FBI Raids Security Researcher's Home

Sparr0 writes, "The FBI has raided the home of Christopher Soghoian, the grad student who created the NWA boarding pass site. Details can be found on his blog including a scanned copy of the warrant. The bad news is that he really did break the law. The good news is that Senator Charles Schumer did it first, 19 months ago, on an official government website no less. The outcome of this trial should be at least academically interesting. At best, it could result in nullifying some portion of the law(s) that the TSA operates under." Read on for Sparr0's take on what laws may apply in this case.

Boiling down some of the legalese, the charges (if any are filed) will be "conspiracy to knowingly present a false and fictitious claim upon or against the United States, or any department or agency thereof in violation of USC 18 (secs. 2, 371, 1036, 1343, 2318) and USC 49 (secs. 46314 and 46316) and 49 CFR (secs. 1540.103 and 1540.105)" (edited for brevity).

Comments

Too bad it has to be this way

[Salvance]

Even faced with potential jail time, some people have a burning desire to be in the limelight. I wonder why Christopher Soghoian didn't just create a site anonymously. It would likely have the same effect, and he'd stay out of prison.

It's unfortunate that exposing holes in our security gets no press until someone actually leverages the hole to cause harm. For years before 9/11, the U.S. knew our airports were pitifully insecure, particularly Boston Logan, yet failed to do anything about it. So even though we'll be safer as a result of Christopher's work, he may be in prison. Unfortunately our society aplauds the whistleblower only well after the whistle has been blown, and the government aplauds them almost never at all.

Re:Too bad it has to be this way

[Simon Garlick]

The fact that you think Soghoian should have HIDDEN HIS IDENTITY FROM THE GOVERNMENT in order to identify a flaw in official security processes says a lot about your government.

Re:Too bad it has to be this way

[ricree]

Like others have said, it wouldn't be all that hard for him to have done it anonymously, but he shouldn't have to in the first place.

Re:Too bad it has to be this way

[psykocrime]

He didn't have to publicly supply a way to bypass security.

He didn't.

That is endangering everyone unnecessarily.

No, it's not. As plenty of others have already pointed out, it doesn't matter if Osama f'in Bin Laden is sitting
in the seat beside you on your flight... As long as he doesn't have a bomb, or any other means of creating problems
on the flight, the fact that it's Osama is irrelevant. So these fake boarding passes *might* help somebody
get on a plane who isn't allowed... big deal, they will still be searched, run through a metal detector, bomb-sniffing
crap, etc. This is completely insignificant from a security standout.

And even if it were a security flaw, people have to realize that with freedom comes danger. It's probably a little bit more
dangerous to live in a very free country, than one with a strict totalitarian regime who controls every movement everybody makes... but most
people will take that tradeoff. I know I sure will. "Give me Liberty or give me Death" is not just a cute sound bite to me.

Re:Too bad it has to be this way

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't have to publicly supply a way to bypass security. That is endangering everyone unnecessarily. First he should have contacted the airport security officials privately about it. If they did nothing, he should have then announced that he had found a way to bypass security, but not given any specifics. If they still did nothing, he should have publicly reported the problem.

He was acting towards the end of your suggested sequence of events, it has already got to the point of being publicly reported - what Soghoian did was effectivly bring it to the public's attention.

• This was such an obvious flaw - one could reasonably assume security officials knew about it
• Many others - including Senator Schume, and Slate Magagine (http://www.slate.com/id/2113157/) had drawn attention to this "vulnerability" prior to Soghoian
• Soghoian had tried to publicise the problem previously without sucess - then he had his brilliant idea of producing his PHP script to demonstrate the ease with which the vulnerability could be exploited - only by doing this did he really succeed in fulfiling his duty to publicly report the problem. He has done a better job than either the Senator or Slate Magazine or the others who knew about this flaw in bringing it to the public's attention - he should be applauded for doing that.
• The fact that he has published on anonymity Preserving in P2P Networks strongly suggests that he could have acted anonymously if he had wanted to (or felt he needed to)

I am quite shocked that if Slashdot was the Jury, and the Jury's opinions were the initial opinions of the individual Jurors and not those of the Jury acting as a committee following deliberation that we wouldn't have unaminously aquited Soghoian. I'm in the UK - and this scares me - given the state of the extridaition arrangements the UK has agreed to with the USA and the potential for indefinate imprisonment in the US for non-citizens. I've been to the US twice on business this year, reading this and the countless articles like it will certainly make me think twice before arranging another trip.

