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Google Search Convicts Hacker
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 22, 2006 02:01 PM
from the scroooooood dept.
from the scroooooood dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google search terms have helped convict a wireless hacker. The queries the hacker performed were introduced into evidence at court, where Matthew Schuster was charged with disrupting his former employer's wireless network and imitating other users' MAC addresses to obtain access. From the article: 'Court documents are ambiguous and don't reveal how the FBI discovered his search terms. That could have happened in one of three ways: an analysis of his browser's history and cache; an Alpha employee monitoring the company's wireless connection; or a subpoena to Google from the police for search terms tied to his Internet address or cookie. Google has confirmed that it can provide search terms if given an Internet address or Web cookie, but has steadfastly refused to say how often such requests arrive.'
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AOL (Score:5, Funny)
No, they'll just give it all away anyway.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
But when Google does it, it can only be for the common good, right? A malicious Hax0r gets put away??
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Even so, I don't think Google was the source of the search terms- they have adamantly stood their ground against such practices in the past. I just don't see them taking a 180 and just giving the FBI search terms like that.
From their privacy policy: (Score:5, Informative)
Information sharing
Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:
* We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.
* We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
* We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.
That's a pretty broad policy. *ANY* applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforeable governmental request. That leaves the door pretty wide open for the Chinese government to start asking for the query strings of their citizens to me.
I think the answer is clear, if you need to see webpages and want NO trace of you - you have to compromise a machine, surf via a proxy you set up in it, and then timebomb the drive to wipe itself after you are done. And even then you may get caught, if there are firewall logs.
Let's look at a leading company [proxify.com]that does web proxy policy:
DISCLOSURE
All use of our site is confidential. We disclose user information only as provided for herein and when we believe that the law requires it, or when disclosure is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to others or interfering with Proxify's rights or property.
In the event of an assignment, sale, joint venture, or other transfer or disposition of some or all of the assets of Proxify, you agree that we can accordingly assign, sell, license or transfer any information that our users have provided to us. Please note, however, that the purchasing party cannot use the personal information you have submitted to us under this Privacy Policy in a manner that is materially inconsistent with this Privacy Policy without your prior consent.
That pretty much says: hey, we have your web surfing logs and we'll give em up if we have to. We don't want to, and we'll destroy logs after 30 days (it says that elsewhere in the policy) but dammit, if they bend us over and lube us up - we're gonna damn well hand it over rather than taking one for the team, so to speak.
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But we don't want google disclosing our information based on what they believe. That's up to law enforcement. If law enforcement believes a crime has been committed let them get a warrant and subpoena google for the information.
Certain exceptions, if memory serves (Score:3, Interesting)
Server location isn't a defense (Score:2)
If someone is charged in one country for what is done with servers located in another country, it stands to reason they're liable for what they did in the origin country. International treaties specify information sharing between various security and police forces, so any company has to comply with such requests. If a country signs up to an international treaty, then the people and businesses in that country have to abide as best they can.
Think about it -- sysadmins and servers are scattered around the
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Why are you even bringing the Chinese government into this? Replace "Chinese" with "American" and it still means the same thing.
Is there a way... (Score:2)
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But seriously. No way to hide IP addresses from the server. Unless you want to terminate your connection. Then you can hide all day. And get nowhere fast.
This guy who got caught.. well, in short, he sucked. Good hackers don't get caught.
Besides, I would say calling him a hacker does a disservice to the name. He was much closer to a script kiddie IMHO.
TLF
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Though when they see the leapfrog pointing back to your machine, the gig's pretty much up...
Re:Is there a way... (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't even try. He was just a disgruntled IT worker. Instead of using a machine gun to mow people down he wanted to use a transmitter to mow packets down. In this day and age people take that very seriously. So he's going to jail for 15 months. End of story.
TLF
Parent
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Just use an anonymous proxy like tor. [eff.org]
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I'm suprised it took this long... (Score:2)
Another story of not being smart(tm) (Score:3, Informative)
The first thing he should have done is to delete Cache, browse anonymously, and FOR GOD'S SAKE, not be logged into google (which is integrated everywhere), or delete search history, or delete all cookies!
I know because I have suffered from this kind of stupidity, and in the end, I was unable to blame anyone.
Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
A Fourth Way (Score:2)
Google Account (Score:2)
Or your Google Account search history if you remained logged in after you use GMail (or any of their other services).
