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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.'"
That would be my first question. Why would the FBI engage in such an obvious publicity stunt? Arrest someone right before they're supposed to speak before a group of hackers? They'd better have some serious charges to levy against him, or else they've just shot themselves in the foot.... again.
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
...or else they've just shot themselves in the foot.... again.
What's that supposed to mean? When was the last time an agent has been brought up for violation of rights? And how long can they hold a citizen before bringing up charges? If they accuse him of some kind of terrorism, can they hold him as long as they want without charging him at all? I'll bet there will will be some serious gag order thing going on. Seeing as that is probably why they took him away. He might know "too much".
What?
And speaking of conspiracy stuff please check out this newspaper column, then realize that the columnist that wrote this had a name change, was born and grew up in Russia, and has a long association with the Cato Institute (ostensibly a "libertarian think tank" but they normally side with the neocons on almost everything.
If only more Americans had read the US Constitution....
Isn't there a character named this in some of Kinky Friedman's books? I know most if not all of the major characters in The Kinkster's mysteries are based on real people but it would be wild if one of them is actually a private eye.
nothing like a public arrest to keep the populac in line.
I'm not saying that this arrest was for those purposes, but if you have large gathering of people who are all on the fringes of the law, a not so sutble way to remind them that they are being watched is arresting someone with a relatively high profile within the group.
I've already noticed that about 60% of posts are conspiracy theories about shutting him up..
You must be new here.
All joking aside if the charges are unrelated to the presentation, the timing of the arrest makes sense. I would assume that his attendance at the conference was not a secret. From the FBI's point of view it is a win win situation. You know exactly where and when a person will be and you also get the side effect of fear from conference attendees, not to mention all the media attention. Basically, don't fuck with us. We're the FBI which will not be overshadowed by a private organization.
The guy getting arrested might be an issue, but i am suprised no one is focused on the staggering amount of info the company was able to obtain about a non famous guy. 500 pages? :|. How many pages do they have on you?
Why would the FBI engage in such an obvious publicity stunt? Arrest someone right before they're supposed to speak before a group of hackers?
Well, first of all so they'd know exactly where he'd be and when, which lets the operation be organized easily. You don't have to risk an unknown situation popping up and agents at the scene having to improvise, which can lead to dangerous foolishness. Secondly, they can check out the (public) venue beforehand and be certain he didn't have a gun stashed away or something like that. People regularly freak out when being arrested and do dumfuk things like try to shoot it out. If he's a PI, he's almost certainly got a weapon. Arresting someone can be a dangerous moment for all concerned. The FBI will want to minimize that.
They'd better have some serious charges to levy against him, or else they've just shot themselves in the foot.
Well, they can't arrest him without a warrant. So clearly they've got charges ready to file, and a judge has already been convinced he might be guilty of them. They've already told him or his lawyer what at least some of those charges are, of course, when they booked him. But whether anyone is going to tell the public is another story. He may not want to, if it's something embarassing, and the government may not want to, if there's some ongoing investigation and it would tip off other people under suspicion. The public's right to know will be satisfied at the trial, where all the charges must be made public.
I attended Rambam's panel that year (sadly couldn't make it to HOPE this year). He used a service called Diogenes that had an account that would only be active for the lifespan of the panel. From what I remember, he also spoke that year during that same slot about how easy it was to get ID in different names and held up three different drivers licenses that were obtained in the same day at the same DMV (in California, IIRC). He would then pose as a university professor to lure Nazi warcriminals out of the woodwork, claiming he wanted to interview them for a project, then turn them over to the Hague.
He always had interesting stories and much to contribute, I hope things turn out for the best.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I am sure that this is going to fall under the broad and sweeping legislation that has passed in recent years to combat hackers and terrorists. No doubt using a computer to commit a crime will soon be like using a gun in a crime in California: Mandatory minimum sentences that put everyone (evil and ignorant) into the same catagory and take discretion out of the hands of judges (or liberal judges at least). At least electronic voting booths are still insecure...
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
I can actually find out a heck of a lot about somebody with their name and Google. If you know power searching tips, and construct searches based on what you already find, you can find out a lot. If I had somebody's name who was a frequent Internet user, I could probably find out a fair amount of biographical information on them with a few variations on their name. Then I could search using those pieces of information as keywords and find out even more information.
...and you can too! A lot of the information he says he found in 4.5 hours is not that impressive. Pics of his former roommates? Easy if they're Myspace or Facebook friends. Places he lived before? Check the history for his wall. Places he worked before? If he was in IT, and you can find his favorite internet screenname, you can find his postings to internet tech forums such as Slashdot, Devshed, Sourceforge, etc, complete with the details of what he was working on.
And God help you if you have a MySpace account with a wall. Then I can learn everything about your social life, including the names of your friends. Then I can look them up too and construct a whole web of information about you.
That's just with Google. Combine that with even modest law enforcement databases and you can find out a heck of a lot about one person.
Granted, that still scares me a LOT. I value my privacy but I feel like I don't actually have it anymore. All I'm saying is his deal is not all that unique. Or maybe I'm just The Power Google Searcher From Hell!!!!!
Read the following link about how he maliciously sued Osirusoft, the maintainer of relays.osirusoft.com after having them DDOS'd. It does not shock me to see that this asshole has ended up in handcuffs at all. He has always acted above the law. For those that remember the foonet.net story will rejoyce to see that this shithead is going to PMITA prison.
Note that I did not say he was stupid, hence I post as AC.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
According to this article, he has been involved in a lawsuit against a spam blocker (his company was mistakenly placed on a spam blocklist), he has tracked Nazi war criminals, and he discovered that Elvis has Jewish ancestors.
Steve Rambam lost his law suit against the anti-spam DNSBL run by Joe Jarad. In the process Steve lost any respect I might have had for him for other things.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Ok, so they throw some to the wolves for the newspapers. Any reforms as a whole to the organization as a result? Aside from Freeh in your example, the rest were just caught being stupid off the job. It's still business as usual. A teeny bit worse under Bush maybe, but I don't see any real difference in their M.O. since Hoover was around. And, no I remain blissfully ignorant of the mass media's take on the matter. They only parrot what the government says. They don't DARE touch the real cause of what we are putting up with now. Certain groups are beyond all criticism. And their actions will never be reported or discussed. The last time they caused any real trouble was with the Pentagon Papers. But even after that, it's STILL business as usual. Turned out to be much ado about nothing. That, of course says more about the voters than anything else. Any attempt to report any truth just gets the media into more hot water. So it is useless to me now. It's all just more Laci Peterson fluff, which I immediately forget before I finish turning the page. Nope, the funnies are all I read now. The headlines are just flashing lights and pretty colors. I'll become interested in them when I see a real call to stand up for individual rights and freedoms. I'll be impressed when I see a call for Rumsfeld and the rest of the surviving Nixon and Reagan cabinet(Johnson's, Carter's and Clinton's too) and their European and Russian counterparts to stand beside Saddam in the trail. Or for Sharon, Shamir, and their ilk(the real untouchables) to be brought up on terrorism charges. The crooks being reported now are just being replaced with other crooks who will try to be a bit more careful about getting caught. Same ol' Same ol'.
What?
I voted for George Bush because he promissed me a smaller and less invasive government.
;) Okay, it's not quite that bad but I am extremely, extremely disappointed in him, and the GOP in general. His administration is what is making me go Libertarian, which seems to be the true conservative party of today.
