When will courts get IT literate ?
This recent case ended up in an 8 year sentence for Mohammed Atif Siddique "possession of terrorism-related items". Whilst the judges summing up does point toward some suspicious activity (follow link to the pdf) the "evidence" is often ropey and some of the statements are plainly false.
e.g. he was accused of "hiding" offensive material because he put it unencrypted in a folder in the c:\windows directory...which is a ridiculous statement - its as much "hiding" as "lying asleep on the ground" could be called "jumping".
He had 2 links to some dodgy material but the judge said : "you were providing internet access to what are admittedly terrorist publications". Provided Internet Access?? The judge is clearly very badly advised.
I can't help thinking if he'd been a non-muslim called "John Smith" he'd just get his wrists slapped.
Don't know exactly how accurate the newspaper is (in the facts more than IT terminology), but an 8 year sentence for storing on your computer vids of Ben Laden and the plane crashes, and having a website that provides a couple of links to weapon stuff... sounds a bit crazy, no ?Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe
Isn't 8 years the kind of sentence one would get for rape for example ?
Imagine if he'd had pictures of Ben's brother, Bin!Don't know exactly how accurate the newspaper is (in the facts more than IT terminology), but an 8 year sentence for storing on your computer vids of Ben Laden and the plane crashes, and having a website that provides a couple of links to weapon stuff... sounds a bit crazy, no ?
in English you spell his name Bin Laden, in French we spell it Ben Laden, it's written in this alphabet differently in different countries depending on how people hear it and pronounce words. Big dealImagine if he'd had pictures of Ben's brother, Bin!
I must remember that one...in English you spell his name Bin Laden, in French we spell it Ben Laden, it's written in this alphabet differently in different countries depending on how people hear it and pronounce words. Big deal
Re: dubious law
Isn't this connected to the lack of vowels in Arabic... There are only three vowel sounds in Arabic, although they can be short or long, but they are a, i and u. There is no vowel corresponding to e or o at all.in English you spell his name Bin Laden, in French we spell it Ben Laden, it's written in this alphabet differently in different countries depending on how people hear it and pronounce words. Big deal
To get this thread back onto the rails a little.... it would seem to me if this is the sum total of the evidence we all need to watch our backs. Using PGP is 'hiding' I.E. sinister overtones, rather than 'protecting' I.E. innocent sounding.
If this person wanted to publish this to a wider audience... why would he be hiding it? This makes no sense..... ahhhh back to the original point of the thread. I knew we'd get back there in the end!
Damn, damn, damn..... that's agreeing with DS three times in a single day. I need to go and lie down!
PGP could indeed be "hiding" (and even then as you say "protecting" is equally likely) but leaving files 2 directories off the C drive is certainly not
Heres a link to the older times online version of the story - and here for the "8 years" sentencing.
some choice quotes - apparently: he "set up websites with direct links to inflammatory magazines", websites with links? shocking! and "he was found guilty of a series of Islamist terrorism offences" not just "terrorism", no, he'd only get 4 years for that...it was "Islamist terrorism" offences. So thats all right then. I can sleep better at night knowing that shifty beardy types with funny names will be hunted down.
As his lawyer said after the trial :
“It is farcical that part of the evidence against Atif was that he grew a beard, had documents in Arabic which he could not even read, and downloaded material from a legitimate Israeli website.”
well after reading those, the case does seem less trivial than initially reported, looks like the court had reasons to believe he was at least aspiring to, if not actually preparing to, become a suicide bomber.
Re: dubious law
It makes the Whole Disk Encryption function of PGP even more attractive. Failing to provide a password for seized computers carries a two year maximum sentence I seem to recall. Making this now an attractive option for ner'do'wells. PGP is military strength encryption and without cooperation from the password/passphrase holder it makes any files secured by it completely unreadable.
PGP could indeed be "hiding" (and even then as you say "protecting" is equally likely) but leaving files 2 directories off the C drive is certainly not
Heres a link to the older times online version of the story - and here for the "8 years" sentencing.
some choice quotes - apparently: he "set up websites with direct links to inflammatory magazines", websites with links? shocking! and "he was found guilty of a series of Islamist terrorism offences" not just "terrorism", no, he'd only get 4 years for that...it was "Islamist terrorism" offences. So thats all right then. I can sleep better at night knowing that shifty beardy types with funny names will be hunted down.
It's a dangerous message that the court is sending out here methinks
Oh there is a lot of circumstantial evidence there, and it does add up to "deeply suspicious" but i object to the language used for some of the evidence that is so clearly nonsense - like the "hidden" files issue etc... Do we really need to convict people on falsehoods?
You have a good point*. When "not hidden in the slightest files" become "hidden" in order to sentence you, you'd be far better off encrypting everything and "losing" the password.It's a dangerous message that the court is sending out here methinks
* see now I'm even agreeing with you - we should move into together
Well now, hold up.
