Man Tracked Down and Arrested Via WoW

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Man Tracked Down and Arrested Via WoW

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 1, 2010 @07:09PM from the time-to-bubble-hearth dept.

kabome writes with this excerpt from a story about an alleged drug dealer who was located by law enforcement thanks to World of Warcraft: "Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson. ... Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location."

29 of 464 comments (clear)

conundrum by Sporkinum · 2010-01-01 19:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not sure what is worse, the dealer, or Blizzard. I'd hazard a guess that Blizzard has ruined more lives than this dealer has. Though the cops will word a request to sound like a subpoena to the uninitiated.

--
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
1. Re:conundrum by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-01 19:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Is this even a question? Blizzard is the greater evil for bowing down to law enforcement unnecessarily. This guy isn't a robber or murderer. I suppose that defending a drug dealer's privacy wouldn't be good PR but I don't think there is much question that the "War on Drugs" has ruined far more lives than Blizzard and the drug dealer combined.
2. Re:conundrum by phantomfive · 2010-01-01 19:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Giving information to law enforcement is not "bowing down." The police are working for us, they are our employees. I know this is a hard concept for some people to grasp, since from the time you are a kid the 'authorities,' who at that time are your parents, are always preventing you from doing what you want, but the fact is police are agents of society, they are not our enemies, they do the job we give them. You of course know that police would stop arresting people for doing drugs as soon as we make selling drugs legal. It's our choice. Cooperating with the police to do a job we give them is not evil. Cooperating when they step outside their bounds is evil, and giving them an evil job to do is evil, but evil is very often no more than an opinion.
  
  The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal. If you want to change the law, all you have to do is convince people that drugs should be legalized. Few politicians are willing to bring up the topic of legalization because they know they will be voted out of office if they do.
  
  --
  Qxe4
3. Re:conundrum by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-01 20:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I dislike the way that you talk about good and evil, as if you have some absolute ethical system to base this on. I think it would be easier to understand if you tried to argue whether or not the actions of Blizzard and the police were moral acts or not. I would also include in your argument whether or not Blizzard or the police lost anything of moral value with their actions.
  Your argument on the morality of the police's actions (and cooperating with them) is flawed because you base that morality on the morality of the general public and their laws as if they are infallible. Additionally, you need to evaluate each act of cooperation individually. If Blizzard volunteered information that lead a peaceful Chinese dissident to be arrested, most people would think that would be immoral. On the other hand, if Blizzard volunteered information that lead a child pornographer to be arrested, most people would think that would be moral. Still others would view both as immoral because Blizzard should have an inherent duty to protect information and our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information when it is needed.
  My view is the later, and I also view our laws on drugs as immoral. Cooperating with police with observations is one thing, mining your data is another. I think it is immoral to release protected information about someone without a warrant.
4. Re:conundrum by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-01 20:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You raise good points but you discount the fact that police forces are only a necessary evil of a modern society. Police are in theory there to "protect citizens" - but often times in practice the goal of protecting citizens puts them at odds against citizen's rights.
  In a perfect "police" world the police would know everything about you and be able to monitor everything that you do. Then they could perfectly catch criminal acts. Is this an idyllic situation? No - because we do not live in a perfect world and because police are not perfect (especially considering that the police actively discriminate against intelligence).
  There is a reason why the constitution outlines a good deal of protections against the police. Police left unfettered will continue to grow in influence and power and intrude further into citizen's lives. It is a fine balance between accounting for the marginal increase in personal liberties as a result of police stopping the intrusion of liberties of an individual committing a crime and the marginal loss of personal liberties from the police having the tools to stop the aforementioned crime.
  In regards to the "majority of people" wanting drugs to be illegal - when you create a positive feedback loop of turning drug users into criminals it makes it relatively difficult to break the cycle. The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal? There is a reason that the United States is a Republic and not a pure democracy. In the words of Alexander Hamilton - the masses are asses. Irrational fears often overcome rational deduction. All you have to do is look at segregation, Japanese internment camps, and the Salem Witch Trials to realize that majority rule is not always the right way to go about deciding things in emotionally charged and sensitive matters.
5. Re:conundrum by glitch23 · 2010-01-01 20:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  In regards to the "majority of people" wanting drugs to be illegal - when you create a positive feedback loop of turning drug users into criminals it makes it relatively difficult to break the cycle. The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal?
  Many laws are the result of societal standards and morals imposed hundreds of years ago (and reflect the religious underpinnings of the United States). In many states adultery is still on the books as being illegal but as societal standards and morals are lowered and because there are bigger criminals to go after the police just don't pay attention to adulterers anymore. The vast majority of the population is against murder (should it be legalized despite majority rule?). Not killing someone is also one of the Ten Commandments; so is not stealing. The point being that some laws are a result of the standards and morals that the U.S. society possesses and imposes on themselves based on the Christian faith. So, going back to your original question, for the very reasons I laid out above, yes, gay marriage should be illegal. The majority of people have already voted in many states to not legalize gay marriage. Most of those who voted against legalizing it did so based on their beliefs and faith. Homosexuals complain heterosexuals are not tolerant but homosexuals believe they should get their way and do not want to tolerate the decisions and beliefs of heterosexuals.
  
