Brian West

[mmotyka at lsil.com]

John Young <jya at pipeline.com> wrote :
>David,
>
>Thanks for the Wired pointer. From reading Declan's article it is 
>not anymore clear now what Brian West did or did not do than
>before -- maybe less so now -- because most of the information 
>about latest developments has come from the feds, and Declan 
>does not appear to have done thorough checking the feds' version 
>with other sources, and indeed has put an unfortunate slant in 
>his story not yet objectively supportable. 
>
>You must know that the feds often put out misleading press 
>releases, especially in cases with high media coverage, and
>most especially when they have made a well-publicized mistake.
>
>The story is not yet out about the complete Brian West story,
>as with predecessor stories about  compsec cases and plea 
>bargains and, worse, rush to judgment convictions.
>
I read the release. The agreement seems to embellish the facts with
suppositions that will never be tested in court. It's sad that testing
is so expensive.

>I am not being crotchety just awaiting information that does
>not too quickly help obscure the current law enforcement
>practice of demonizing all compsec complaints made
>by poorly secured sites operators and plea bargaining 
>of coerced targets. This case still appears to be that kind 
>of witchhunting loose upon the "defenseless" homeland.
>
Well put. 

We need to establish that a site operator is legally responsible for the
information security of its own and any customers' data. Until the legal
system wises up, everyone, both users and abusers, is doomed to suffer
the slings and arrows of disfunctional systems legal and digital.

>John
>
Mike