That's why I voted for him, too, and that IS what he got. To disagree with him would make you a dissident or enemy combatant.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Yes, you're allowed to vote, in a Diebold machine which puts your vote behind an opaque screen. You're allowed to say what you want, unless you expose an illegal government program. You're allowed to be whatever religion you want, unless you are a muslim and a certain shade of brown which means you might be held without charges indefinitely, and if the Bush Administration find out that "oops, we got the wrong guy", you are forbidden from challenging them because of "state secrets". And, Mr. God-fearing Christian, you think the family health doctors who are still being murdered by your fellow worshippers didn't "fear for their lives"? Let's see: Secret Prisons. Domestic Wiretapping. Torture. "Rendition". Presidential "signing statements" in which the executive claims the right to ignore a law. These are not things that "stand for freedom". Oh, you're free to peruse the Internet, but a record is being kept of where you go and what you see. If you don't believe there is a crisis in this nation which threatens the liberty which was so hard-won by our forefathers, you are either stupid or hopelessly hypnotized by Rush Limbaugh. Which one are you, plueken?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I had an interesting debate a few weeks ago about this very subject with a friend of mine who voted for Bush in the last election. Now, that's not to say that the guy is an idiot, far from it. But he was indeed arguing that we shouldn't immediately assume someone is innocent in lieu of evidence. He did use the term 'bleeding heart' once or twice, which did somewhat disturb me as in effect he was saying that anyone who thinks terrorists should be tried fits that description. It's interesting to see, though, how this sort of thing came about; the other side's thinking, as it were.
The United States is breaking the Geneva Conventions in Guantanamo by not treating prisoners humanely. Whether or not the prisoners are indeed unlawful combatants, they deserve humane treatment. An exerpt:
I think a lot of this is to do with the (deserved) hatred associated with terrorism by the general public. An eye for an eye, effectively; they don't treat us as humans, so why should we do the same for them? As difficult as it is for me to believe, I think there are people who think this is an adequate way of doing things. In my opinion, though, we can't lower ourselves to their level. Human rights are just that: human rights, applicable to all humans. Even if they're the scum of the earth.
And I want to be clear here: 99.9% of people who say that these terrorists should be tried are not saying we should let them go. That seemed to be the main jist behind the aforementioned conservative friend's argument; that it would be possible that someone could be mistried, get out on a technicality, or not be proven guilty even though they were, so in order to be 100% safe we should simply detain them all and bypass the trial entirely. But even if lawyers and technicalities are the problem, we should fix those problems rather than abolishing their right to a fair trial, a right which has been guaranteed to all for hundreds of years.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Maybe the database is ChoicePoint. What Mr. Rambam is mentioning sounds suspiciously a lot like a couple of recent articles (here and here) by Greg Palast where he makes the case that ChoicePoint and companies like them have provided an outsourced service for the structure of a police state, where government oversight cannot go, and has gone so far as to call them "the private KGB".
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The current "rumor" going around the con is, he had an outstanding warrant in another state and his arrest was regarding that. Again, this is just what's been going around, we don't know what the real story is as of yet.
Has anyone noticed that 2600.com and all Hope sites are down?
If you took the time to RTFA (well, actually a blog), it mentions:
"I got in contact with a spokesperson for the FBI's New York field office, who confirmed that the FBI had executed one arrest warrant without incident at around 4 p.m. ET today at the Hotel Pennsylvania where HOPE Six is behind held."
So the FBI *DID* have a warrant which would have stated the reason for the arrest.
Thanks for the delicious red herring.... yum....
Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
The police will indeed often come on strong with "demands" that you consent to searches of your belongings, particularly to young people. But it's important to understand that such "demands" are often, from a legal point of view, merely requests that you have the right to refuse. A police officer may search your person or belongings only if (1) he has a warrant to do so (and he's got to show it to you if you ask), (2) he has probable cause to believe you are hiding evidence of a crime and may dispose of it before he can get a warrant, (3) you have just been arrested, or (4) he has your consent, no matter how sneakily it was obtained.
It's important to understand this, because if you don't refuse a "request" to search your belongings, even a "request" apparently phrased as a command or threat ("just show me what's in the briefcase, buddy, or you're in big trouble") -- then you make a warrantless search perfectly legal. Any search becomes legal, and any evidence gathered during it admissable in Court, the moment you consent to it.
I recall a friend who was riding in a car the driver of which was (unfortunately for him) drunk. The car was stopped by the police, who then wanted to search everyone's belongings because they were college kids and the cops suspected them of carrying weed. A cop said to my friend something like: "I'm going to look in your purse now." Possibly he put an "OK?" at the end, but it was phrased in a very statement-kind of way, no real appearance of being a question. So, being young and naive, she naturally took this as a command or random statement and passively allowed the search (thus making it quite legal). But it was actually, technically, legally, a request and she had every right to reply "why, no, officer, that won't do at all -- I do not consent to my purse being searched."
In a case like yours, you could simply refuse (politely) to consent to the search. I don't know if there's much reason not to. If they have probable cause to suspect you of hiding something important, they can search with or without your consent, so your refusal doesn't matter. If they don't have probable cause, your refusal can't be construed as providing it, and can't give them grounds to arrest you if they don't have them already -- and if they do already have grounds to arrest you, it's not very likely they won't just because you consent to a search.
It's worth asking why the police act this way. It's very obnoxious and does indeed alienate a lot of people. I can only suggest they do it because it works -- because in a substantial number of cases, people are so clueless and intimidated that they'll consent to searches even when they know they are hiding evidence of a crime. Maybe they have some silly notion that the justice system will go easier on them if they're all obsequious and cooperative. I don't think that's true, however.
Would we want it some other way? I'm not honestly sure. What the police do is very unpleasant, but it does tend to catch out dumb criminals, and I believe Murray and Hernnstein, who argue that most criminals are nontrivially dumber than average. Would I really want to eliminate a useful method of cheaply nailing a substantial number of criminals? Even though, when I'm caught myself in the method, and despite knowing my rights, it's an unpleasant and alarming experience? Not sure. It's only my pride and my convenience that the police are harming, and I have to set that against their success in apprehending the kind of lowlife who might otherwise force me to put bars on my windows and carry a weapon all the time.
I recall a friend who was riding in a car the driver of which was (unfortunately for him) drunk. The car was stopped by the police, who then wanted to search everyone's belongings because they were college kids and the cops suspected them of carrying weed. A cop said to my friend something like: "I'm going to look in your purse now." Possibly he put an "OK?" at the end, but it was phrased in a very statement-kind of way, no real appearance of being a question. So, being young and naive, she naturally took this as a command or random statement and passively allowed the search (thus making it quite legal). But it was actually, technically, legally, a request and she had every right to reply "why, no, officer, that won't do at all -- I do not consent to my purse being searched."
That's easy to say in the theoretical, when you're safely tucked behind your computer keyboard.
But in REAL LIFE, said cop would have had every ability to take her downtown and detain her up to 24 hours, *without a warrant*. Not everyone likes the idea of spending overnight in lockup.
This is the real problem - the fact that the cops can threaten you with that without any kind of warrant. I understand that the cops sometimes need time to finish searching a dangerous offenders hosue or whatever (with warrant), but being able to hold someone who did nothing wrong, with no evidence, for 24 hours is not how things should work.
The way it *should* work is, if the cops have a search warrant or other pending warrants against you, *then* they can hold you 24 hours. If they have none, they can hold you maybe up to 3hrs while they pursue one.
Maybe if those were the fules you wouldn't have so many people consenting to unwarranted searches - because the threat of "OK then le's go downtown and talk abotu it" doesn't mean as much when you know you will be out of there in 3 hrs max.
And part of the problem is people are no longer willing to be inconvenienced at all to stand up for their rights. 24 hours, 3 hours, it wouldn't matter, people will roll over anyway.
Case in point: Police department wanted a statement from me. Did they call and ask me to come in? No. Did they show up and ask to speak with me? No. What DID they do? Show up, arrest me, haul me back to the station, and me a miranda waver THEN demanded a statement. Screw that, I'm arrested, I ain't talking. So down to county lockup I go to "teach me a lesson" (actual words from the officer). 20 hours later, I'm cut loose with an apology from the sherrif, and advice to stay away from the local police for a while since "they're pissed they couldn't bully you into talking."
