Judge Grants Search Warrant For Everyone Who Searched a Crime Victim's Name On Google (startribune.com)

Hennepin County District Judge Gary Larson has issued a search warrant to Edina, Minnesota police to collect information on people who searched for variations of a crime victim's name on Google from Dec. 1 through Jan. 7. Google would be required to provide Edina police with basic contact information for people targeted by the warrant, as well as Social Security numbers, account and payment information, and IP and MAC addresses. StarTribune reports: Information on the warrant first emerged through a blog post by public records researcher Tony Webster. Edina police declined to comment Thursday on the warrant, saying it is part of an ongoing investigation. Detective David Lindman outlined the case in his application for the search warrant: In early January, two account holders with SPIRE Credit Union reported to police that $28,500 had been stolen from a line of credit associated with one of their accounts, according to court documents. Edina investigators learned that the suspect or suspects provided the credit union with the account holder's name, date of birth and Social Security number. In addition, the suspect faxed a forged U.S. passport with a photo of someone who looked like the account holder but wasn't. Investigators ran an image search of the account holder's name on Google and found the photo used on the forged passport. Other search engines did not turn up the photo. According to the warrant application, Lindman said he had reason to believe the suspect used Google to find a picture of the person they believed to be the account holder. Larson signed off on the search warrant on Feb. 1. According to court documents, Lindman served it about 20 minutes later.

Comments

First and second reactions

[mccrew]

At first, I was ready to get mad about an over-broad search. But after reading the facts and background info, the warrant doesn't seem unreasonable.

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

So, ANYBODY who may have had access to that information regarding the victim (dr offices, creditors, accountant, family, etc...) could be served with a similar warrant because, Hey, they might have that info too... would NOT seem overly broad to you?

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

One part that bugs me about mass surveillance that has a warrant, how do you grant a warrant for a whole bunch of people at once? That seems very abusable.

Want a warrant for everybody on AOL? What about everybody in Kentucky?

It seems like a Judge Dread caliber loophole.

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they used that information to also search for a picture of them on Google. Given the specific nature of the search, it seems unlikely to have had many people doing it.

Re:First and second reactions

[dex22]

The warrant is specifically for Google, specifically about people who searched within a specific timeframe for the specific details used in a specific crime that happened later. They have shown their work to show that Google was the only likely source for that info used in the crime. There are not likely to be any matching results that are not related to the crime, and those that are can be easily eliminated.

Just how specific do you want them to be?

Re:First and second reactions

[Zocalo]

Perhaps not, but I'm not sure I get this bit:

Google would be required to provide Edina police with basic contact information for people targeted by the warrant, as well as Social Security numbers, account and payment information, and IP and MAC addresses.

Google might have *some* of that data - possibly even the MAC, if it's an Android device - but even with Google's reach, expecting them to be able to produce that data on a whole bunch of essentially random Google users just based on their searches seems a bit of a stretch. Am I missing something here, or is it just those involved in writing and granting the warrant badly need to run a few Google searches of their own?

Re:First and second reactions

[Kjella]

The warrant is specifically for Google, specifically about people who searched within a specific timeframe for the specific details used in a specific crime that happened later. They have shown their work to show that Google was the only likely source for that info used in the crime. There are not likely to be any matching results that are not related to the crime, and those that are can be easily eliminated.

Are you on crack? They are looking for someone that googled a person's name. There is absolutely zero, zip, nada, no requirement they searched for anything remotely related to any crime. Or that they searched for this particular individual and not just someone sharing their name. And while the police found the image on Google image search, the warrant is for everyone who used Google the search engine. It's likely the identity thief visited all pages about the victim, there's no reason to believe he used the image search directly that's just a red herring. And well over a month is hardly a specific time frame, if he lost his wallet in the morning and was cleaned out by evening I might agree but this just throwing a huge dragnet. But with bootlickers like you I understand why totalitarianism will win.

Re:First and second reactions

[Hylandr]

So in other words they used information that any intelligent facebook user / developer has access to via clever social engineering or the app itself, OR intercepted windows 10 keylogging ( "telemetry" ) possibly over a wireless connection?

If you play those 'guess your pirate name' games and their variants on Facebook or other social media that asks for seemingly innocuous information like the day of your birth or your mothers maiden name you're a sucker.

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

even with Google's reach, expecting them to be able to produce that data on a whole bunch of essentially random Google users

I think you might be underestimating just how much G knows based on having their tracking tech embedded in damn near every single site on the internet, scanning most emails, and having records of where a large fraction of the population is located in real time. Unless you take some difficult steps to block it, which most people haven't the time or knowledge to do, they know a LOT about you. For example my employer has given my SSN, name, salary, and medical records to Google in spite of my loud objections. I was overruled, and now Google has all of that data and there was sweet, sweet fuckall I could do to prevent it. In any case SSNs are public information and can be tied to a name Google knows already.

I'd be quite surprised if Google couldn't fulfill the request.

Re:First and second reactions

[torqer]

At first I was excited that maybe Gary Larson was creating another comic strip... then I fully parsed the sentence and realized it was just about a county district judge...

Oh well,

Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.

Re:First and second reactions

[Gadget_Guy]

It certainly does seem unreasonable. I have done searches on people's names before, and quite often I find results for people of that name who are not the same as the one I am looking for. For example, what if I had searched for the judge's name? Am I am criminal looking to defraud him, or am I looking for a cartoon to have a laugh at made by as different person (presumably). A name is simply not a unique identifier.

I can easily imagine that Google will succeed in fighting this warrant.

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a very simple rule of thumb: If the warrant contains or can be rephrased to contain "anyone who" or "anything which", it is a general search warrant and thus violates the Constitution.

Re:First and second reactions

[afaik_ianal]

> So in other words they used information that any intelligent facebook user / developer has access to via clever social engineering or the app itself

No, as the article points out, it's not the actual victim's details that are at issue here. It's the fact that the perpetrator used the *wrong* photo, and that the photo they used comes up in a Google search (but not in other search engines). If they had have got the photo through Facebook or social engineering, they likely would have got the right photo.

Re:First and second reactions

[rtb61]

Well, to me it seems really, really, stupid. Might sound like a good idea without thinking about the numbers but seriously a global warrant for anyone who searched for a specific name and to add even more stupid to that, variants of the name. I sure hope that name was globally unique, not many people have that though, I do and a fully appreciate how rare that is.

So goggle concedes this one, because the reward for a stupid question has always been a stupid answer. Not a unique name and taking into accounts variants, sure, not a problem, here are the, I don't know imagine a number between one thousand and one million, have fun and good luck with that. Think that's not likely to happen, sure goggle does 3.5 billion searches per day and even the tiniest percentage of that becomes a huge number.

Never to forget trackmenot http://www.cs.nyu.edu/trackmen..., hey trackmenot, did you go somewhere naughty and get me in trouble and new stuff like https://adnauseam.io/, hey adnauseam, did you click at naughty add, cheeky bugger. My computer makes more searches than I do, by an order of magnitude and adnauseam, well it clicks more ads than I do, by many, many, orders of magnitude (adnauseam helping to boost many web sites profits, I am suprised a lot of web sites have not be actively promoting that add on, even when asshats at google work to ban it on chrome https://www.bleepingcomputer.c..., spoilsports but of course https://github.com/dhowe/AdNau....

In the world of spy vs spy misinformation is often the most effective means of security (you can play to, another good example would be a fake file on your desktop with fake credit card details, passwords and information, they find it, take it and leave). How long before fame email tools turn up as well as a full range of other data base toxins (filling invasive databases with poisoned data creating false links eventually killing the database, actually dead in reality, requiring most of the data to be tossed and forced to start again).

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you insane? It's completely unreasonable to issue a blanket warrant.

Maybe I should make it a habit to search for the names of people involved in crimes, just to pollute the database.

Re: First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not even close to right.

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

or example my employer has given my SSN, name, salary, and medical records to Google in spite of my loud objections.

WTF? Why in the world would they do that, unless you're a Google contractor or something?

Re:First and second reactions

[Altrag]

Or he means his employer happens to use Google Sheets to store employee data. Which is hardly a far-fetched concept.

Re:First and second reactions

[NicknameUnavailable]

At first, I was ready to get mad about an over-broad search. But after reading the facts and background info, the warrant doesn't seem unreasonable.

It's not that the warrant is unjustified, it's that Google has that information.

Re:First and second reactions

[NicknameUnavailable]

Google might have *some* of that data - possibly even the MAC, if it's an Android device - but even with Google's reach, expecting them to be able to produce that data on a whole bunch of essentially random Google users just based on their searches seems a bit of a stretch. Am I missing something here, or is it just those involved in writing and granting the warrant badly need to run a few Google searches of their own?

Google is in the business of marketing, and they are among the best at it. If anyone has it (and they do) Google is among the people who do.

Re:First and second reactions

[Gavagai80]

The warrant is for the specified data, not for people. They cannot go search the homes of everybody who did a google image search for the name, until they get another warrant for the person whose home they wish to search.

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

Or he means his employer happens to use Google Sheets to store employee data. Which is hardly a far-fetched concept.

I suppose, though that's hardly "giving the date to Google". Google not only doesn't mine docs or sheets, great care is taken to ensure that that data cannot be mined or accessed by anyone in Google, except with a specific customer need and with customer authorization -- and all such exceptional accesses are logged and audited. Google has some unique and rather cool infrastructure that ensures that this happens. I wish I could go into detail.

Re:First and second reactions

[Ol Olsoc]

Or he means his employer happens to use Google Sheets to store employee data. Which is hardly a far-fetched concept.

I suppose, though that's hardly "giving the date to Google". Google not only doesn't mine docs or sheets

How cute! Now all you have to do is get people to believe that. I know, I know, "Trust us - we can't tell you why you can trust us, but yeah - we're really trustworthy!"

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

Or he means his employer happens to use Google Sheets to store employee data. Which is hardly a far-fetched concept.

I suppose, though that's hardly "giving the date to Google". Google not only doesn't mine docs or sheets

How cute! Now all you have to do is get people to believe that. I know, I know, "Trust us - we can't tell you why you can trust us, but yeah - we're really trustworthy!"

Yeah. I think if Google were to publish the technical details of how the data is protected, at least many engineers would be convinced (and, actually, impressed). But there's really no way to convince those who find the "big brother" narrative more compelling.

Re:First and second reactions

[Dorianny]

The problem with huge dragnets is that they catch lots of things you don't want. The Detectives and the DA are going to feel pretty stupid when they get back a 100 pages of IP addresses back from Google. You might try to narrow down the list using Geo-location services (with the assumption the fax originated from the same area) however even if the final list contains just a few dozen IP's there would be no chance of convincing a judge to order the ISP's reveal the subscriber info. Google or any security reseracher could have told them this is a waste of time, let them find out the hard way

Re:First and second reactions

[PoopJuggler]

So some innocent people should have their home searched and lives disturbed just because some judge thinks it's unlikely? Why not actually ask Google how many searches there were that meet the criteria, and then issue the warrant if it's only one person? Rather than just saying, "Meh.. search them all, Kommendant!"

Re:First and second reactions

[PoopJuggler]

those that are can be easily eliminated

How cute that you think the jack-booted thugs will voluntarily give up any opportunity to kick in some doors.

Re:First and second reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how specific do you want them to be?

The results are specific. The area searched is not.

Search area:
    - Google's logs, globally, for every human, within the timeframe.

Result area:
    - The criminal.

Redefining a specific search as "one with specific results" undermines the purpose of the amendment, which is to limit government power: all investigation of public evidence is allowed, but the special power to crack open vaults of secrets is only granted after the public investigation has made progress. This is equivalent to a bulk search of every house in the town looking for member lists of a rebel alliance, exactly the sort of thing the founders intended to prohibit.

They should not be allowed to run a query over all of Google's logs. Minimum, they should specify selectors that identify a person.

Our vulnerability to reckless long-tail judicial arrogance highlights the dangers of Google's logs existing in the first place and the weakness of the Bill of Rights to actually protect us.

Re:First and second reactions

[Ol Olsoc]

Yeah. I think if Google were to publish the technical details of how the data is protected, at least many engineers would be convinced (and, actually, impressed). But there's really no way to convince those who find the "big brother" narrative more compelling.

It isn't a big brother narrative, its just data and detective work. I don't see why a person has to be either "the Guvmint is watching you!" or "Nothing to see here folks - move along." Shit's real man.

I'm all over the internet. I just don't care, because I don't put anything private there. Others might. Anything I would need to be kept private, I keep it private. As in physical possession. Precious little of that though.

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

It isn't a big brother narrative, its just data and detective work.

What data and detective work?

Re:First and second reactions

[Ol Olsoc]

It isn't a big brother narrative, its just data and detective work.

What data and detective work?

The data exists. People want the data. The detective work shohuld be obvious.

Yeah, it's secure. I gues all of those leaks are just shit someone made up. And the internet is inherentlly 100 percent secure by it's very design.

But I get it, wink wink. You have convinced me totally, I was wrong, and stand corrected. Once Google has it, wink, wink, it is 100 percent never to be leaked - perfect security has been achieved.

From your lips to God's ear.

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

It isn't a big brother narrative, its just data and detective work.

What data and detective work?

The data exists. People want the data. The detective work shohuld be obvious.

I'm still not sure what you're talking about. You seem to be implying that some data and/or detective work tells you that Google mines Google docs & sheets. But based on my inside knowledge of how the systems work I have an extremely high level of confidence that it's not true, so I'm wondering what data and detective work you're talking about.

Yeah, it's secure. I gues all of those leaks are just shit someone made up. And the internet is inherentlly 100 percent secure by it's very design.

What leaks? I'm not aware of any leaks of user data from Google. Ever. Do you know of some?

But I get it, wink wink. You have convinced me totally, I was wrong, and stand corrected. Once Google has it, wink, wink, it is 100 percent never to be leaked - perfect security has been achieved.

From your lips to God's ear.

Nothing is foolproof, and only a fool would claim it could be. But Google has a remarkably good track record, and after seeing the technical details, I can see why.

Re:First and second reactions

[swillden]

What leaks? I'm not aware of any leaks of user data from Google. Ever. Do you know of some?

Actually, as soon as I hit "submit", I thought of one: Snowden revealed that the NSA was tapping fiber between Google data centers. That is the only one that I'm aware of, though, and I don't really think of it as a "leak" because none of the data made it to the public. And, of course, that particular hole has been sealed (though it's certainly not impossible that the NSA or similarly-capable organizations have inserted other sorts of covert access into Google data systems).

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

How does Google have our SS numbers if all we do is search? Is that legal?

Re:WTF

[MtHuurne]

In general, they wouldn't know SSNs. Maybe if someone was logged in while doing the search and earlier associated a SSN with their Google account for some reason. Google probably doesn't have people's MAC addresses either. It seems the police is asking for anything that would help them identify a person no matter how unlikely that Google can actually provide it.

Re:WTF

[lgw]

How does Google have our SS numbers if all we do is search? Is that legal?

Google knows an astonishing amount about you. I chatted with one of their professional racists: the team that determines your race from all the information they have on you from searches, mail, web bugs, and so on. Gotta target them ads.

Want a registry of all Muslims in the US, or perhaps all the Jews? Google has it.

If you dislike this, you can much of these . DuckDuckGo for the win. Outlook.com doesn't suck. Ghostery or other tracking blockers. There's no total escape if you use the internet, but you can avoid situations like this.

Re:WTF

[currently_awake]

Legally Google should only have SSN's for their own employees, though with the level of spying and data analysis they conduct for their advertising it's possible they can connect the dots and statistically identify an individual including their ID numbers.

Re:WTF

[WolfgangVL]

How does Google have our SS numbers if all we do is search? Is that legal?

--

Google might have *some* of that data - possibly even the MAC, if it's an Android device - but even with Google's reach, expecting them to be able to produce that data on a whole bunch of essentially random Google users just based on their searches seems a bit of a stretch. Am I missing something here, or is it just those involved in writing and granting the warrant badly need to run a few Google searches of their own?

--

In general, they wouldn't know SSNs. Maybe if someone was logged in while doing the search and earlier associated a SSN with their Google account for some reason. Google probably doesn't have people's MAC addresses either. It seems the police is asking for anything that would help them identify a person no matter how unlikely that Google can actually provide it.

--
Google has become the most powerful information broker on the planet. Gmail has over a billion users a month. Google scans the contents of each and every email sent and received. -- Are you sure nobody has ever discussed your SSN on that platform?

People lives their lives plugging info into google controlled mobile platforms, which google also scans, including a pretty good voice to text algorithm. --- Are you sure nobody has ever spoken, or otherwise worked with your SSN on that platform?

Google provides land-line calling and texting for free via their comms platform, google hangouts, which was re-branded from google+. Google had claimed 540 million monthly users of google+ in 2013. ---- Are you sure nobody has ever handled your personal business on that platform?

The google search platform has become so popular that it has entered the English language as a synonym for searching data. Google claims 40000 search queries a SECOND. Each search is scanned, cataloged and cross referenced with the rest of the profile that this giant has been actively building on each and every user. ----Are you sure nobody has googled your name and/or social?

YOU are careful and aware. Good for you, so am I. This does NOT mean we don't have a profile on googles servers somewhere connected to our names, location history (down to the minute is some cases-and spanning years), ISP history, B-day, MAC, SSN, favorite color, political affiliation, family ties, and sexual preference. This info is all worth something to somebody, and google's business is knowing both the data in question, as well as who is willing to pay for it.

It's folly to assume this is not the case... This is where Google makes its money. Once the cat is out of the bag regarding how easily google can and will respond to law enforcement...... well... nothing will likely happen.

The amount of this collected data that is shared with government entities around the world is STAGGERING, and that's only the stuff they want us to know about.

Re:WTF

[Narcocide]

Outlook.com doesn't suck.

In what sense does it not suck? I get a huge amount of spam from there. They appear to be allowing anonymous relay. It can't possibly be any more secure than Yahoo.com.

Re:WTF

[RubberDogBone]

Legally Google should only have SSN's for their own employees, though with the level of spying and data analysis they conduct for their advertising it's possible they can connect the dots and statistically identify an individual including their ID numbers.

The thing is, an SSN is not considered confidential information. It's merely an identifier. The fact that banks and credit companies and lenders have USED it for identification and credit ratings and such is entirely of their own volition. They're not supposed to do that. It's not meant for that purpose. But the barn door was left open long ago.

In fact, there are algorithms that can deduce your SSN with good rate of success just by knowing your DOB and place of birth. So if it's possible to figure out your number based on what would be public information, can you really call the SSN confidential? If you can just guess and get it right, no.

The real problem is this number was never meant to be used the way it is. It was never meant to be the key to unlocking credit and loans and money. It was never meant to be secure. We have stupidly allowed it to be all those things and done nothing to secure it along the way, besides just saying "Oh wow don't share that!" and assuming that's all we had to do.

If things were the way they should be, an SSN would have no more usefulness than someone's phone number. It's not a lot of good beyond using it to call them. And an SSN should not be any good for anything beyond crediting stuff to your retirement, if there is any by the time you retire.

Re:WTF

[lgw]

I don't see how that matters to the usability of its web client. Heck, it's the back-end technical mediocrity of Microsoft that makes me unworried about their own ability to gather demographic information on me and use it for evil.

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

The proper answer is Yandex. Russia would love to flip the US justice system the bird.

Re:WTF

[Darinbob]

Hopefully a handful of the names that Google turns over are "DuckDuckGo".

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook.com doesn't suck.

I assume you're talking about their new "Outlook Vacuum Edition"...?

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. So why in the world would you log in to post on slashdot?

Re:WTF

[Narcocide]

I'm more worried more about their apparent inability to secure the system against spying and other types of abuse by 3rd parties.

Hah, joke's on them

[by (1706743)]

I only use Bing!

Re:Hah, joke's on them

[by (1706743)]

Joking aside, it looks like this is the reason Google was singled out:

Investigators ran an image search of the account holder's name on Google and found the photo used on the forged passport. Other search engines did not turn up the photo.

According to the warrant application, Lindman said he had reason to believe the suspect used Google to find a picture of the person they believed to be the account holder.

Re:Hah, joke's on them

[Anonymous Coward]

So why didn't they limit it to those who accessed the particular image?

Re:Hah, joke's on them

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as likely that they took the picture themselves, left it in a cloud service and google was the first to index it

Bullshit like this will just result in search engines deciding not to index aggressively

Proud of myself

[Dunbal]

30+ years of being online and not one picture of me anywhere, either under my pseudonym Dunbal (which I've used since 1986), or my real name.

Re: Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet your one ugly mother fucker.

Re: Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

His ugly mother fucker what? You should finish your sentences.

Re:Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, there are tons of pictures with my name, but none of them depicts me :D

Re:Proud of myself

[Dunbal]

lol.... yeah, there's apparently a very bad guy who shares my name. He's been in jail a few times. I hope I never get mistaken for him :)

Re:Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a prominently newsworthy CEO (not that one) who shares my name. As a result I'm basically invisible. I kinda like my Google shadow, honestly...anyone who knows me professionally can still find me just fine through LinkedIn or whatever, so it only obscures my personal life.

Re:Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, there's probably hundreds that you don't know about. Look at friend's facebook picture galleries, or coworkers, or neighbors. You are out there.

Re:Proud of myself

[Dunbal]

Oh that's easy. No friends :P

Re: Proud of myself

[antdude]

Or a really attractive gal. Hmm!

Re:Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not something to brag about. Have you not been to a party with cameras since 1986?

Re:Proud of myself

[Ol Olsoc]

30+ years of being online and not one picture of me anywhere, either under my pseudonym Dunbal (which I've used since 1986), or my real name.

Looks like you won the internet.

Re:Proud of myself

[Anonymous Coward]

John McAfee, we are onto you bro.

Re:Proud of myself

[Zontar The Mindless]

I share a name with a popular TV personality in another country--the spelling even matches. (First name and last each has several common variations.)

Judge Gary Larson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the real Gary Larson draw a far side cartoon on this?

Re: Judge Gary Larson?

[chaboud]

Why? The warrant is basically outrageous comedy already...

And that's why Google is dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

When one company has all these details on you, you're bound to get fucked.

Re: And that's why Google is dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

The warrant asks Google to provide that info if they have it. People are mistaking that for "Google has that info".

Re:And that's why Google is dangerous

[Ol Olsoc]

When one company has all these details on you, you're bound to get fucked.

You're thinking about Tinder, not Google.

Re:So what?

[Dunbal]

Uh, isn't the bank the one who is responsible for credit card fraud? Someone stole $30k from the guy's bank. I'm pretty sure the bank wants to force the guy to cough up the money, and I'm pretty sure a decent lawyer would tear the bank apart and force them to prove the guy was complicit in this theft.

how is this reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

"provide Edina police with basic contact information for people targeted by the warrant, as well as Social Security numbers, account and payment information, and IP and MAC addresses."

Google may happen to be able to do address if they're lucky and the person is opted into their services, but social security number mac address what?

Re:how is this reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have their address they might have their ap mac at least (google maps) . I wonder what kind of associations android phones might glean if they programmed them to sniff around. I wonder if adding the _nomap to the end of your wirless router name makes you more interesting.

Unite citizens!

[Anonymous Coward]

We should all do a Google search for "Hillary Clinton Sex Tape", so when it gets leaked Biden will have plausible deniability.

Re:Unite citizens!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a better sextape... it's the one where Trump fucks over 300 million people.

I think it was called Inauguration Day.

How would MAC addresses be useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that simply be the MAC address of the last networking unit prior to reaching Google's own equipment, so typically a MAC address belonging to some backbone equipment?

Re: How would MAC addresses be useful?

[chaboud]

Uh, yep. Imagine that you are a huge idiot....

Then put on a black robe.

Ta da!

Re:How would MAC addresses be useful?

[Anonymous Coward]

more like how the fuck is google getting them? mac addresses don't traverse the public internet. only the direct upstream (e.g. his or her isp) knows a user's mac address

MAC address and SSN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious - how is Google supposed to provide the MAC address and SSN of some generic user conducting a search?

Re:MAC address and SSN?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard something recently about the new FCC chairman allowing our isps to share our SSN and searching history with others.

Re:So what?

[liquid_schwartz]

Uh, isn't the bank the one who is responsible for credit card fraud?

Banks and bankers are not held responsible for ... anything. Ever. Hell they can crash the world economy and not get punished.

The murder of Bigus Dickus

[sinij]

They better catch the vile murderers of upstanding citizen Bigus Dickus.

Re:The murder of Bigus Dickus

[OutOnARock]

......he had a wife you know......

Any reason to think that, or completely made it up

[raymorris]

> Uh, isn't the bank the one who is responsible for credit card fraud?

Yes, in most cases the bank loses the money. That doesn't mean the thief isn't prosecuted for the crime. This story is about the police investigation to prosecute the criminal. It has nothing whatsoever to do with who loses the money (thank bank). Also, this case isn't about credit card fraud, but similar enough.

> Someone stole $30k from the guy's bank.

Yeah and the cops are trying to put the thief in jail.

> I'm pretty sure the bank wants to force the guy to cough up the money

Huh?!?! Do you have some *reason* to even suspect that, much less be "pretty sure" of it. I don't see anything in the article that even HINTS that there might be any question that the bank is the victim of the theft, that the bank, not the customers, are suffering the loss. Did I miss something, or did you completely make that up out of thin air? Did you just imagine something and you're pretty sure it's true because you were able to imagine it, or do you have some reason think that?

known identity

[Anonymous Coward]

... with a photo of someone who looked like the account holder but wasn't ...

So the criminal knew what the victim looked like: Did he get that from Facebook or meeting the victim somehow? The criminal had many personal details about the victim: Did he receive them while doing business with the victim or did he buy them from someone who committed successful database intrusion?

Either way the criminal didn't go looking for the victim (excepting possibly, Facebook), meaning this warrant will achieve nothing.

Just another reason to not use Google

[Anonymous Coward]

They spy on you 24/7 and Chrome phones home all the time, ergo, what's the difference between a Google search and the jumble activity going on in the background. DuckDuckGo all you want, but that data is still probably talking to Google anyway. You really shouldn't use Chrome, and this shit is only going to get worse.

Time for a VPN

[AHuxley]

Get a fast router with good VPN support to pass all ethernet networking.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, they got a 700 billion dollar reward for it.

Even better...

[ThomasBHardy]

I share my name with :

A current well know actor
AND
A famous writer

Good luck finding me in the mass of information you'll be swamped with.

Re:Even better...

[jaklode]

And here I thought you are a painter who lived from 1842 to 1897.