Re:For his sake

[Simon Garlick]

the second he goes missing the entire internet will raise a royal hell storm

Oh no, not a hell storm of nerds posting anonymous comments on Internet messageboards! Anything but that!

Re:What did he expect?

[illegalcortex]

Look, if my house has poor security, you're still in trouble if you start a factory to create keys for criminals to break in.

You wanna rethink that analogy there, "Reality Master"? Cause I'm pretty sure they call those places "locksmiths."

Who are the terrorists in this case?

[PhunkySchtuff]

My dictionary definition of a terrorist:
terrorist noun A person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.
terrorism noun The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

I quote from his blog:

I didn't sleep at home last night. It's fair to say I was rather shaken up.

I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed.

Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers - and various other important things. I have no idea what time they actually performed the search, but the warrant was approved at 2AM. I'm sincerely glad I wasn't in bed when they raided the house. That would have been even more scary.

This is a case of classic police-state gestapo tactics.
This guy hasn't done anything wrong, he hasn't even hilighted a previously unknown security flaw, and now he's subject to this kind of treatment...

Security post 9/11

[Cr33pybusguy]

Security is a joke in airports.

I was a airplane re-fueler at Edmonton International Airport post 9/11 (Shell Aerocenter 2002-2003) . I can tell you this. EVERY refueler and most baggage handlers carry knives or a multi-tool (ie. leatherman) of some sort. So do many pilots. Why is this? We use them to lever open hatches, latches, open your bags for the video cameras ect. (I shit you not. I know several guys who carry those little keys that fit the little locks on your bags so they can poke around in your bags) It would be a snap for some one on the inside to plant a knife. Or even a small gun.

But how do you get past security you ask. I'll tell you. We don't. We have our own entrances and exits and these don't use metal detectors or our steel-toed boots would set them off every time. The only thing that is our security check is our id tags. Sure we go through an extensive process before we are issued one but there's lots of criminals working at your airports. That and they aren't that tough to forge. If you have a "friend" at your local DMV you could probably do it.

So security is tight at the terminal? You can charter a small to large plane at your local FBO. We never check you or your bags. Why would we? We think you are some rich guy who jaunts around on his private jet. Perfect for loading with explosives and plowing into buildings on you jihadic quest.

But what about the regular people who go through security? Did you know that you are allowed 10 packs of matches but no lighters? I can do a shit load of damage with ten packs of matches and I'm sure you could too! Oh yeah the metal detectors that you walk through aren't sensitive enough to pick up a bic lighter. If you get caught with one. Just say oops, my bad I forgot about it and make sure they see your pack of smokes. They'll take the lighter away and thats it!

If you are worried when they swab your laptop and you've been chopping some of columbia's finest ontop of it don't worry. They are searching for bomb residue. But here's a secret. They don't swab your MP3 players, video cameras, and cell phones. They just scan them with the machines. I'm not sure how many ounces of high explosive you fit in a video camera but i'm guessing it's a fair amount.

What about sniffing dogs? I fly all over the place to meet up or disembark from ships. I can't remember the last time I saw one. Why? They are a bitch to train. (pun semi-intended) Something like one out of every 20 makes the grade. And THEN they are split up for K-9 tracking, bomb sniffing, narcotics, sniffing, blind leading ect. The odds of running into a dog is pretty slim unless ou are at one of the well funded big airports. (LAX, Heathrow ect.) Most of the guys who I work with on multi-national ships regularily bring some drugs home. Not alot, but a few grams to help make the welcome home party a bit more welcoming.

These flaws are just a few I could think of off the top of my head. So whats the point? If you are creative enough (and hackers prove this regularily) and determined enough you can get past and security thats in place. Especially when it's so shoddy like it is at our airports.

So to be honest some one forging a boarding pass should be the least of their worries. Happy flying!