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Man Jailed After Using LimeWire For ID Theft
angry tapir sends along this excerpt from PC World:
"A Seattle man has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for using the LimeWire file-sharing service to lift personal information from computers across the US. The man, Frederick Wood, typed words like 'tax return' and 'account' into the LimeWire search box. That allowed him to find and access computers on the LimeWire network with shared folders that contained tax returns and bank account information. ... He used the information to open accounts, create identification cards and make purchases. 'Many of the victims are parents who don't realize that LimeWire is on their home computer,' [said Kathryn Warma of the US Attorney's Office]."
'Many of the victims are parents who don't realize that LimeWire is on their home computer,' [said Kathryn Warma of the US Attorney's Office]."
Apparently the prosecutor did not agree:
* Wood was sentenced Tuesday to 39 months in prison and three years of supervised release for wire fraud, accessing a protected computer without authorization
* to commit fraud, and aggravated identity theft. He was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Key word is "protected computer". Not sure how something sharing *.* on limewire is considered "protected". Guy needed a better lawyer.
Many people from older generations that have not had the time to learn how to use the computer aside from e-mail and online news have no clue. And computers aren't as static as we geeks like to think they are, and they slow down or speed up occasionally, install updates, etc.
For someone who has really no clue how it works and isn't even used to using it, it's very easy to see how they could not notice.
Cripes, with some of the crazy emails around here, I -have- to read the entire email to be absolutely sure it wasn't for me.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The U.S. Congress -- More specifically, the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act expanded the definition of "protected computer" to include basically any computer with a network connection. More information is available at:
-William Brendel
Some corrections:
This law actually states it is a crime when "Knowingly accessing a computer without authorization in order to obtain national security data". So even if the computer is not protected, it is a crime if you access it knowingly without authorization to to retrieve national security information. That part's not so bad.
It does state though that "Knowingly accessing a protected computer with the intent to defraud and there by obtaining anything of value" is a crime. So using a computer to commit fraud is worse than stealing the information another way? I don't get it.
Sorry for the inaccuracies in the first post.
I'm not putting music theft and ID theft on par with each other, merely comparing our culture's attitudes towards each. My point is that we justify one thing which is clearly wrong (stealing music) and condemn another that is clearly wrong (ID theft). In no way did I trivialize ID theft or claim that it isn't a big deal.
And just for future reference, you lose all credibility with reasonable people when you call for the burning of an individual with a differing opinion. Grow. Up.
-William Brendel
SSN is required for applying to the Federal Government
What I said was it is debatable. Personally, I think infringing a copyright is wrong to a certain extent. IMO Infringing a ten year old copyright is wrong, enforcing a fifty year old copyright is just as wrong. Enforcing a dead person's copyright is even worse.
Nowhere did I say or even imply that it's ok to steal from a corporation. Don't go putting words in my mouth, mr strawman.
If you're not American your mileage will probably vary, but my concept of what copyright should be is based on the US Constitution, which says that authors and inventors can have a temporary monopoly; NOT ownership. I don't see fifty years as temporary, no matter what SCOTUS says (I agree with Lessig, who lost the case). And I don't see anywhere in the constitution that gives congress the right to pass a copyright or patent law that allows transfer of copyright. License, yes; that's the whole purpose. Sale, no. It isn't "intellectual property", it's a limited time monopoly on distribution.
The whole purpose of American copyright is to give authors and artists incentive to create works, so that they will become public property after a limited time.
I say this as a copyright holder, BTW. My registered copyrights on Artificial Insanity and HRG are almost thirty years old. If you can find a copy (and a machine to run them on), feel free to copy them. They should have been in the public domain by 2017 at the very latest, instead of long after I'm dead. I have no qualms whatever about sharing anything John Lee Hooker recorded.
Free Martian Whores!
...and that's what privilege escalation exploits are for. Seriously, with a "regular user" account, there are a hundred and eleventy ways to get root. Fake login screen, anyone?
On top of that, are you 100% sure you will log out when you step away from your computer? Are you 100% sure your kids won't just hop on face-space while you're logged in?
Your "solution" falls way short of the mark. In the era of $200 netbooks, only a reckless parent would share a PC with a child.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Being a computer tech. and mechanic, I can say yes, we do.
I don't see how you can read the Cornell link (the actual law), and say that the law applies to any computer with a network connection. I guess maybe you are claiming that if you buy something on the web with your computer that it is being used in interstate commerce, but that is not correct. Your computer is not performing any transaction, it is just instructing the computer on the other end to do it.
Privilege escalation? You've got to be kidding me. I challenge you to find an example of malware that attempts to exploit privilege escalation vulnerabilities. There might be a few out there, but based on my experience administering hundreds of windows boxes used by kids over the last ten years, they are not even remotely common.
In the real world where risk/reward ratio is considered, a separate limited account for the kids is an acceptable solution.
LOL at your experience.
Challenge Accepted.
Any kiddo only needs 5 minutes to insert those between your PC and your keyboard to get all your passwords.
Next challenge?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'