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FBI Seizes Server Providing Anonymous Remailer Service
sunbird writes "At 16:00 ET on April 18, federal agents seized a server located in a New York colocation facility shared by May First / People Link and Riseup.net. The server was operated by the European Counter Network ("ECN"), the oldest independent internet service provider in Europe. The server was seized as a part of the investigation into bomb threats sent via the Mixmaster anonymous remailer received by the University of Pittsburgh that were previously discussed on Slashdot. As a result of the seizure, hundreds of unrelated people and organizations have been disrupted."
Unless the server was keeping logs, and I presume that it wasn't, how could seizing it possibly help the investigation?
Or did they just kick over all the racks and rip everything out like they seem to do on a regular basis?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
FBI seizes terrorist server run by commies.
Grateful American people throw candy and flowers at heroic agents.
More importantly: Unless the server operator was a total dofus, this brings them exactly zero steps towards resolving their problem, because this is exactly the kind of attack that Mixmasters was designed to withstand.
Idiots. Is nobody teaching these fools basics about the stuff they encounter?
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don't worry the spider will not be harmed it will walk out between the debris and find a new place to hide...
..and the FBI seizes the server they used?
Anyone else think this is more believable as a denial of service attack, or as a pretext for taking down a troublesome server they couldn't legally seize by any other means, than as an actual threat?
Unless the person sending them was stupid enough to think that a remailer would protect them from ever being caught, and didn't care that it was going to mean taking down the whole service for everyone else using it..
Someone bosts a gazillion bomb threats, and computers associated with OWS and other protests get seized.
Awfully convenient.
Any guess as to whether the bomb threats can be traced back th Langley or Ft. Meade?
To which I reply "They need to find a different way to discourage or stop them from sending bomb threats. Inflicting me with collateral damage in the quest for better law enforcement is unacceptable, and so is removing my ability to speak with anonymity."
Given the choice, I think I'd rather deal with the occasional bomb threat than not be able to speak anonymously.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
They followed proper constitutional procedure (for a change). So blame the judge not the fbi.
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There: Translated that for you.
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To which I reply "They need to find a different way to discourage or stop them from sending bomb threats. Inflicting me with collateral damage in the quest for better law enforcement is unacceptable, and so is removing my ability to speak with anonymity."
Given the choice, I think I'd rather deal with the occasional bomb threat than not be able to speak anonymously.
Or, to totally mangle a famous quote:
"First they came for the anonymous, but I was not anonymous, so I did nothing." That's probably true to life for most people actually....
You're assuming the message was for the spider and not for everyone who has a spider in their house. And the message is that if you carry a service we don't like, we'll make sure to inflict as much damage as possible when we come for it. You get a pretty good self-censoring effect out of it. Same reason TOR doesn't scale very well, you'd have to be mildly insane to run an exit node as a private person.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Man, you would not believe the rush you get from going all commando on racks of servers. "Blink those lights funny at me, beeyotch, and I'll bust a cap right between your USB ports!"
FYI, we're not dealing with "the occasional bomb threat" here.
The University of Pittsburgh (which is down the street from where I work) has gotten multiple bomb threats per day every day for weeks now.
Many students have been driven out of their dorms, to live off campus, because the evacuations were too disruptive. The campus police are no doubt way over budget. Classes are disrupted to the point where folks on academic probation were told this semester "doesn't count".
At this moment, as I type this, two buildings have evacuation notices. Earlier today, eleven buildings had to be evacuated.
And today was not exceptional.
If you want to follow this yourselves, evacuation notices go out over the @PittTweet twitter account.
Now, I'm not trying to say "knocking every anonymous remailer off the internet is justified". Please don't assume I think that. I'm just pointing out that this very much isn't a case of "the occasional bomb threat". It's basically a full-on ongoing multi-day denial-of-service attack on the Pitt police, Pittsburgh police, and a bunch of the university, happening in meatspace.
"Look, We're the FBI. That means your fucked, no matter what you do."
The question that is begging to be asked is ---
Who will FBI the FBI ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
However at the same time, can't the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburg police stop doing that and ignore the bomb threats, knowing that their leg is being pulled?
No. The next time it might not be a joke.
Universities are being sued for not doing enough to stop violence on campus when it happens, as rare as it is, and as much as they do. It's never enough for the lawyers and "grieving heirs".
It's a large "corporation" to start with, and state schools have the combined pockets of the taxpayer to pick. You can't sue a school for being too careful, only if something happens and you can convince a judge that they might not have done enough. Why make it a slam-dunk victory for millions by ignoring the last, valid threat?
This is the same reason that cops have to go check out 911 hangup calls. Most likely, it was someone who dialed by accident and then said "oh shit" and hung up. If they try to dodge the problem by turning their cell phone off, or not answering, the cops will show up to see if everything is ok. If the cops just ignored the call, they'd be sued by everyone involved when it turns out that the caller was forced to hang up, or the wire was ripped out of the wall, by her violent husband or vice versa, and someone wound up dead.
can't the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburg police stop doing that and ignore the bomb threats, knowing that their leg is being pulled? [...] "The boy who cried wolf" should also come into play
There are two morals to the story of "The boy who cried wolf":
Don't consistently lie or you'll get eaten (the moral for children)
Sometimes, children's lies end up being the truth, so pay attention every time or they'll get eaten (the moral for adults)
If you want to discourage lying, punish the liars when they're caught, but don't ignore what seems like a lie because it might be the truth.