What was it all about? I was nearby an argument between one of my friends and a local officer about a parking ticket. If they'd ASKED I would have been more than happy to tell 'em what happened ("I was four cars away, in my car, with the windows up and the AC on. I saw them talking, but couldn't tell what they were talking about, then I left."). But since they arrested me, they quite effectivly shut themselves out of the information they wanted.
My brother was arrested(was a juvenile at the time) ~15 years ago, was held without being told the charges and my parents were denied access to him for 12 hours. The cops did let my brother make his phone call and he called home. When we(Dad & me) arrived at the police station they originally denied they were even holding him. That didn't fly, my Dad explained he had spoke with my brother and he was here. Next they threaten to arrest my Dad because he wouldn't leave the police station until he got to see&talk to his son. He sat there and I left to go physically bring a lawyer to the station(figuring I would be bailing out two family members by the time I returned) and to update Mom. There were no payphones in the police station lobby and cell phones were still uncommon.
The charges were "terrorist threats" and they were eventually dropped. The cops were pissed at my brother for telling the occupants of an apartment to see the search warrent before letting the cops in. So they said my brother matched the description of a suspect(pure bullshit, said suspect was 50 pounds heavier and 5 inches taller) and he verbally threaten the life of a cop(again bullshit, brother knows legally where the line is with cops; be polite but firm).
And several years before that my parents' house was searched and computer equipment seized by police wielding a search warrent without an address or name. Got the stuff back after getting a lawyer but took several months. Parents used to always leave the backdoor unlocked, so we(kids&friends) could come and go without having to carry a key(neighborhood was that safe). Cops came in thru that same unlocked door when no one was home and since that day the backdoor is always locked. Safe neighborhood... except for the cops.
Both events happened on US soil against US citizens.
Humans will do whatever they damn well like... Cops happen to have jails and guns at their disposal, avoid cops.
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
Whoa, dude. Take a few deep breaths.
First off, do I think that some small minority of policemen abuse their authority, and that this needs vigorous prosecution and punishment? Do I think there's an important role for citizen oversite committees and for ACLU lawyers? Absolutely. Just the same way I'm certain a certain minority of corporate CEOs abuse their authority and screw their shareholders -- and so there's a role for FTC oversight. And a certain minority of programmers abuse their talent and write malicious viruses and spyware -- so there's a role for an FBI that goes after bad-hat hackers and puts them behind bars. And a certain minority of boyfriends beat up on their girlfriends (and vice-versa), so there's a role for domestic violence laws and the police should sometimes be arresting guys based on the mere facts that the girlfriend is cowering in fear and sporting nasty cuts on her face. We live in a world of men, not angels.
But there is a world of difference between a minority of policeman illegally, unconstitutionally and occasionally -- e.g. in a few dozen out of the over ten million arrests yearly -- abusing their authority, and the police being able to haul people away and send them to the Gulag for no reason as a matter of state policy.
As another poster has pointed out, when I said "never" I did not mean the police never abuse their authority. That would be as silly as saying Linux programmers never write malicious or stupid code. I meant that arresting someone as described in the article without a warrant could never be done legally, and that, therefore, it is a rare event.
Now if you believe it is not a rare event, then I invite you to provide a smidge of proof. DoJ statistics note there are about 13 million arrests a year in the United States. Can you provide evidence that in, say, as many as 5% of those cases (e.g. for over half a million people per year) the arrests are illegal, or the person arrested suffers physical abuse while in custody? If so, let's hear it. I'd sure like to know. Because what I'm aware of now is only that occasionally the police are abusive, and the proper response is citizen watchfulness. I'm not aware that we're living in some awful Stalinist state where the police are used as an instrument of organized terror, and the proper response is armed revolt.
If all you're saying is that the ordinary citizen is taken less seriously by the justice system than a policeman -- well, BFD. The non-programmer is taken less seriously when he says an application has a bug. The non-scientist is taken less seriously when he says the Big Bang never happened. And so on. It's human nature to take people less seriously when they aren't part of the daily picture, don't belong to the "in crowd," and maybe don't understand all the details and implications. Sucks, but there it is. Maybe the Universe is less fair then you were promised in the brochure.