  There is a reason that the United States is a Republic and not a pure democracy. In the words of Alexander Hamilton - the masses are asses. Irrational fears often overcome rational deduction. All you have to do is look at segregation, Japanese internment camps, and the Salem Witch Trials to realize that majority rule is not always the right way to go about deciding things in emotionally charged and sensitive matters.
  Majority rule is not always the right way to go however in most cases it is. Maybe you should do homework to find out all the different situations in which majority rule *was* the right way to go instead of choosing only 3 examples of when majority rule did not make sense. More often than not the majority knows what is best. People believe in the power of numbers and having others who share your beliefs provides a support mechanism. That is just one method in which the citizens of the United States can unite despite certain minority groups wanting to tear them apart to satisfy their own agendas.
  
  --
  this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
6. Re:conundrum by ildon · 2010-01-01 22:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Your post would have made sense if he hadn't appended "but evil is very often no more than an opinion." to his first paragraph. The poster was purposefully defining evil in his own way, and extending it beyond what one might normally consider worthy of the label of "evil", because that's exactly what the post he was replying to did.
  A simple reading of Blizzard's own privacy policy, which you agree to by using their service, is all that is necessary to know if they overstepped their bounds or not.
  I haven't read it because I don't care and it's irrelevant to my point. Blizzard has no inherent responsibility to ensure their users' privacy beyond their stated intentions. Nor does any other company. At least some of the onus is on the users to control their own private data. If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.
7. Re:conundrum by OeLeWaPpErKe · 2010-01-02 00:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Your argument on the morality of the police's actions (and cooperating with them) is flawed because you base that morality on the morality of the general public and their laws as if they are infallible. Additionally, you need to evaluate each act of cooperation individually. If Blizzard volunteered information that lead a peaceful Chinese dissident to be arrested, most people would think that would be immoral. On the other hand, if Blizzard volunteered information that lead a child pornographer to be arrested, most people would think that would be moral. Still others would view both as immoral because Blizzard should have an inherent duty to protect information and our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information when it is needed.
  Your argument only makes sense if you assume that your own morality beats out the morality of our laws, and consistently does so. If that were true, surely you could provide examples of this. How you in your daily life violate the law, go to jail for it, and still have better morality than everyone else. Surely you can provide a few examples of YOU doing this if this is true ... You demand perfect moral behavior from the police, so surely you'll understand that as you try to do some law-enforcement of your own, I demand the same perfect moral standard from you. Needless to say, you fail (as we all do).
  I don't understand how people can seriously demand this perfect morality from so many organisations. From the police, to congress, the army, (the UN has consistently failed to uphold every moral standard in existence, so people stopped expecting them to, it seems. UN soldiers get to rape, or kill Israelis through stupidity or outright malice, without reprecussions in New York)
  Furthermore even if you were a martyr-knight-saint, justification for your opinion would not just require that you're such a saint, but that sufficiently large numbers of people (ie. nearly all) have such saintly better-than-our-laws behavior. Sufficiently large numbers meaning so large that most criminals would be caught, most crimes prevented, not by the law, but by normal citizens.
  Obviously this is not happening. That makes, imho, the moral thing to do becomes cooperation with the authorities, in all cases, even when you're not sure about the morality of their actions.
  To be a good moral guardian, the law/police/... does not need to be perfect. It needs to be better than average. It needs to catch more criminals that John Q. Public does. It needs to prevent more crimes than an average very, very non-special American does.
  And quite frankly, I have little illusions about the morality of the police force. But I am absolutely convinced they do better than you.
8. Re:conundrum by xch13fx · 2010-01-02 01:26 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  from wow EULA
  
  C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.
  