Uhh

[easyTree]

I love this use of the word required.

eg. "You are required to comply."

How could one confirm or deny this claim - it's really flawless and goes hand-in-hand with 'authority' which materialises from nowhere in particular.

Re:Uhh

[Altrag]

Uhh is right.. wtf are you talking about?

Judges and the police are granted their authority by the state (and thus by the people, at least in principle.) That's hardly "materialis[ing] from nowhere in particular."

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's hardly "materialis[ing] ...

Woosh.

Perhaps easyTree failed to notice that this order is being issued by a judge, known to have such authority. But I understand his argument: It's not the judge that is materialising, it's the bit of paper saying "or, else". That's why official orders once had a wax/foil seal on them, to authenticate the issue of such orders. But with ink seals and electronic delivery, or even a badge and gun, someone can easily claim authority over stuff and the respondent has limited means to confirm that.

Try watching the movie Compliance (2012), which strains the suspension of disbelief, to see the point.

You sure about that?

[waspleg]

For example, I don't and have never had a Facebook account but it's a well known fact they have dark profiles and my wife uploads pictures with me in them to Facebook without my consent as do other family members.

You don't sound like you're living in the woods, off the grid, in a cabin with your gruel and wood burning stove so chances are SOMEONE has a picture of you online SOMEWHERE without your knowledge.

Re:You sure about that?

[Ol Olsoc]

For example, I don't and have never had a Facebook account but it's a well known fact they have dark profiles and my wife uploads pictures with me in them to Facebook without my consent as do other family members.

You don't sound like you're living in the woods, off the grid, in a cabin with your gruel and wood burning stove so chances are SOMEONE has a picture of you online SOMEWHERE without your knowledge.

And outside of people with a legal reason to go to great lengths to avoid any web presence, or some over the top privacy zealots, who would even care?

Just bragging about it on Slashdot makes a person very interesting.

delegitimization

[jmcvetta]

Once again a member of the judicial oligarchy has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to protect the rights of the people, and that their power must be severely curtailed.

Google needs to stop complaining

[Anonymous Coward]

"We always push back when we receive excessively broad requests for data about our users.â

I'm tired of Google and other surveillance companies pretending to get mad when the government requests data. They don't care about users' data. If an advertiser asked for the same thing they wouldn't push anything other than the price. It's farce. If they really cared so much they would stop storing the raw data.

If SSN was not used like it was a password...

[Anonymous Coward]

... This crime would have not happen.
Banks (and not only banks) use Social Security as a way to verify you are who you tell you are (Sure they might ask for one or two more informations, but all things that might be publicly available).
Is like if we were assigned a pretty simple password (10 characters, only digits), had no way to change it, and were forced to use it every time we need a password ...
That is the biggest security hole of our times.

Good luck with that.

[tlambert]

Good luck with that.

Google doesn't keep that kind of data.

They aren't going to be able to comply with the warrant, no matter how intrusive this particular judge mistakenly believes they are.

They should ask the NSA instead. The NSA *does* keep this kind of data.

Re:Any reason to think that, or completely made it

[Nethead]

Huh?!?! Do you have some *reason* to even suspect that, much less be "pretty sure" of it. ... Did I miss something, or did you completely make that up out of thin air? Did you just imagine something and you're pretty sure it's true because you were able to imagine it, or do you have some reason think that?

Hey, if the POTUS can do it, why can't Dunbal?

Overbroad? Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to basic contact information for people targeted by the warrant, Google is being asked to provide Edina police with their Social Security numbers, account and payment information, and IP (internet protocol) and MAC (media access control) addresses.

Ignoring the requests for SSNs, Account and Payment information, it shouldn't be technically feasible for Google to provide MAC addresses for people using its search engine. IP addresses, yes, but MAC addresses shouldn't be getting sent through routers let alone leaking onto the internet. MAC addresses are used to exchange information on local subnets or between peer routers.