At 9:56 PM -0800 12/5/00, Greg Broiles wrote:
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 05:16:03PM -0800, Tim May wrote:
The legal fight over whether the monitor was legal and whether the information so obtained are in fact records of criminal activity is a side-show. It remains practical evidence of how insecure computer equipment / OS's and pass-phrase based identity authentication combine to reduce the effective security of a system.
I fully support this comment that the whole issue of "legality" is a "side show."
Exactly - not every attacker represents law enforcement, and not every law enforcement attack is performed with the intention of creating admissible evidence. The US' exclusionary rule is the exception, not the rule, worldwide - most courts take more or less whatever evidence they can get. And thugs and goons and spies of many flavors don't give a shit about even pretending to cover their tracks when they're not following the rules.
And the "exclusionary rule" is mostly meaningless, anyway. Though there is much noise about "fruit of the poisoned tree" (or "poison tree," not sure which), a black bag job can generate other grounds for arrest and prosecution. For example, planned meets, planned heists, etc. One of my favorite movies of all time is "Heat," with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The cops are trying to prove a gang is pulling off a series of violent heists. Surveillance is heavy, and the surveillance per se is not intended to be used in a court: the cops are seeking to catch the gang in action. And then there's the old "confidential informant" ploy: "We got a tip from our snitch." Make no mistake about it, the exclusionary rule will do little to deter black bag jobs. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)