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Feds Arrest Private Eye at HOPE
An anonymous reader writes "FBI agents today arrested Steven Rambam, the owner of a company that bills itself as the largest privately held online investigative service in the United States, according to Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog. From the story: 'Rambam was arrested this afternoon by FBI agents just moments before he was to lead a panel discussion on privacy here at the HOPE hacker conference in New York City. Rambam and three other panelists were to discuss how they dug up -- in just 4.5 hours of searching private and public databases -- more than 500 pages worth of data on HOPE attendee Rick Dakan, who agreed to be the guinea pig for the project.'"
AFAIK, digging up information on a willing person and presenting isn't illegal.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
No one has any idea why he was arrested? I read the article and there wasn't any hint at a reason.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
Maybe, he was being arrested on other charges, not necessarily linked to the presentation e was about to give.
How about we wait for more info before we start screaming one way or the other.
I've already noticed that about 60% of posts are conspiracy theories about shutting him up..
we know nothing about the charges, and generally in high profile arrests there is a lag time between the actual arrest and the announcement of charges to the relevant media.
Now if he just disappears after this and we hear nothing.. then ill be worried, but as of now I see absolutely no red flags here.
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Oddly enough, the FBI chose to make this move in New York City, where they knew that none of the attendees would be armed.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Only the Feds are allowed to spy on people.
We're so screwed. People like you have effectively killed the skepticism of government actions on which freedom relies. Thanks. We really appreciate all you've done.
"Can you say "Police State"? I voted for George Bush because he promissed me a smaller and less invasive government. This is what I got."
<Nelson Muntz>"HA-ha! You're a gullible idiot!</Nelson Muntz>
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There are two essential points to acquiring restricted data.
1) Access the data.
2) Don't get caught.
These guys covered only one point in preparations for their panel.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I find it ironic that the guy is arrested in front of a whole bunch of online geeks, yet nobody has managed to find the single, most pertinent bit of information: What's he been charged with?
:v)
It appears you can't access this kind of information online.
Vik
Re-read the article. Rambam allegedly sued while the attack was going on: this is different from creating the attack.
I agree that the parent misstated the situation and that it is highly unlikely that Steve Rambam had anything to do with the DDoS attack on Joe Jarad.
Moreover, there is a fascinating letter at http://www.dotcomeon.com/injoewetrust.html that explains that the "DDOS" was not planned, it was the direct result of not having enough bandwidth to deal with all the DNS queries caused by the SoBig virus. The letter also explains that Mr. Joe Jared, the administrator of osirusoft.com, has been playing nasty games against the domains of quite innocent people, including poisoning the DNS for big chunks of the Internet for anyone who uses his services in a fit of pique after the DDOS.
That site, however, is run by a well known kook. Just read the link and the other pages on that site and make up your own mind. Using phrases like "People's Republic of Kalifornia", "unbalanced anarchist", "cyberextortion clearinghouse business", are enough a clue for me, but attacks on the same website against people like Paul Vixie are other good indicators that the guy is a kook.
Much of what is claimed on that site is highly selective and highly biased at best, and complete BS most of the rest of the time.
So I'm inclined to think that Mr. Rambam had nothing to do with this and is simply trying to slap down an incompetent blacklist author.
Uh, yeah, but if that was the case, Steve Rambam would have dropped the suit after Joe Jarad stopped running a DNSBL, but he didn't.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
At least electronic voting booths are still insecure...
Poppycock. They promised to deliver the vote for Bush; and they did. How much more security do you want than that?
KFG
Um, assuming he isn't going down for life (or death?), then why throw away the key? How will you get him out again? An angle grinder?
What could be better than a jet powered motorcycle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8l6GTHLSWE
The same goes for torture. Today, if you object to torture, you have to justify your position, because Gitmo and Abu Ghraib have inoculated everyone against the idea that torture is by definition wrong. Police states don't happen overnight, and as they develop into fruition, "normal people" won't recognize the status quo as a police state--it'll just be normal, a "nothing to see here" common-sense extension of what we see every day.
I call them detainees, not suspects. Some are no doubt suspected of crimes, but many in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib were caught up in sweeps, or are held because they are thought to have information. Holding someone because you want to interrogate them for information isn't the same thing as holding them because you think they themselves have done or will do something bad. "Interrogation" does not address guilt or innocence, and in fact any of us can be interrogated, regardless of our guilt or innocence. Some of these people have been the victim of a Kafkaesque "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" imprisonment. They knew a guy who knew a guy who was at this place this other person might have passed through, and ergo they might know something, so we'll hold them for a while. Since there is very little oversight, very little accountability for abuse, coupled with high accountability for failing to get information, in short order we have waterboarding and people being beaten to death. Calling them "suspects" makes us feel better about not caring, because we're at least halfway implying that they might have done something, but in reality being held for interrogation doesn't even assert guilt, much less provide evidence for it.
I'm not saying that we should man the barricades and break out the ammo, only that we have a responsibility to not let it get to that point before we say, "hey dammit, this is wrong." This is where the battle is, for the most part--with words. Ideas and principles matter. What we are willing to tolerate changes to accomodate what we've already tolerated, because we largely can't admit that we looked the other way. If we tolerate it on the small scale, what moral argument do we make to oppose the exact same practices on the large scale?
We have to recognize wrong and raise bloody hell about it, if only via a few posts on a lame blog or in a conversation over the water cooler at work. I'm not an activist, but when I speak up, here or in real life, it may give confidence to someone else who has been quietly thinking "you know, this doesn't look right." If I'm silent, that one quiet little voice caves into the raucous majority and eventually they don't have any doubts that it's okay for Padilla or anyone else to rot away in jail without the "privelege" of a trial. A voice of dissent, one who brings up the ideals we all ostensibly believe in, is more important than you think. If I followed your lead, I'd wait until no voice was possible. What do you want me to do, wait until I'm being herded into a black van with a hood over my face to cry out "golly, this is wrong?"
I'm not quite sure what to think about you. Do you live in some kind of fantasy world where police never break the law, where police never show any inclination to abuse their power just to be petty and vindictive? For fuck's sake, police are human just like the rest of us, and are (if anything) even more likely to be nasty little ethically-challenged pricks than the rest of humanity.
"Can the police walk up to you at a public function, where you're doing absolutely nothing illegal, just minding your own business, and showing no indications of fleeing the country -- and arrest you without a warrant? Never."
Never??? Seriously dude, you hardly need to look very far to find examples of police abusing their powers (and getting away with it). And the reason they can get away with it is because there's just not a lot you can (legally) do to stop an officer arresting you (you can hardly say "I refuse to let you arrest me, you don't have proper legal authority" and expect them to listen). And the only worthwhile option you have of fighting back (in most cases) is the risky, expensive and stressful option of a civil suit.
And as far as actually getting police charged with an actual crime... heh, good luck with that. Police are very very well aware of how far they can go without even the slightest risk of punishment to themselves. One lovely example is exactly what happened with this guy - arresting them early on the weekend (or late on Friday), so they have to wait out the weekend before having a chance to go before a judge. And even if the judge then immediately orders the person's release, the cops can still laugh "ha, we chucked him in jail for 2-3 days for no reason at all."