  D. BLIZZARD MAY MONITOR, RECORD, REVIEW, MODIFY AND/OR DISCLOSE YOUR CHAT SESSIONS, WHETHER VOICE OR TEXT, WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, AND YOU HEREBY CONSENT TO SUCH MONITORING, RECORDING, REVIEW, MODIFICATION AND/OR DISCLOSURE. Additionally, you acknowledge that Blizzard is under no obligation to monitor Chat, and you engage in Chat at your own risk.
9. Re:conundrum by Cwix · 2010-01-02 04:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  As a veteran I take offense at that statement. By far and large the members of the military dont have mass rape and murder. There are almost 1.5 million people in the Unites States military. That is the current amount, and it doesnt include all of us veterans who are degenerated by your comment. By saying that the morality of the military or the police (Ive met a few in my day, and only one or two I would call bad cops) is worse then the normal citizen would be like saying that Maine (population 1.3 mil) are all morally worse than everyone else. You cannot sterotype 1.5 million people for a very vast amount of backgrounds.
  *sigh* I just realised I was talking to an AC so its pointless.
  
  --
  You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Impropriety by Raindance · 2010-01-01 19:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

One has to wonder, if Blizzard goes that far above and beyond requests of law enforcement and gives mountains of data in response to polite requests-- not even subpoenas-- how seriously do they take the privacy of *your* personal information?
I'm glad the bad guy got caught, etc, but handing over the keys to the kingdom to law enforcement without a subpoena implies, in my mind, that respect for users' privacy is simply not something Blizzard considers when they go about their business. Or rather, that such information is their property, not yours.
1. Re:Impropriety by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2010-01-01 19:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'm glad the bad guy got caught,
  Alleged bad guy. Even you, with your demonstrated skepticism, have been suckered in by the "if the cops want him, he must be guilty" mindset.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
2. Re:Impropriety by phantomfive · 2010-01-01 19:31 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  They were upfront about it: it's in the privacy policy. In general it says they won't give out your information to third parties without informing you, but they do make an exception for law enforcement:
  
  We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if you are violating the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for a Blizzard site or product, or may be causing injury to or interference (intentionally or unintentionally) with Blizzard's rights or property, other users of a Blizzard site or product, or anyone else who could be harmed by your activities.
  They basically say if the police come, they'll have no problem giving up your information. I guess that is a problem for some people, but so far it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing.
  
  --
  Qxe4
3. Re:Impropriety by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-01 19:42 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  (wakes up, looks around)
  Is it 2010 now?
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
4. Re:Impropriety by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-01 19:45 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  On a different note a guy who was fairly senior in a large ISP here told me that one of their subscribers send whattlooked like a suicide note over IRC. The person who spotted it got onto the ISP, who gave the billing address to the local police in that jurisdiction. They got there just in time.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
5. Re:Impropriety by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2010-01-01 20:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Since when is killing oneself illegal?
  Surely you are joking? Almost every country in the world has laws against suicide. In the US it was only a decade or so ago that the last states took felony suicide and attempted suicide laws off the books.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
obligatory by phantomfive · 2010-01-01 19:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Penny Arcade did their thing about it.

It kind of sucks for that guy, but basically if you don't like laws, you'll usually be better off trying to change them than run away. There's generally nothing unethical about helping the police find someone who's accused of committing a crime.

--
Qxe4
1. Re:obligatory by phantomfive · 2010-01-01 19:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  They followed their privacy policy. The guy should have read it. This seems to be a surprise to you, so maybe you should have read it to, and if it bothers you, stop playing.
  
  --
  Qxe4
2. Re:obligatory by johncadengo · 2010-01-01 20:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Funny. I found out about it on penny arcade way before slashdot posted it.
  And on another note, there are plenty of unethical instances of helping the police find someone accused of a crime. Just ask Anne Frank.
  
