may be to track them.
And of course it's perfectly simple to find the Firefox cache -- can someone just drop them an email? They can print it out, tack it to the wall, and quit with the whinging.
Oh come on, it's nearly impossible to find the URL history! Ctrl-H is a very, very complex cracking method.
Of course it's hard to crack, who would ever think to use *backspace* to view a browser's history? These idi^H^H^HFEDS know what they're doing.
Police, baffled by the lack of a blue "e" can't figure out how they used the Internet.
"And there's no START button! How are we supposed to find anything?"
I like microcars
In related news, police are complaining that not all criminals conduct their affairs in American Standard English.
"It's an outrage! Why do people insist on impeding our efforts to be an all-seeing eye?"
Seriously, what do you propose? Educate them? This is national security that is potentially at stake here, people. We cannot simply turn to the logical solution. There's only one way to deal with this problem and that is to nip it in the bud. All non-IE browsers should be outlawed forthwith and anyone caught using them should be sent to Guantanamo for interrogation.
Just remember CNET is an MS Shill, has been for a long time. Someone at MS decided to take a shot at other browsers in a way they though no one would complain to much about. After all we are good law abiding sheep ^H^H^H^H^H citizens who need police friendly software and DRM to protect us from the evil terrorists, right?? While we are being protected from the terrorists, the hackeers/scammers and spammers are cleaning up! Just change the name of your Firefox directory to Donut Store Locations and they'll find it in a flash!
Investigator: Okay, I'm at the desktop.
...
Tech Support: Now, click on the icon that looks like a blue, lower-case E.
Investigator: Um.. I'm not finding anything, chief.
Tech Support: That's okay, take your time.
Investigator: No, really. There are no blue E's. Just something that looks like.. an exploding basketball? Or an orange fetus, maybe?
Tech Support: Wait, wait. No E?
Investigator: No E.
Tech Support: I'm sorry, sir, but you'll need to create a customer service ticket. In the meantime, try running Windows Update.
Investigator: Christ, we're dealing with a professional!
say mrgonzo, what are you doing in your labs???
I run BeOS. Now the feds can never catch me Bwahahahahah.
Since when did operating systems become a religion?
Or, you could just delete it from the history and turn off autocomplete for forms.
Not that I do that. Er, it works.
Never confuse volume with power.
Detroit, MI - The American Union of Automechanics is complaining loudly that different makes and models of cars use different parts. "It makes our job very difficult." said Winston Q. Crescenthead. "I mean, we have to work on a Vega, and then turn around and try to fix one of these new Toyota 4Runners. Some of these cars even use different kinds of wrenches. You should see the tools I have to use." Other mechanics have shared similar horror stories. "I got some little British roadster in the shop. It's taken six months of deep psychotherapy, and I think I might be up to the task of putting air in my kid's bicycle tire." The AUA is demanding that Congress pass law a forbidding the sale or use of any vehicle other than a 1972 Chevy Nova.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hopefully she not attentative enough to read your /. postings...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
... homicide investigators admitted they were stumped when a murderer used an aluminum bat to bludgeon his victim to death rather than the standard lead pipe.
... traces from a pipe ... lead is what makes it a crime scene."
Said an officer who wished to remain anonymous: "We're not even sure there was a murder without some trace of lead at the scene. A bullet
that's too funny. Ok, so lets for one second "suppose" that for some really funny reason what TFA says is true. IE doesn't hide anything and Firefox and Opera do.
This is, just by the way, not true. IE puts some hidden stuff in that Content.IE5 folder which seems to not exist on your hard drive (it's not hidden or operating system protected) but pops up if you type it into the address bar after your temporary files. OOOOOh, that's fucking straightforward.
So AAAnyway, let's "suppose" that this is all backwards and that somehow Firefox hides data. Think about that for a moment? What are they proposing? That everyone switch to IE so that it's easier for the FUCKING GOVERNMENT TO SEARCH THROUGH OUR SHIT? LOLOLOLOLROTFLMAO. Moreover, lets suppose that all reason and rationality has just jumped out of a 10 story building, if everyone does switch to IE to enable the government to better monitor us, are the terrorists and people with shit to hide going to do the same thing? NO MAN, HOLY FREAKING GOD, NO. THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF BEING A THIEF AND A PIRATE AND A FUCKING TERRORIST.
Article summary: terrorists are uncooperative with authorities because they use a file structure which is non standard and harder to search.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I almost pissed my pants. Dude, the fucking government should be worried about how to recover files from hard disks that have been literally blown up in explosions to cover up data. Jesus christ. CNET is like, really dumb.
CTRL +H closed my Opera session you insensitive clod! ;)
Luckily it also popped-up everything I had open with a restart.
put the what in the where?
Yea and someone with the title "Computer Forensics Expert" shouldn't have to learn all these diffrent conventions.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Sgt.Smith: "Damnit Jones, firefox. Another criminal goes free."
Lt.Jones: "You you know Smith, I sometimes wonder if we just were competant with computers if we could well, you know, understand basic computer forensics instead of relying on software to do it for us?"
Sgt.Smith: "Shutup Jones, theres a way we do things here, it's the microsoft way, all other ways are abhorant and methods of the terrorists."
Lt.Jones: "Good call Smith!"
*sigh* It's only sad because it could be true. Police forces need to hire security professionals and train them to be computer forensics. Not hire police officers and rely on them to learn the ins and outs of computer security.
Shadus
These guys have degrees in Counter-Strike? Shit! The 1337 and policing our nation - you know those terrorists are wallhacking.
However, I fail to see how this would create problems for law enforcement.
Maybe their forensic tools can extract the browser history from the file and the software isn't aware a bookmarks file doesn't have to be named "favorites".
At least I hope that's the issue.
Tip for Kiddie Porn addicts: Keep your vids in someplace besides the "My Videos" folder. The authorities will never be able to find them if they're "hidden" in some other folder.
what are you, a cop?
I wonder what they would do if they found a computer where Linux was installed and used...
They'd give the computer back to its owner out of compassion for him being such a geek that he needed to look at pr0n all day in lieu of getting laid.
At least, that's what happened to me...
It's DOCTOR gonzo, he didn't spend 6 years in gonzo medical school to be called MISTER, thank you very much!
What if I look at pr0n with Lynx?
Sie ist tunbar!
I found this out really quick after the SO moved in. Right after she went to check the website of her university which starts with a 'C' and the first link that pops into the autocomplete bar is Cumfiesta.
I just bought her a computer of her own.
www.madeofwinandawesome.com
It shows they're criminals because it forces Law Enforcement to use non-standard methods of entry (like through a window).
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The Spooks are confused as hell. In fact, the last time I was investigated, one of the Detectives said "Fuck this!", whipped out his own high powered magnet, and aced my computer.
By using Firefox or Opera, you are supporting global terrorism and "open-source" communists! Switch to IE, now called Freedom Browser!
If you wear pants, that means that you've got something to hide.
Don't bother with the source. Look at the file history.dat in the Firefox user profile. Guess what it contains. After hours of work I wrote a program to decipher the data:
cat history.dat | grep '=http://'
Hard work! Yes there is a lot of data other than strict URLs in there, and some of them span lines, so a simple grep isn't perfect, but it's not hard to get a basic list, and like other people have said, Firefox is open source it would be easy to write a program to pull all of this data.
-matt
""Allegations in an article over at CNET propose that alternate browsers such as Firefox and Opera impede law enforcement and investigation efforts because they "use different structures, files and naming conventions for the data that investigators are after", which can "cause trouble for examiners.""
Allegations in an article over at Police Magazine propose that alternate vehicles such as motorcycles and buses impede bank robbery law enforcement and investigation efforts because they "use different shapes, different numbers of seats, and different logos for the manufacturers that investigators are after", which can "cause trouble for get-away car examiners".
Obviously, only Dodge Chargers, like the "General Lee" should be allowed to criminals, to make them easier to catch.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Come back with a search warrant and I'll tell you
Other way around. It was a large donation.
I don't know anyone personally, but I can tell you that you've come to the right place! ;)
Not so sure about the kiddie porn side of things, but when I used to do Mac repairs, I used to make a point of leaving the 'hidden' directory of porn visible on the desktop after a data recovery. Normally hidden by making the directory 'invisible' in the finder, easily located by simply looking at folder sizes and drilling down until you reach a folder which contains both 5Gb of data but only 500Mb visible data. :)
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I love it. Think of the advertising potential.
Male voiceover
"Microsoft, used by 100% of all sex offenders. Its not only the law, it their punishment."
Oh! I just fell off my chair.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Running windows IS cruel and unusual.
Now THIS is funny - from the File::Monk man page:
THE UGLY TRUTH LAID BARE ^
Extracted from mork.pl
In Netscape Navigator 1.0 through 4.0, the history.db file was just a Berkeley DBM file. You could trivially bind to it from Perl, and pull out the URLs and last-access time. In Mozilla, this has been replaced with a "Mork" database for which no tools exist.
Let me make it clear that McCusker is a complete barking lunatic. This is just about the stupidest file format I've ever seen.
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/mork/primer.
http://jwz.livejournal.com/312657.html
http://www.jwz.org/doc/mailsum.html
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24143
In brief, let's count its sins:
* Two different numerical namespaces that overlap.
* It can't decide what kind of character-quoting syntax to use: Backslash? Hex encoding with dollar-sign?
* C++ line comments are allowed sometimes, but sometimes
* It goes to all this serious compression effort (two different string-interning hash tables) and then writes out Unicode strings without using UTF-8: writes out the unpacked wchar_t characters!
* Worse, it hex-encodes each wchar_t with a 3-byte encoding, meaning the file size will be 3x or 6x (depending on whether whchar_t is 2 bytes or 4 bytes.)
* It masquerades as a "textual" file format when in fact it's just another binary-blob file, except that it represents all its magic numbers in ASCII. It's not human-readable, it's not hand-editable, so the only benefit there is to the fact that it uses short lines and doesn't use binary characters is that it makes the file bigger. Oh wait, my mistake, that isn't actually a benefit at all.
Pure comedy.