EBay Hacker's Conviction Upheld

An anonymous reader writes "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in the case of Jerome Heckenkamp, the former University of Wisconsin student convicted of federal computer crime charges in 2004 after hacking into Qualcomm, Cygnus Solutions and other companies, and defacing eBay. Heckenkamp was caught after a system administrator at the university hacked into his Linux box to gather evidence that Heckenkamp had been attacking the college mail server. The court ruled today that such counter-hacks are allowable under the 'special needs' exception to the Fourth Amendment, and upheld the warrantless search."

Comments

OpenBSD

[Kandenshi]

hmm, got hacked eh? Maybe he should have been running OpenBSD instead? :P

Re:Correct decision

[ultranova]

Also, at the time that this incident occurred, there wasn't an integrated capability to block MACs on the Housing network by the central IT organization, for various reasons. The most immediately available option was blackholing the IP, which was done, at which point the user simply manually assigned himself an unused IP on the DHCP network and continued malicious activity. The central IT organization does not operate the Housing network, and also didn't have immediate capability to physically disable ports in dorm rooms.

Today, we have all of those capabilities. Then, the only option for dealing with a very critical situation was taking all steps to actively ensure and verify that this computer did not come back on the network during the evolving emergency situation occurring over a very short period of time.

I can't be bothered to install brakes to my car for various reasons. Therefore, if I find myself on collision course with another car, my only option for dealing with this very critical emergency situation is to steer to a sidewalk and run over pedestrians. This is okay because, after all, it is an evolving emergency situation occurring over a very short period of time.

Furthermore, I can't be bothered to get up on time for various reasons; therefore I have the right to run the red lights at 200 mph in the morning rush of a city center, killing a few schoolkids on the way, and then complain bitterly on Slashdot that I'm being oppressed when the speed cameras catch me and I'll get a fine.

And since the fine loses me money, and I can't be bothered to lower my level of spending for that month for various reasons, I have the right to solve the resulting financial problem by robbing a bank. Goes without saying, really.

Do you get the point, or do you need more examples of your own logic applied to other situations ?

Re:Correct decision

[ultranova]

Nope, because all of that logic is fallacious, and further, wouldn't be held as allowable and appropriate responses to the situations you describe by a court.

The logic is yours: because you couldn't be bothered to set up the network so that you could cut off a malicious machine, you felt it was justified to break the law to deal with the resulting situation. It is indeed quite fallacious, so perhaps you should stop trying to justify your actions with it.

But tell me: if this guy had had proper security on his machine, what would you have done ? Committed harakiri ? I guess you got very lucky that he was even more incompetent than you appear to be, at least based on your own arguments.

Your beef isn't with me. It's with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which routinely upholds personal rights and privacy, and often sides against government interest. And yet, it still found this action appropriate.

Since the government wasn't a party to this case, why would the 9th CCoA's attitude towards it have any relevance ? And from what I've understood, it seems that they simply said that the evidence gathered this way is admissible in a trial, not that the action was justified.