  --
  My page.
strange by scapermoya · 2010-01-01 19:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

“I did a search off the IPaddress to locate him,” said Roberson. “I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address. I was not able to go streetside at the location, but I had him.”
this doesn't seem accurate. ip address -> long/lat -> address? no chance. i can believe that they used his ip to find him, but probably through his ISP. In my experience, those geographic traces are only very rough estimates. sounds like this cop thinks he lives in CSI or something. i wonder if any of it is true?

--
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
1. Re:strange by bmo · 2010-01-01 20:01 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Some IP geolocation websites have the correct town I live in, but none had the correct street, and others, well, they put me on the opposite coast in San Diego.
  One in particular had a way to "correct" it. I submitted 383212N 684648E.
  Tajikistan.
  --
  BM0
So... by Donkey_Hotey · 2010-01-01 19:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Just one drug dealer ratting out another. Move along, nothing to see here...

--
(There is supposed to be a Sarcmark® here, but my $1.99 check hasn't cleared, yet...)
Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use by PCM2 · 2010-01-01 19:42 · Score: 4, Informative

One has to wonder, if Blizzard goes that far above and beyond requests of law enforcement and gives mountains of data in response to polite requests-- not even subpoenas-- how seriously do they take the privacy of *your* personal information?
Well, though people do tend to gloss over the fine details in things like EULAs and Terms of Service, it's not as if Blizzard is hiding anything from its users. From the WoW Terms of Use:

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

Blizzard gets a request from law enforcement, Blizzard hands over the info, simple as that. (And actually, if it were my company I'd probably have a similar policy. A "polite request" is just about the only contact I'd ever want to have with law enforcement, and the sooner they disappear from my life the better.)

--
Breakfast served all day!
Heh. by headkase · 2010-01-01 19:44 · Score: 4, Interesting

What's Blizzard going to do when someone posing as law enforcement gets some information and then goes and murders that person... Hmm?

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Shh.
Did you read & understand the article? by Chmcginn · 2010-01-01 19:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Did you understand the article? The subpoena had no force of law, as it was being served out of their jurisdiction. Done correctly, it would have had to have been served via the court in the jurisdiction the entity providing the information resided in - a California court, not an Indiana one. Because of time/funding/whatever issues, the sheriff didn't bother going that route, but instead sent what was in essence a request, not a subpoena.

--
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
RTFA people... by CaptainPotato · 2010-01-01 19:48 · Score: 4, Informative

Blizzard was subpoenaed:
“None of that information was sound enough to pursue on its own, but putting everything we had together gave me enough evidence to send a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment. I knew exactly what he was playing — World of Warcraft. I used to play it. It’s one of the largest online games in the world.”
Due to the guy being in a different country, there was not a need to respond to it, but I guess that there would have been nothing to have stopped one being sought in Canada....

--
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
So he's not a drug dealer. by MrMista_B · 2010-01-01 19:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

He's an alleged drug dealer.
Which means he is not a drug dealer.
He is innocent.
(until proven guilty in a court of law, but that bit always gets left out)
Armory Link by doomy · 2010-01-01 19:59 · Score: 4, Funny

He is pretty bad at wow too.
Look at his Armory.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&n=Rastlynn

--
...free your source and the rest would follow...
Too much black-and-white thinking here by goodmanj · 2010-01-01 23:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nevermind the Internet angle, the real question here is an ancient one: should you cooperate with the police?
I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary -- if you don't, you and I are never going to see eye to eye so you might as well stop reading now. Law enforcement needs information to work properly. If citizens universally refuse to provide that information, the only way to get it is via direct police surveillance.
So you've got three options: A) police act without any information, B) they set up ubiquitous surveillance to get their info, or C) they get information from citizens. I hope we all agree that C) is the lesser of evils.
So our society has set things up so that in certain very limited circumstances, people are *required* to give information to the police (search warrants, subpoenas, etc.) In other situations, police are forbidden from demanding certain kinds of information, to protect the rights of the accused. (Miranda laws, etc)
For everything in between, cooperation is optional and voluntary. We can decide whether to help or not, based on our sense of the severity of the crime, our personal ties to the suspect, our trust of the police, and any details of the case we're familiar with. It's a judgment call.
I think we need to respect the fact that different people or entities are going to make that judgment call differently, based on their own priorities and values.
To say that helping the cops is always the right or the wrong choice is ridiculously simplistic. You can comment on Blizzard's decision in this particular case, but tying it to some absurd moral absolute is asking for trouble.