Using Google Maps To Intercept FBI and Secret Service Calls 137
An anonymous reader sends in a story about a network engineer named Bryan Seely, who was tired of seeing fake listings and spam on Google Maps. He contacted the company and tried to convince them to fix their system, but didn't have much luck. Afterward, he thought of an effective demonstration. He put up fake listings for the FBI and the Secret Service with phone numbers that sent the calls to him. When people called, he forwarded them to the actual agencies while he listened in. After recording a couple of calls for proof, he went to a local Secret Service office to explain the problem:
"After that, Seely says, he got patted down, read his Miranda rights, and put in an interrogation room. Email correspondence with the Secret Service indicates that the special agent in charge called him a 'hero' for bringing this major security flaw to light. They let him go after a few hours. Seely says the fake federal listings, which were both ranked second every time I checked Google Maps, were up for four days. He took them down himself when the Secret Service asked."
Lucky (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lucky (Score:4, Insightful)
The Secret Service actually hires intelligent people. If it had been the TSA he'd still be in jail.
Re:Directly contacting gov agencies. Good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, even being near a crime can get you in trouble.
there was a time that I saw a car up on blocks with its wheels gone (down the street from where I used to live, a nice safe area in mtn view). I thought it odd that there was such a theft like this and I had my camera with me at the time so I shot a few pics. a cop came by and started hassling me. at the time, I had no idea why.
when I asked around (and did some research) it seems that some thieves do their deed and then come back again to photo it, maybe for bragging rights or something. and so, if you take pics of something like this, you may run into some 'questioning' from those in blue. sad but true.
I would not ever voluntarily go talk to a cop or walk into a cop station, these days. you put yourself at risk every time you encounter one of those guys. I don't need problems in my life so I avoid those guys at all cost even though I'm not doing a single thing wrong.
lesson: don't tangle with authority unless you have all your bases covered. even then, if its not your business, just stay the hell out of their sphere. these days, we are all 'suspects' and even a perfectly innocent person can run into trouble in spite of having neutral or even good intentions.
Re:Directly contacting gov agencies. Good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Secret Service agent I spoke with was interested, but let me know why he couldn't justify further investigation. Without a clear abused victim with a clear monetary damage of at least $30,000, he couldn't justify obtaining the necessary necessary agency time to get the warrants to track the spammers and the fraud. So I learned a hard lesson: getting the specific criminal act of large enough damage to *justify* prosecutorial interest is key. It's why so many low scale spammers and fraudsters continue so long: they operate under the radar of police or FBI or Secret Service wire fraud thresholds.
On the other hand... had that spammer tried to sell *one* bootleg copy of a movie...
Re:Directly contacting gov agencies. Good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would not ever voluntarily go talk to a cop or walk into a cop station, these days. you put yourself at risk every time you encounter one of those guys.
You've got serious problems there if a law abiding citizen cannot talk to the cops.
Re:Directly contacting gov agencies. Good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
With all the laws we have now the idea of a "law abiding citizen" is a fantasy. Everyone has broken some law.
I wish the guy had gotten charged (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wish the guy had gotten charged (Score:4, Insightful)
... even though I actually agree talking with law agents is risky in certain places of the world right now.
When the topic is computer/communications security, talking to legal authorities is very risky anywhere in the world right now, but especially in the US. The usual reaction is to classify anyone with knowledge of security issues a "hacker", which is synonymous with "criminal" to most non-geeks. Demoing a security issue almost always leads to charges against the person doing the demo, not to fixes.
This is a lot of why our computer and communication systems are so insecure now. The people who are knowledgeable and competent to fix the problems tend to understand (typically by being burned) that working on such topics entails a high risk to one's own freedom or career, so they find jobs in other areas that don't entail working with the security aspects.