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Call Yourself a Hacker, Lose Your 4th Amendment Rights
An anonymous reader writes "As described on the DigitalBond blog, a security researcher was subjected to a court ordered search in which a lack of pre-notification was premised on his self description as a 'hacker.' From the court order, 'The tipping point for the Court comes from evidence that the defendants – in their own words – are hackers. By labeling themselves this way, they have essentially announced that they have the necessary computer skills and intent to simultaneously release the code publicly and conceal their role in that act.'"
No, but the defendant's repeated advocacy of open source implies intent to publish source code. The lawsuit is alleging that the defendant stole source code from his prior employer for the purpose of open-sourcing it as his own product.
Since the defendant clearly has intent to open-source his product, and if it were indeed stolen source it would immediately cause irreparable harm, and the defendant's own statement shows he has the skill to cause such harm quickly (well within the usual timeframes of the court process), an immediately-executed warrant is reasonable.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
No, but the defendant's repeated advocacy of open source implies intent to publish source code.
In the same way my advocacy of and interest in international culture implies intent to engage in "unamerican" activities? In the same way that candidates for state senate saying "if itâ(TM)s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down" implies the candidate is a rapist? We've been down that road before. It doesn't lead anywhere you want to be.
The lawsuit is alleging that the defendant stole source code from his prior employer for the purpose of open-sourcing it as his own product.
And was there evidence to back up this claim, such as server logs, statements by the defendant, etc.? Because from what I've read the answer is no, there wasn't. The only evidence cited in the ex parte order was the defendant's advocacy of open source and his prior access to the ex-employer's code.
Since the defendant clearly has intent to open-source his product...
Which is his right, if he designed it on his own, as many other people have done after working on a closed source product...
and if it were indeed stolen source it would immediately cause irreparable harm
... And yet no proof the code was stolen was provided.
an immediately-executed warrant is reasonable.
No, it isn't. They need to prove he's in possession of stolen property first. His statements about what he would or wouldn't do with it have absolutely no weight whatsoever in issuing the search warrant. That the judge is making these statements implies that the evidence he had done so was very, very weak, to the point they had to rely on circumstantial evidence that is only dubiously related to the matter at hand to secure the warrant.
This sounds more like a case of a manager acting without evidence that any wrongdoing had occurred and decided to use law enforcement resources to harass the former employee. This is, for lack of a better term... a domestic dispute. It's a he said, she said situation. Except that in this case, it's a company, not an ex.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Wikipedia page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Lynn_Winmill
Perhaps someone could update the page to include a "Controversies" section that referenced TFA? Properly written NPOV would do more to undermine his decision than posting to random tin-foil-hat sites.
"I wasn't aware that capability implied intent."
Exactly. Imagine: "By identifying themselves as CPAs, the suspects expressed an intent to launder the money and hide the evidence by manipulating the books."
Who elected this moron to be a judge?