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MAC Address Filtering... (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's also one way to maintain an open network for casual surfers without compromising your home/business network. Put the wireless net on the Internet side of a firewall. Only VPN users get to cross the firewall and play on the company Intranet.
-b.
How to not get caught (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like the MAC address was tied to his name somewhere and this was the evidence the FBI used to obtain the warrant. After that, everything was revealed by the contents of his computer.
If you purchase a network card online with a credit card it's possible that the FBI can trace the MAC address of that card back to you, providing the seller keeps records. If you're a linux user you can change your MAC address with,
ifconfig ethX hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
As long as you don't pass traceable information (like logging onto a traceable email account) and you use an anonymous proxy like tor [eff.org] as extra protection, it's pretty difficult to trace you. It's possible, of course, to locate you physically by triangulating your radio signals but this requires a bit more effort.
The above is provided for educational purposes only. I do not advocate breaking the law.
Re: (Score:2)
Under Mac OS X, the MAC address can be altered in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods:
ifconfig en0 lladdr 02:01:02:03:04:05
or
ifconfig en0 ether 02:01:02:03:04:05
If you're really concerned you can also just permanently modify the MAC address [sdadapters.com] by editing data on the NIC's EEPROM.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Profiling Internet Users? (Score:3, Interesting)
Transparent Proxy (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps... (Score:2, Funny)
Faulty Article Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Kudos on the post's headline being more accurate than TFA's headline.
The article's headline says: "Google searches nab wireless hacker," but the article actually says:
That may seem like simple semantics, but it's actually a pretty big difference.
Forget about the Google... (Score:2, Insightful)
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How can this be considered evidence? (Score:2)
In this day and age where anybody can wardrive past your place and do God knows what with your Internet connection (provided your WAP isn't secured), how can simple Google query logs prove ANYTHING? For all we know, this guy had an enemy at work who decided to set him up.
And if he doesn't have a WAP, or it's secured, then it's just as possible that the aforementioned enemy somehow hacked into this guy's computer and sent those queries.
How likely is this to happen? Maybe not that likely, but in this coun
Re:How can this be considered evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Courts need to become more technically competent, I think. We're too accustomed to the idea that if data comes from a computer it is implicitly trustworthy, and that's a big problem.
Parent
Hey, I've done that ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm
Anyway, I wonder if I could be a suspect now because of those searches?
I have noticed in the past that if you ask questions about security, you're usually treated as if you were a potential security risk, not as someone trying to improve your own security.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Because now you have a lot fewer of those rights.
In what way? To claim that a "right" has been violated here seems tantamount to making an assertion such as "Of course I may leave footprints, but no one has a right to follow them."
Why should an electronic trail have legal protections that a physical trail does not?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Physical trails in the public are not protected. Physical trails in private are.
Its OK for me to watch you in public talking to person X. In theory, one needs a warrant and probable cause of a specific crime to listen to person talking with person X on the telephone.
Re:YRO? (Score:4, Insightful)
In this instance it would be like talking to person X on company Y's premises. Company Y certainly has a right to know what is going on in their building and if it's illegal have every right to call the police about it.
That's my view, anyway.
Parent
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, what with being forced to use Google and all.
I mean, seriously, which right was violated here? The right to use a search engine without records? The right to use someone's wireless network without records?
Parent
Re: Wake up and smell the coffee!!! (Re:YRO?) (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the information faulty? Did someone munge with the data? Were Google's databases corrupt? Was the data recreated or generated from other data? Has Google's spy software been through open source review? How well was Google's software tested?
It continually astounds me how intellectually lazy
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not too surprised, though. A story like this (and realistically, the entire YRO section) is pretty much intended to rile the tin-foil hat crowd. Good thing for me that I'm entertained by it.
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Funny, yes. But I have a story that's not too far off from that sort of thing. About 10 years ago I was working on a project at a big corporation whose name isn't relevant here. I had a row of machines with different OSs for doing portability testing. Someone sent me email pointing to a bit of humor on some web site, and by chance I happened to read it on
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One of the better stories: I was snooping around on the computer's hard drive using Netscape by browsing "file:///", which was apparently "hacking". Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.
Wow, your sysadmin was a real jerk. I actually got caught pirating using the school network (lesson learned: pirating to just anyone is asking for trouble), which got me banned until they found out they needed geeks to operate PageMaker for the yearbook. hahaha :) The librarians just sighed every time I used the computer -- the latest attempts to keep the hackers out inevitably failed.
mandelbr0t
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