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HOPE Speaker Rombom Charged with Witness Tampering
An anonymous reader writes "Steven Rombom -- a.k.a. "Steven Rambam" -- the licensed private investigator who was arrested Saturday by FBI agents minutes before his talk on privacy at the Hope Number Six hacker convention in New York -- is being charged with witness tampering and obstruction of justice in a money laundering case the government is pursuing against Albert Santoro, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney, according to Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog. The government alleges that Santoro hired Rombom to locate a government confidential informant whom Santoro accuses of entrapment, and that Rombom visited the informant's in-laws under the guise of an FBI agent and tried to convince them tha their son-in-law was a danger to their daughter and grandkids."
What makes you think it's all true and he's (note the apostrophe) guilty?
The FBI did 2600 a favor by doing this during the convention...I'm sure this arrest will bring more attention to 2600 and the HOPE conventions, watch how much the attendance goes up for the next con due to the added publicity.
> "Innocent until proven guilty"
Incorrect. Its 'Presumed innocent until proven guilty'. This statement is meant to infer that the courts should 'presume innocence' and let the evidence convince the judge/jury of the accusations. If you were innocent until proven guilty, then only innocent people would be convicted of crimes.
I know its sounds nit-pickish, but its obvious some people really don't understand this.
Um, no. The best way to make a stir would be to arrest him during his speech, which they did not do.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Erm, why on Earth would they want to do that? Assuming that the FBI was acting in good faith, what would be the advantage in letting a suspect have a few more minutes of freedom - possibly enough for someone to figure out what was happening and warn him? Wouldn't it be their obligation to apprehend him (and theoretically remove him from public threat) as soon as possible?
Then why not nab him at home or the office, why wait until 5 minutes before he's due to speak at a grey hat hacker conference? It's sending a political message. Also, you HOPE and DEFCONers, keep in mind that just because the feds haven't shut it down and arrested everyone don't mean this won't be the year they do.
Of course, most people who go know that; that's why they use aliases, pay cash at the door, wear weird makeup and hairdye, etc. Nothing like some black eye makeup to throw off the facial recognition software.....................man, I feel like I'm giving away the best tricks. It's in general pretty good natured becuase it's expected that loads of Feds are showing up (spot the fed contest, etc.) I'm pretending to be a Fed this year.
Anyway, don't put it beyond the Feds or other law enforcement to do political moves. All the people who are saying "they just did it because it was convenient" are failing to see the truth. They saw the opportunity to nab a criminal and AT THE SAME TIME send a "message" to the hacker community that Big Brother IS watching and to keep your nose clean.
Here's some conspiracy fodder for y'all: anyone who's read any of Kinky Friedman's books will recognize the name Rambam. He's a longtime personal friend of the Kinkster, and appears in his books, as one of the few characters who doesn't need a checkup from the neck up. Could this arrest be an attempt to discredit Kinky, who is running for a political office this year? The same office once held by George W Bush: Governor of Texas. I smell a Ratso..!
(this is not a