Category Archives: The Law

Police Send Spyware To Lawyer For Whistle-Blower

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Port Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey

FSPD Chief Lindsey

Police in Fort Smith Arkansas have been caught embedding malware in a collection of documents requested by the lawyer for a whistleblower reporting on misconduct in the department. Attorney Matt Campbell reports that upon the return of a drive he provided to the Fort Smith Police Department for the purpose of receiving evidence, three common pieces of spyware targeting Microsoft Windows computers were implanted into a sub folder on the drive. The spyware includes a keylogger, backdoors, and a command and control utility.

Campell is representing whistle-blower Don Paul Bales in a lawsuit against the Fort Smith Police Department for retailing against Bale's reports of illegal practices within the department concerning employee termination and payroll procedures. Arkansas State Police have declined requests by Campbell to investigate the incident claiming that any potential violations would be merely "misdemeanors" insufficient to involve their investigators. Similarly local Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney for the 12th District of Arkansas Daniel Shue has declined to investigate citing a lack of resources even though their own web page declares Shue's office is "one of the busiest Prosecuting Attorney’s offices in the state." (archived) It remains to be seen if this can be investigated and prosecuted at the Federal level. Continue reading →

Judge: Preet Bharara's Brinkmanship Endangers Fair Trials

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PreetPreet Bharara, the United States premier inquisitor for prosecuting Bitcoin cases, was reprimanded by United States District Court Judge Valerie Caproni for endangering the former New York Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver's right to a fair trial by making public statements endangering his right to a fair trial by jury. Caproni in ruling on a motion by the defense offered:

"In this case, the U.S. Attorney,1 while castigating politicians in Albany for playing fast and loose with the ethical rules that govern their conduct, strayed so close to the edge of the rules governing his own conduct that Defendant Sheldon Silver has a non-frivolous argument that he fell over the edge to the Defendant’s prejudice."

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  1. Bharara  ↩

EFF Goes to Bat For Podcasters, Hits Homerun Against Patent Troll

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Continuing to keep its shiva hands full and not content with just tackling the videogame industry, the EFF has just helped to win a decision with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that invalidates the "podcasting patent" held by Personal Audio LLC, a Texas-based patent trolling firm. Personal Audio LLC is famous for having squeezed $8 mn from Apple Inc. in 2011 for the fruit company's use of "navigable playlists" on its iPod music players, as well as having sued American comedian Adam Corolla for distributing podcasts, only to be counter-sued before the two parties quietly settled. Continue reading →

Obama Initiative Promotes Linkrot

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More than one thousand websites in the United States .gov top level domain have gone offline since a 2011 memorandum (archived) issued by the President Obama with the stated intent of "improving online services." While the utility of many of the particular domains and sites hosted on them is debatable, Obama's aggressive culling has the primary effect of making the internet presence of the United States government less useful and far less reliable. Continue reading →

Vessenes Foundation Attempts Janssens Rebuttal

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This weekend Vessenes' Bitcoin Foundation board member Oliver Janssens offered a scathing critique of the "non-profit" organization.  The attempted rebuttal (archived) rather than refuting, merely edged Janssens's points. The foundation's four points are offered in condensed form below: Continue reading →

Tewksbury Police Pay Ransom

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Local weekly newspaper the Town Crier reports that Tewksbury, Massachusetts police have paid a $500 ransom after a version of the CryptoLocker ransomware encrypted essential files and rendered their network unusable. The initial infection was determined to have happened on December 7th when it entered the police department's network through the computer of the Officer in Charge. The malware's presence was not discovered until the next day. Continue reading →

Federal Agent Sells Firearms Via Darknet Market

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Patch.com reports the arrest of a Massachusetts man who sought to purchase a firearm and silencer from a darknet market website. Unfortunately for 21 year old felon Justin Moreira, the Walther PPK he ordered was sold to him by none other than a federal agent masquerading as a legitimate arms dealer.

Moreira is believed to have paid USD $2,500 in bitcoin for the firearm and silencer which was then shipped by federal agents to a post office box in Hyannis, MA. Upon Moreira retrieving the package, federal agents moved in to arrest the young man. Continue reading →

Silk Road Sealed Document Dump Day (Full Text)

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Today Cryptome released 122 pages of documents (local mirror plaintext) related to Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road trial which had been sealed due to the ongoing investigation of Carl Mark Force IV. The order to unseal (local mirror) came into effect with his arrest. For what it is worth Preet Bharara's minions can be seen pleading to Judge Forrest that the terminally corrupted Baltimore investigation some how touches their investigation in no way. The full extracted text of the unsealed documents is below: Continue reading →

Obama Orders War On Computing And Bitcoin With New "Emergency" Order (Full Text)

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Today United States President Barack Hussein Obama has issued an executive order under which he claims emergency power in order to direct the Treasury Department to take action against the property of persons engaged in "malicious" computing related activity. The description of activities determined to be malicious under the order includes is so vague as to potentially include any user of a computing system, but especially targets the normal work of security researchers in civilian employment as Rob Graham (local archive) highlights. The declaration of National Emergency establishes "hackers" as a clear and present danger to the point that people who have merely associated with or even unknowingly contributed any form of support to "hackers" can be subjected to sanctions typically reserved for war criminals, terrorists, and the leaders of drug cartels. Continue reading →