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.'"

Comments

Any information on charges?

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

AFAIK, digging up information on a willing person and presenting isn't illegal.

Re:Any information on charges?

[NixLuver]

That would depend on the means used to acquire said information. The fact that I give you permission to 'dig up what information you can' on me doesn't grant you immunity from prosecution for, say, social engineering data out of the county clerk (fraud), computer crime (hacking the hospital's database, for instance), or other process that's illegal by its very character. I can *give* you that information, of course, but then you're not 'digging it up', eh?

Re:Any information on charges?

[double-oh three]

Steve Rambam is a licensed private eye, and according to the guinea pig (I'm attending the conference) he signed a waiver and Steve used only legal databases. Steve was also running an intensive mini con on the 6th floor (Hope is on 2 and 18) and was arrested after that. That mini-con was private-eye oriented, not hacker.

Re:Any information on charges?

[grimwell]

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.

Reason?

[Xuranova]

No one has any idea why he was arrested? I read the article and there wasn't any hint at a reason.

Re:Reason?

[davek]

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

Re:Reason?

[pigscanfly.ca]

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.

Re:Reason?

[mikael]

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.

He's had a mention in a previous slashdot comment in this article Comment title: "Outsourcing is a way around civil liberties". Article summary:

I saw a talk by Steve Rambam at Hope 05. Besides a live demo of a database that freakin blew my mind (in a live demo in than 30 seconds, steve pulled up everything about a guy in the audience, including past roommates, active phone lines, and his mom's credit report using *ONLY HIS SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER*).

his assertion is that privacy is dead, not because Big Brother in D.C. is watching, but because Big Defense Contrator is watching. The government, sick of trying to ram through legislation on what it can and can't do with data it collects on its citizens, is now sub-contracting all kinds of tasks. For example, perhaps the Feds can't do a nation-wide driver's license photo scan without inciting privacy concerns; however, if most of the states sub-contract out their photo processing to a contractor on advice from big brother, then that contractor hires itself to the big brother and sells *RESULTS* from some data mining query (but never the data itself), then big brother hasn't violated any privacy rights. Similarly for phone logs, criminal databases, airline data, medicare, drivers license, health databases, traffic tickets etc.

he told me the name of the database we should all really be afraid of, bigger than Echelon, but i forgot its name.

Re:Reason?

[sgt_doom]

HOLY CRAP!!! Don't you EVER read the newspapers??? About 3 to 4 months ago, FBI guy arrested for child porn stuff. Awhile prior to that, big scandal about feebs trying to pull scam on Wall Street brokerage and people, prior to that, those FBI people convicted of being Mafia snitches, gave criminals inside information leading to murders of FBI informants. Ever hear of Ruby Ridge? FBI Assistant Director (under Louis "the Sicilian" Freeh's reign) was demoted before being tried, and convicted for obstruction of justice, falsification of evidence, etc., etc. Later his sentence was overturned when Bushies came into power....Please get with the program and stay current...and note I haven't even mentioned the five FBI agents busted for selling secrets to the Soviets over the preceding thirty years....

Re:Reason?

[abaddon314159]

Last year at Blackhat after my presentation, FBI agents showed up (without a warrent) and started making demands for the video of my presentation and all the materials related to it, I don't doubt for a second that they would have arrested me had though known ahead of time that I was actually going to give my presenation...whatever he was going to present, someone was pissed about it...

After my experience with those clowns I have very little faith in their judgement or their respect for law...

--Mike Lynn

Re:Reason?

[iminplaya]

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'.

Not enough info

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

Stop the conspiracy posting... we know nothing yet

[plasmacutter]

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.

Rambam speaking

[Caffeinated Geek]

On the subject of Rambam check out previous talks given at HOPE conferences. He's a good speaker and quite interesting on the topic of information availability. He stated a couple of weeks ago in an interview leading up to this conference's talk that he had planed to do the same basic presentation at the last hope but the "victim" got cold feet at the last moment after he realized just how much information was available and threatened to sue. If you listen to the old presentations he does make a point that almost any information is available legally but it is more difficult to get it legally than illegally. I have to believe from hearing him speak several time that what he would have done for this presentation would at least to be best of his knowledge been legal.

Four previous presentations.

Privacy - Not What It Used To Be
http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/mp3/privacy.mp3

Databases and Privacy
http://h2k2.hope.net/media/databases.mp3

Information on the Masses with Steve Rambam.
http://h2k.hope.net/post/panels/h2kinfo.mp3

Info for Masses
ftp://ftp.2600.com/pub/oth/beyondh/nfo4mses.ra

Re:Show.

[Chris Tucker]

"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>

Re:1984 Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is that in 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein is "the Enemy of the People" after having once been a leading Party member almost at the level of Big Brother.

It's not really funny if you know who he is. "Emmanuel Goldstein" is the founder of 2600, and that's not his real name (it's Eric Corley). The name was deliberately chosen to draw the parallels you're attributing to coincidence.

Re:oh, I agree

[misanthrope101]

How long has Joseph Padilla been in jail? Have they had enough time yet? My credulity is a bit strained these days, I admit. But the current government has repeatedly claimed the authority to detain anyone, for any length of time, without having to meet any evidentiary or due process standard. If they come out with some dire claims about this arrest, you might think, "well, then there's something to this, after all," but until they present evidence, we have to assume that he's innocent. That skepticism has to be automatic and unconditional to be effective.

Yes, I'm advocating a bit of hostility towards government actions, because the preservation of freedom requires just that. Otherwise, we start trusting government, giving them the benefit of the doubt, a bit of time, a bit more time, and eventually you do reach a state where the government can detain anyone for an indefinite length of time without needing the formality of charging them. I'm not demanding that they explain anything to me, only that I'm going to assume that he's innocent until evidence is presented at trial, and he's convicted of a crime. The mentality that considers that unreasonable is what I was criticizing. You have to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and I give mine to the accused, every time. By definition the only alternative is to give the government the benefit of the doubt.

Re:1984 Reference

[dr_dank]

Parallels between the Junior Anti-sex League and the pack of geeks in attendance don't seem coincidental either

Re:oh, I agree

[learn fast]

Here's another example:

Benemar Benatta was arrested in September, 2001 after the 9/11 dragnet. The government determined he was innocent in November, 2001. He was held in solitary confinement for 6 months anyway.

He was released... yesterday. July 22, 2006. That's right, held without charges even though he was known to be innocent for almost 5 years.

I'm not making this up, here's the link

you're living in a pre-9/11 world, my friend

[misanthrope101]

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

Now THAT was funny. No, they don't need a warrant, or probable cause, nor does an arrest, or being in jail for any length of time imply guilt of anything. He (and you, or I, or anyone) can be arrested and held in detention as long as the federal government wants to, without any charges. They won't come out and say "we don't need to charge him, and we'll keep him as long as we want," but they consistently deny any overt checks on their power to do so. This is a slam-dunk, already-passed, fait accompli type of thing. The precedent has already been set with Padilla and a few others, and once the feds discovered that there is no formidable public outrage, it's only a matter of slowly, ever so slowly, increasing the frequency with which it is done. If you arrest 10,000 people tomorrow without charge the public would never stand for it, but if you get them used to it gradually, they'll not only support it but heap scorn and contempt on anyone who would criticize something so critical to our "safety." By gradually acclimatizing the population to detention without charge, they slowly make it normal and acceptable, and eventually the practice can expand beyond supposedly one-off "emergency" cases like Padilla or the terrorist of the week.

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.

Re:you're living in a pre-9/11 world, my friend

[misanthrope101]

Soooooo I shouldn't note concerning developments until we have a full-fledged police state? I shouldn't say "if we're not careful, we'll end up with a police state" until we do, in fact, have a police state?

And you feel this proves the Fourth Amendment is going down the toilet? That we all should shiver in our beds because the Feds might arrest us at any moment, for no reason at all?

Well, no. I said neither, and implied neither. What I said is, in fact, correct, and you can be arrested and held without charge as long as the government wants to hold you. If they want you to be tortured, they can have you secreted away to a prison where there is no oversight, and no accountability if you're beaten to death. I know you'd like to rephrase this as "oh my god they're killing all the babies, everywhere, without exception!" so I seem like a lunatic, instead of addressing what I'm actually saying. Your problem is that what I'm actually saying has already come to pass. You're arguing not with a lunatic describing hypothetical doomesday scenarios, but a concerned person who is worried about individual occurrences that can easily become a trend if we don't oppose them on principle.

You see, I care about the principle, and if you care about the principle, you don't wait for x or x+500 cases, because it's wrong the very first time you see it. If that first time is met with swift correction, and the person is freed (or charged, so due process is honored), the people responsible fired or demoted, and a public committment made to due process, then no, you don't take to the streets decrying a headlong slide into tyranny. But when the President and Attorney General firmly stand by their decision, and repudiate any possible oversight over or check on this authority, then, well, yes, you moron, I'm going to be concerned.

At what point would you consider it a legitimate concern? 10 people? 100? 10,000? The U.S. is a nation of 300 million people, and we already imprison more than anyone else on the planet, so you're going to have to give me numbers. If you've read my other posts at all, you must notice that what I'm concerned about is the slow normalization of imprisonment without trial. Every one that goes unchallenged makes it closer to normal, makes it more acceptable, and raises the bar of what we have to see before we can raise questions without being called alarmist by people like you. Torture is already normalized in the public consciousness, so when I say it's wrong, I find that I have to justify what I'm saying. The problem is that what people are willing to accept will change to fit what they've already accepted. And my friend, I'm not accepting any of it.

you can't really call all of them "suspects"

[misanthrope101]

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.

so when exactly do we close the barn door?

[misanthrope101]

By the time your conditions are met, it would be too late. If I knew a guy who used the word "nigger," and talked a lot about "state's rights" and "people not knowing their place," I'd publicly shame him and make every effort to call him out. What I wouldn't do is blow him off just because I haven't seen him lynch anyone. I know what the code words are, what the core ideas are for that worldview, and they aren't that hard to spot. Similarly, we know what the core structures of totalitarianism are: imprisonment without trial, torture, secret prisons, and so on. Just as I know someone's a racist even if they haven't lynched anyone, I know the roots of totalitarianism, even if we don't live in the society you describe in your post.

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?"