It isn’t for judges, or indeed juries, to make decisions in a vacuum. Here it appears that the judge was accepting - and saying that the jury has accepted - expert evidence that putting a file in \windows\options folder is ‘hiding’ it. If the defence had any wits about it, it too would have presented expert evidence – if it could find such an expert – to the effect that something's not really hidden in \windows\options. If such evidence was presented, it was not accepted by the jury and if it wasn’t presented, well the rules are that uncontradicted evidence must be accepted.
In any event, in my view files put in that directory are ‘hidden’. Certainly you have to make a decision to put files in /windows/options, and none of the windows/.. subdirectories are commonly used for storage of user-generated files, so what would be the basis for your decision to put them there? One would have to use a search routine to find video files in any of the /windows/.. subdirectories, and (in ordinary English) what do you search for? Lost or hidden things. I think if someone put her husband’s most revolting tie in the freezer, it would be ‘hidden’. Clearly visible once you open the freezer drawer, but the husband is going to be looking for it on his tie-rack, innit?
In any event, the question of whether it was ‘hidden’ was a question of implication. His defence was that he was merely curious about these things: ‘what motivates terrorists’, that sort of thing. But if you read the full sentencing judgment you’ll see that the judge mentions evidence of people who knew him at University who told the court that he had approved of bombings and boasted that he was going to become a terrorist and blow up Glasgow. (Duh!, but not the less guilty for that.) So the question of whether the files were hidden was addressing his defence.
The prosecution’s case, I infer, was ‘somebody who is curious about these things might have such videos, but it would not be expected that someone who had complete faith in their own good motives would have been looking to identify ‘unusual’ not to say ‘secret’ places in which to keep those files’. It probably went on to argue – at least, I would – that curiosity might make you find and watch these videos, but keeping on your hard drive implies either that you want to watch them repeatedly, or that you want to show them to other people. That’s not curiosity.
As far as ‘providing internet access’, in terms of how the law is to embrace the way in which the internet works, it is becoming clear that providing hyperlinks can be an unlawful action. This is common sense, really, because the paradigm would be the old-time activity of obtaining forbidden publications, photocopying them and handing them out to friends or selling them, or obtaining a DVD of a forbidden film, copying it and distributing the copies. If something is declared, by parliament, to be an offence, it nevertheless cannot enforce that in another country; so hosting a website that advocates – eg – racial hatred in a country that has no laws about it or hasn’t the resources to enforce laws about it would be a way around the UK law. It is clearly desirable that Parliament should, in such a case, have provided that it be an offence to link to that site. (It’s still possible to find it, but we have to accept that as the price of the benefits the internet delivers.)
You object to the phrase ‘providing internet access’ (I suspect) because you are thinking of a rather more narrow IT meaning of the phrase. In his judgment, the judge details how links on the accused’s own web page click through to quite nasty terrorist-jihad publications, then goes on to say “given that you were providing internet access” which I feel is certainly a legitimate non-technical construction to describe what he was doing.
Given the other evidence from the judge's statement (have you read it?), I think your sentence about a "wrist slap" is mistaken!
Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 24th-October-2007 at 10:53 AM.
Don't be too smug. If necessary, the sentence for failing to provide passwords for encrypted files will simply be increased. At the moment it's mostly used against alleged paedophiles.It makes the Whole Disk Encryption function of PGP even more attractive. Failing to provide a password for seized computers carries a two year maximum sentence I seem to recall. Making this now an attractive option for ner'do'wells. PGP is military strength encryption and without cooperation from the password/passphrase holder it makes any files secured by it completely unreadable.
It's a dangerous message that the court is sending out here methinks
And not all PGP is military strength encryption, depends on the number of bits. Don't forget the military and the police have access to supercomputers for cracking - if they thought it worth it they'd have a go with a suspected terrorist's files, I've no doubt.
Firstly, let me say that reading the judge's ruling, I'm not really questioning whether the right verdicts were reached. But...
To some extent I agree with you, but there's hidden, and then there's hidden. I'd say putting files in /windows/options is more "let's put these files where someone won't come across them by accident" than "let's put these files somewhere secret where only I can find them".
It's also perfectly possible to end up with files in strange places by accident. Many a time I've downloaded something or extracted something from a zip, only to realise it's gone somewhere completely unexpected. Over time, a PC accumulates all manner of cruft like that.
It seems to me a much closer paradigm would be telling people where they can obtain forbidden publications. I don't know whether or not that is illegal, but it's certainly seems a more marginal scenario.As far as ‘providing internet access’, in terms of how the law is to embrace the way in which the internet works, it is becoming clear that providing hyperlinks can be an unlawful action. This is common sense, really, because the paradigm would be the old-time activity of obtaining forbidden publications, photocopying them and handing them out to friends or selling them, or obtaining a DVD of a forbidden film, copying it and distributing the copies.
It's also worth pointing out that if you provide a link, you do not control the content you link to. So it would be perfectly possible to have linked to a website that talked about the importance of non-violent Jihad, and for that website to subsequently turn militant without you knowing about it. On a lower level, this kind of thing happens all the time - often when following links you get sent to a site that has clearly taken over the original. (Most notably and amusingly, the domain ifpi.com used to be owned by the recording industry, but was taken over as the "International Federation of Pirates Interests". So you can imagine there are quite a few sites currently 'promoting piracy' without even knowing about it).
Wow. I completely forgot to make the point about The Register being in the great tradition of trash journalism.
This is how it's report starts:
"Careless use of Windows folders cost a Scottish student a lengthy prison stretch today"
which, as far as the first line of a legal story goes, is about as inaccurate as you can be without writing about cooking.
What cost him a 6 year sentence was (1) having the "articles related to terrorism" on his hard drive, together with (2) the oral evidence from people who knew him that he approved of jihadic terrorism and told them he was going to Pakistan to train as a terrorist, plus the slightly less critical expert evidence about the folder in which the videos were stored, both of which (3) tended to undermine his defence that the 'articles' were simply matters of personal curiosity.
The headline is as accurate as one that might read: "Jean Charles de Menezes was shot because he didn't go home when his Visa ran out"...
The staff of The Register would probably be proud of that accolade. BOFH is the best thing on there, I reckon.
Probably less accurate, to be honest...The headline is as accurate as one that might read: "Jean Charles de Menezes was shot because he didn't go home when his Visa ran out"...
All true. However. The evidence about the hiding of the files was only one small element; and there's no suggestion that it was alleged that the files were invisible, just hidden.
His barrister could certainly have led evidence that the files ended up there without intention on his part. I can't say I recall downloading anything without Firefox asking where I want to put it, but certainly unzipping installation files can lead to almost any outcome.
I disagree about the paradigm. In your illustration, the person informed has to make his or her own effort to find and procure the forbidden publication. In the situation under consideration, no effort is required other than a mouse click. Your scenario would be more like this: "You can find information on X by googling "XXX", but I'm not providing a link because that might imply I approve of these things."It seems to me a much closer paradigm would be telling people where they can obtain forbidden publications. I don't know whether or not that is illegal, but it's certainly seems a more marginal scenario.
It's also worth pointing out that if you provide a link, you do not control the content you link to. So it would be perfectly possible to have linked to a website that talked about the importance of non-violent Jihad, and for that website to subsequently turn militant without you knowing about it. On a lower level, this kind of thing happens all the time - often when following links you get sent to a site that has clearly taken over the original. (Most notably and amusingly, the domain ifpi.com used to be owned by the recording industry, but was taken over as the "International Federation of Pirates Interests". So you can imagine there are quite a few sites currently 'promoting piracy' without even knowing about it).
As for the link rot - it was open to him to claim that he linked to the other sites before they became militant terrorist in nature. But he didn't do that, or if he did, he wasn't believed. Given the name he gave to his web site and the quote at the top of the home page, it would have been hardly worth trying such a defence.
Plus it's important to avoid the 'divide and conquer' approach. The jury and the judge looked at all the evidence; evidence on charge 3 might support the argument on charge 1, and evidence on charge 5 might make sense only in the light of evidence on charge 4.
I imagine - let me know if you think I'm wrong - that a jury of lay-people would be most impressed by his fellow students saying "He would say that the 7 July bombings were a tremendous achievement, that he wanted to be a suicide bomber and was going abroad to train as a terrorist". So that when he then said 'No, it was purely a random thing, the files being in such a wholly unusual place," they were not in the least convinced.
And so forth.
That is an assumption. Certainly in my case I have used several Operating Systems before I ever used Windows and , for example, I do not store anything other than OS "helper" applications like defrag tools, virus killers and the like in "Program Files", every other file goes somewhere more sensible. Likewise I have never used the MyVideos / MyMusic type folders, ever - having already established a folder structure prior to windows adding its own folder layout. So "commonly used" is a complete guess on your part and "hidden" can only be used if there was an actual attempt to hid something - e.g. from using windows own inbuilt "hide" ability for a folder, encryption of some kind, changing the file extension, or even deleting the files to recover them later.In any event, in my view files put in that directory are ‘hidden’. Certainly you have to make a decision to put files in /windows/options, and none of the windows/.. subdirectories are commonly used for storage of user-generated files,
The file extension of course - a "*.doc" search would bring them ALL back regardless of folder. note there is no evidence that he attempted to hide the file by doing something as simple as changing the file extension.so what would be the basis for your decision to put them there? One would have to use a search routine to find video files in any of the /windows/.. subdirectories, and (in ordinary English) what do you search for?
Apples and Oranges my good man. A file system is just one massive tie rack with labels, and all he did was put it in a certain place on that tie rack - under the "nice tie" label rather than the "garish tie" label that it deserved. Hiding ? I think not.Lost or hidden things. I think if someone put her husband’s most revolting tie in the freezer, it would be ‘hidden’. Clearly visible once you open the freezer drawer, but the husband is going to be looking for it on his tie-rack, innit?
Indeed there was compelling evidence that he was inclined to be a bomber based on what he said to others but its still a big jump to say he would actually do it. How many actual bombers go about explaining what they are planning? To people they KNOW are NOT going to agree. A cry for attention? A statement of "look at me" I'm a muslim and I am important. The hidden files thing is a red herring designed to sway the jury a bit. As you say though, why the defense let it stand I don't know.His defence was that he was merely curious about these things: ‘what motivates terrorists’, that sort of thing. But if you read the full sentencing judgment you’ll see that the judge mentions evidence of people who knew him at University who told the court that he had approved of bombings and boasted that he was going to become a terrorist and blow up Glasgow. (Duh!, but not the less guilty for that.) So the question of whether the files were hidden was addressing his defence.
Indeed - so why did he not hide them with any one of hundreds of programs that are designed to do such things? or put them on an external device ?but it would not be expected that someone who had complete faith in their own good motives would have been looking to identify ‘unusual’ not to say ‘secret’ places in which to keep those files’.
It could be. But by definition, if you want to watch them - they have to be on your hard drive. You may never get around to deleting them if you don't need the hard drive space. I have lots of DVDs Ive not even watched or watched once - yet they are still on my DVD shelf.It probably went on to argue – at least, I would – that curiosity might make you find and watch these videos, but keeping on your hard drive implies either that you want to watch them repeatedly, or that you want to show them to other people. That’s not curiosity.
Can be, but its highly dubious. "Google" and any other search engine will provide you with links to illegal content, which is probably where he got these links from in the first place. Who at google should get 8 years in chokey ?As far as ‘providing internet access’, in terms of how the law is to embrace the way in which the internet works, it is becoming clear that providing hyperlinks can be an unlawful action.
As I said though, so does Google. The websites are there for HIM to find before he added links to his site.then goes on to say “given that you were providing internet access” which I feel is certainly a legitimate non-technical construction to describe what he was doing.
Well maybe, but I'm only here to incite comments after all. Outrage is the forums stock in tradeGiven the other evidence from the judge's statement (have you read it?), I think your sentence about a "wrist slap" is mistaken!Yes I did read the whole thing before I started this thread and the evidence is compelling, with the issues I mentioned notwithstanding.
No No. Bastions of IT journalism they are
No normal person would argue that thoughThe headline is as accurate as one that might read: "Jean Charles de Menezes was shot because he didn't go home when his Visa ran out"...
Dog porn?
I'll get me coat
Which is why I said right at the start that I didn't actually think the verdicts reached were wrong.
But the only difference is the amount of effort. In neither case is the "provider" actually producing, duplicating or distributing the materials themselves. I do agree my paradigm isn't spot on either, but I think it's a lot closer than yours.I disagree about the paradigm. In your illustration, the person informed has to make his or her own effort to find and procure the forbidden publication. In the situation under consideration, no effort is required other than a mouse click.
There are forums I post on that don't like links to other 'competitor' sites, and this is the approach I generally take. Some will still take exception though. I wonder what the police would have said in this case, particularly if he'd provided a link to do the google search for them.Your scenario would be more like this: "You can find information on X by googling "XXX", but I'm not providing a link because that might imply I approve of these things."
Again, I agree with this. I just don't think that the mere existence of links should be sufficient. Way too easy to get someone else into trouble like that.As for the link rot - it was open to him to claim that he linked to the other sites before they became militant terrorist in nature. But he didn't do that, or if he did, he wasn't believed. Given the name he gave to his web site and the quote at the top of the home page, it would have been hardly worth trying such a defence.
Talking of dubious laws... Because if you've forgotten the password, you're stuffed, basically.
And after all, pretty much every website you use where a password is required has a mechanism for getting a password reminder. Because people do, routinely, forget passwords.
I've never heard of anyone using PGP without using way more bits than needed for security (barring unpublished breaks in the algorithms, of course). People who use PGP tend to go for overkill, basically.And not all PGP is military strength encryption, depends on the number of bits.
If they thought it worth it, I dare say they'd go for rubber hose decryption just as readily. Or, to parallel a recently published and then "classified" case in the US, they might tell him they'd make sure the Egyptian security forces would give his family there hell unless he cooperated.Don't forget the military and the police have access to supercomputers for cracking - if they thought it worth it they'd have a go with a suspected terrorist's files, I've no doubt.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
![$vboptions[bbtitle]](images/master_col.bmp)
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks