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UK Cops Want "Breathalyzers" For PCs
An anonymous reader writes "One of the UK's top cyber cops, detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie, says the top brass want to develop the equivalent of a breathalyzer for computers, a simple tool that could be plugged into a machine during a raid and retrieve evidence of illegal activity. McMurdie said the device was needed because of a record number of PCs were being seized by police and because the majority of cops don't have the skills to forensically analyse a computer."
That's pretty much like building a mind-reader to figure out if a person has ever committed a crime. Good luck with that.
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Because it's painfully clear your don't understand computer forensics either.
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Too late - in Britain, it is a crime to refuse to turn-over your encryption key to the police when requested (no 5th amendment rights).
[Insert pithy quote here]
Top brass also wants a date with Scarlett Johansson. And a pony for each officer on the force.
I figure the odds are about the same for each.
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Won't that only work with alcohol cooled systems?
Yeah, but unless the alcohol cooled computer is driving a car, I don't see how that's illegal.
But seriously, people, don't let your PC drive under the influence. Yeah, yeah, it says that it's "overclocked' and much more efficient than when it's just running on water, but then it'll kill a little old C64 crossing the street and wind up in "Pound Me In the USB Port" Prison.
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What happens if you "forget" the key? Like this: "Your honour, I once experimented with encryption, but could not understand how it worked. The files must be leftovers of that installation. I never used them and they must be empty." How can they prove you are lying, short of breaking the encryption and finding the evidence?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I really think this is the same mentality that eventually comes to see individual rights and due process as pesky "inefficiencies" that only interfere with "real police work". They seriously need to tell new police recruits that their job is not easy and is not supposed to be easy. If any of them don't like that they should also be told where the exits are.
I think this is another example of relatively well-meaning people who fail to comprehend how dangerous their intentions are because they don't think them through. Let's say there is a device that can be plugged into a PC (maybe the USB port?) and almost instantly tell you whether it has illegal content with no need for expert analysis. Yeah I know that I should also posit the existence of the tooth fairy but bear with me. Who makes this device? How trustworthy are they? Do competitors or other rivals oddly happen to have a higher percentage of "illegal" PCs? Is the device a black box or can the average person examine and scrutinize it? If the cops already don't have the staff or the expertise to perform forensic analysis on PCs, what's our guarantee that they will correctly use this device or that they can offer any sort of assurance that the way it is used won't violate anyone's civil rights? What's to prevent criminals from obtaining one (by whatever means) and making sure that their illegal data isn't where this thing is looking? If I can think of this in a few minutes, WTF are these people smoking that they consider this a serious proposal? Or do they simply not care about these concerns?
You know what you'll probably never see? The police "top brass" asking for a device to help make sure that their officers don't violate anyone's civil rights and that they follow all the laws concerning due process.
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Forget a tool for computers. We need a tool like this for physical crime scenes. You know: something that would, like, scan crime scenes and find, like, relevant DNA evidence and shit. It could even have an option where it would print out an arrest warrant with the name of the murderer on it.
"Reasonable suspicion" is the key phrase here.
If the cop stops you for running a red light and sees something suspicious then he can go further.
But stopping you for one thing does NOT give them the authority to check for everything they can think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion
I used to do a bit of work at the local police department. In my time I set them up a forensics station for PC's.
The most important part of the entire project was ensuring the data was not tampered with (or deleted on accident!) in order to actually use what was found for anything useful.
Wasn't a very hard project what we did was setup a PC with two removable bays and a write protect jumper and showed the officers which part needs to come out of PC brought in as evidence and how to put it into the removable caddy and launch the script that made an image of the drive. At no time while in police custody would the hard drive have power unless it was write protected, and was in an sealed evidence bag if not being used. Once the image was completed they would remove the original and do all the forensics on the copy, which got the same evidence bag treatment as the original.
What?
It's an apt post.
Spyware snoops around and grabs whatever it finds and deems to be unbecoming of a law abiding computer user.
They then hand that off (and the pc itself, likely) to a group of people who will do the analysis.
The post above you implies that this tool will not be of much actual help, and I agree. A "clean" report from the tool means nothing, and for any actual raids the computers will still be combed over by a forensic team. Any "dirty" report from the tool will result in the same outcome.
What this is really about is passing the buck and keeping face - the cops don't want to look incompetent, so they create this tool and publicize it.
Any failure of the cops will be blamed on the tool still being a work in progress, hackers actively working against the tool, etc.
Any responsibility on the part of the cops will be passed off immediately to the forensics teams. When the tool gives out a "dirty" report, the cops will fill out the green "Suspicion of Illegal Digital Bits on Electrical Personal Computing Device" form and hand over the report and the pc to the forensics team.
Once the tool is accepted as good and trustworthy, departments will find any excuse at all to use them to harass and extort money from the public.
Noise complaint?
Let's bang on the doors, give them shit, and check their computers for illegal activity. You just KNOW that music isn't paid for.
No, sir, since we heard music from the street, and we clearly can see you have a computer, and sound system, and a lack of physical CDs/tapes/records, in plain sight. We have reason to believe a crime has been committed. We don't need a warrant to perform a cursory search. If the search turns up anything, your equipment will be confiscated as evidence.
Actually, if you can hear music from the street, it can be called "unlicensed public performing/playing".
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