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Hacking Neighbor Pleads Guilty On Death Threats and Porn
wiredmikey writes "Another good reason to make sure your wireless is secured! 'Barry Vincent Ardolf of Blaine, Minnesota pleaded guilty to hacking into his neighbor's wireless Internet system and posing as the neighbor to make threats to kill the Vice President of the United States. Just two days into his federal trial in St. Paul, Ardolf stopped the trial to plead guilty. According to the US Department of Justice, in his plea agreement, Ardolf, 45 years-old, was indicted on June 23, 2010, admitted that in February of 2009, he hacked into his neighbor's wireless Internet connection and created multiple Yahoo.com email accounts in his neighbor's name." Ardolf's guilty plea included child porn possession, as well as the death threats.
Browser history, cache, etc.
They would have gotten the guy who owns the net connections PC and gone to town, found it clean of any corroborating evidence and then gone looking for neighbours who might have been using it (since it would have been a regular thing over time). Cross reference which neighbours don't have their own net connections with a motive (who had a grudge against him).
Easier to narrow down the field of who would do it by motive, of course once it was established it was a frame up.
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What I don't get is why so many folks let themselves uniquely be turned into raving lunatics about politics - especially given how important the issues are to them.
Because the law is fucking insane. For instance, we live in a country where it's considered an appropriate and measured response to throw someone in prison, and confiscate their home, for growing a plant that's some people disapprove of. How do you deal with that rationally?
If you have a mission, and that mission is important - you need to focus. Turning explosive (figuratively, or literally when you mix in religion) might seem a good way to get attention on something that is overlooked - but if you pay any attention to how political events turn out, it rarely has a positive net effect.
The problem is, nothing really has a positive effect. It's been a steady slide down towards authoritarian corporatism for all of my 30 years in this country. Every last tiny shred of hope has been crushed out of me. There is no chance for change besides another American Revolution. Unfortunately, I don't see it coming in my lifetime. All I can do is keep my head down and try not to get caught up in the machine. If anything, I'm surprised we haven't seen more people flip out. The situation definitely calls for it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Luckily, I tracked this down and secure further the network, but without proper tools, what can a normal user do against these smart asses?
Read Slash Dot occasionally and notice that WEP is insecure.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=WEP+insecure+site%3Aslashdot.org
Move away from WEP (its been known for 5 years to be easily hacked).
WPA2 is where you want to be.
I had a laptop with a mini-pci network adapter built in that was old enough that it didn't support anything but WEP. 8 bucks got me a replacement card from Amazon, which did WPA2.
Computers are easy to upgrade. Some stuff is harder.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The guilty plea certainly makes it seem like this is a case where computer fraud was handled correctly by the system
Don't be so quick. Many innocent people plead guilty because they've been poorly advised by a public defender. A plea of guilty doesn't mean the person was guilty. It means that a deal was offered and the suspect had no faith in his defense at trial.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Or you could only allow certain MAC addresses to connect.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
He might have gotten away with it too, if instead he used the connection to download and share heaps of music, and then sent an anonymous tip to the RIAA. That would have put his neighbour in court quick smart. From what I've heard, lack of evidence means little to the RIAA.
The geek's notions of "reasonable doubt" will most likely land him in the slammer.
IAAL.
But do note, I'm not saying that simply leaving your connection unsecured will keep you out of the slammer. I'm saying that securing your connection will give us (lawyers) one less handle to work with.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke