Unregistered

[Thomas Shaddack]

Found this on the Net couple years ago. Then it vanished. In the light of 
the INDUCE Act, or whatever it's called now, it is becoming quite 
relevant...

Question for the crowd: In the setting described below, how could one 
perform a successful long-term disobedience?


Original URL: www.keshet.f2s.com/unregistered.html
Downloaded Sep 1 2001
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unregistered


Dark and drizzle, we pulled up in front of the living block; we had a an 
AC tip on one of the residents -- nothing concrete, maybe trafficking in 
illegal copies, maybe just pron, we weren't sure.

"Can I help you?" our suspect asked, innocently enough, as he opened the 
door.

"Yah, we got a warrant - need to scan your disk." I held up the warrant in 
one hand while the other reflexively went for the scanner.

"What seems to be the problem officers?" he says... boy if this guy is 
hiding something he sure can act it. This is the point when I watch the 
suspect most closely -- looking not just for fear or guilt, but any kind 
of movement which may trigger an erase mechanism.

"Nothing special," I try to smooth him over, "just a routine search, maybe 
we just got a bad tip."

"Well, okay.." he didn't seem too sure of his ground. I didn't like it, he 
should be outraged, or afraid or something. My partner printed up a 
receipt while I activated the scanner.

3 seconds later I'm looking at the output, scratching my head- no 
  contraband on the disk but the scanner flagged some unusual files.

"What's this?" I ask the guy, showing him the readout.

"Oh, those are mine," he said with such an innocent look I was caught off 
balance.

I connect to Central and send the digital signatures for look-up & 
verify.. Central drew a blank. "Unknown registry authority" was the 
response for each one of the signed executables.

"Where did you get these?" I ask the suspect while copying the binaries 
into quarantined flash for later dissection.

"Those? I made them." Again that look of pure innocence. I was getting a 
creepy feeling at the back of my neck.

"Whadd'ya mean, you made them? Look, we're gonna find out where those 
execs came from and what they do.. it's gonna start getting real 
unpleasant in here real fast if you don't start coming up with answers 
quick!" I don't like coming down heavy so fast on a guy, but these files 
were starting to give me the creeps.

"Look man, I'm a programmer - that's what I do. I can show you the source 
& compile it for you if you like..."

Stunned, I look at the guy, my partner's already going for a tackle with 
the cuffs. "You got a compiler in here!?" I shout at him. "Jesus HC," I'm 
swearing at myself for being so slow.

"Call Central!" I'm yelling at my partner while I signal for backup, "tell 
'em to put a packet freeze on the whole damn block! Tell 'em we got an 
unregistered compiler!"

I swear to God, even while they were hauling him away & forensics were 
scanning the building, he still had that innocent look on his face -- like 
he didn't even know what was going on.


All Text and Art Original Material Copyright © 2001
<a href="mailto:siteinfo at kashat.net">keshet</a>