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Police Target Free Email
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Jul 21, 2003 06:35 AM
from the tracking-people-down dept.
from the tracking-people-down dept.
Red Wolf writes "The Australian Federal Police are talking with the major free email providers in the hope of making it easier to trace suspects who use the accounts for crimes like fraud and paedophilia."
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Geez, it must be early in the morning... (Score:5, Funny)
This is good news! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is good news! (Score:2)
I hope they get some austrlian spammers in the process.
Can't spammer in a lot of cases said to be fraudulent? Anyway, I'm not sure if I feel that this is good news. On one hand, anything that will make it easier to prevent childabuse and catch those sick, sick peadeofiliacts are a Good Thing (tm) in my book, but isn't the cost too high - stopping a whole raft of legitamate users of the services - in this cause?
I have a couple of free e-mails myself, neither is set up to identify myself from the info
Re:This is good news! (Score:3, Interesting)
ie: DeCSS
Lock picks / slimjims (is that one or two words?)
Guns
Knives
Crossbows (They ARE illegal in Australia excl Victoria)
I once knew a guy at my school who had his head bashed in with a hammer. Maybe we will have to go back to hitting nails with rocks (nope, they should be banned too because they can kill).
One word, one header: (Score:5, Insightful)
- Oisin
Re:One word, one header: (Score:3, Informative)
They already do. E-mail I get from Hotmail at least has an X-Originating-IP header, as well as a Received: from xx.xx.xx.xx by whatever.hotmail.com via HTTP.
I'm quite sure Yahoo does something similar too, but I don't have an e-mail sent from a Yahoo account handy.
They'll just move (Score:5, Insightful)
No, really, didn't they think that the minority who are using the accounts in committing crimes will just move to (foreign) services that are not affected by this. While the legitimate users will be inconvenienced...
Re:They'll just move (Score:4, Interesting)
So, for technology-aware people, that commits the most serious crimes (specially fraud), this step will be mostly ineffective, yes.
But there have been lots of people who got arrested because they believed that they couldn't be traced back if they were using an anonymous service. Usually related to smaller felonies, like harassment, threatening, etc.
Parent
Aw jeez (Score:5, Funny)
More Accurate Headline? (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't say either way if this was an intentional inaccuracy, but nothing in the article suggests that free email providers are in any kind of trouble or even the subject of any investigation.
Re:More Accurate Headline? (Score:5, Informative)
Re-read the article.. they want the elimination of all free email service worldwide.
They, and I quote: '"Do away with free internet (email) accounts," he said. "If they aren't free then people will pay by credit card and that gives law enforcement some starting point.'
They want their jobs to be easier.
Another great quote: '"There will always be rogue states that will provide an internet haven in the same way they provide a banking haven," he said. "This has to be seriously raised at an international level."'
So, the subject line is correct, for once.
Parent
Mwuhahahahahhaaaaa.. (Score:3, Funny)
"Hotmail figures quite prominently in our investigations not because Microsoft is a bad company but because they have provided a good service that can be used anywhere," he said.
Mwuhaa
Mwuhaha
Mwuhahaha
Mwuhahahaha
Mwuhah
More Useful Everyday.
Real Hot mail.
-
A good point (Score:5, Interesting)
hotmail.com
yahoo.com
lycos.co.uk
britneyspe
fcuk-me.co.uk
etcetc
how many of the other big name free email providers out there are gleefully handing out any details that you registered (like any were real) and say to the cops
"theres an adress here you might want to check something_horrible@some-email.com" and then the police sit there and track all the emails for a while.
How much worse would this be is you encrypted your emails so it looked really suspicious ?
Are there any really good free web based email clients out there that you can suggest where this thing might not be an issue, what do you use ?????
S
Now it's personal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now it's personal (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now it's personal (Score:4, Insightful)
So... given that the numbers pretty much speak for themselves, how can you NOT agree that if anyone is to be "tracked" or otherwise given "special treatment" in these cases it should NOT be parents of girls? I mean, if you are going to single anyone out, who better than those who have access to, and power in the lives of, the most frequent victims?
The local TV station ran a fearmongering "special report" on the evening news outlining all the "dangers children face." They had policemen hang out at playgrounds and filmed them coaxing young girls into a minivan while their terrified mothers looked on. They talked about the "online predators" that will lure your children into real life meetings and then kill them. They talked about all these terrible fates that await any child not held under it's mother's wing 24 hours a day - in short, they talked about all sorts of terrible fates that, according to the FBI's own numbers, only a tiny number of children meet with each year.
Of course, what they didn't mention - and what is rarely mentioned in typical propoganda like this [bravepages.com] - is the fact that tens of thousands of children are molested each year by their own parents, or by a relative, or by a "friend" close to the family (teacher, coach, counselor, babysitter, etc). There is no "typical" when it comes to people who fuck children, and those rapists hanging about in the bushes represent a tiny, tiny sliver of the greater problem. Psychological studies have also revealed that at least (or as much as) a third of the adults convicted of molesting children are not pedophiles, but simply sexual opportunists.
Consider the most violent extreme in this example: [ncjrs.org] of the 2100 children killed in 1997, 40% of the killers identified were family members, 45% by someone known to the child - and a whopping 15% (slightly over 300) were killed by strangers. No, talking about the realities wouldn't do well at all because it would only make everyone much more aware that it's not "those people" doing these crimes, it's anyone you know and there's little way to tell until it's too late. Is your next door neighbor fucking his eight year old? How do you know? The trajic fact is that this witch hunt mentality does nothing at all to protect children and, in fact, only helps blind society at large to the truth; while "concerned parents" (sheep brainwashed by the evening news) go on worrying about the evil "pedophile" lurking in the bushes no one believes Mr. Johnson, the special ed. teacher next door would be fucking his little girl - he's just "not that type."
Parent
Re:Now it's personal (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he didn't, and no, the article doesn't. The article discusses making it easier for the police to track down suspected criminals. That's all. Not monitoring your e-mail constantly, just extracting whatever information they can about a suspect without jumping through miles of red tape. Whether these tactics will actually be useful is besid
Re:Now it's personal (Score:3, Insightful)
And how does this differ in any principled way from them using their existing powers to monitor snail mail ? The point is the Australian Police have no power to enforce a warrant on a overseas ISP, so they are seeking to ensure they act responsibly anyway.
You're standing on the slippery slope, so yeah, you implied it.
I would counter that you are standing on a slippery slope to anarchy, or purposefully
Re:Now it's personal (Score:5, Interesting)
Are liquor company execs usually alcoholics?
Are drug pushers usually drug addicts?
Are people who create child porn usually pedophiles?
Or is it just about profit?
You seem to be saying that you are paranoid of government intrusion, but at the same time, you want to take away the rights of people who haven't been convicted of any crimes.
That is a huge contradiction. Why should pedophiles be the victims of a witch hunt if they have done nothing wrong?
The simple fact is that pedophilia is not a crime. Pedophilia is what you are, not what you do. And you know, rape is often more about power than sex. What makes you think that most people who rape children are really pedophiles? You don't think it could have something to do with the fact that children are easier to keep quiet? Easy targets, for anyone with a twisted mind?
Does being a heterosexual man mean that you go around raping women? Should every heterosexual man have to register somewhere to "help keep predators at bay"?
It seems that you are just one of those "freedom and human rights for all, except if they are something I don't like" people. You are as dangerous to democracy and human rights as any oppressive government. You are the kind that gets these governments into power in the first place.
The bottom line is that if you are a pedophile but not convicted of any crime, there is no reason why you shouldn't have the exact same rights as anyone else. Say otherwise, and you are a hypocrite and a supporter of a Big Brother society where the government can pretty much do as it pleases to keep the people down.
Pedophiles have the exact same rights as everyone else to protect their identities, unless they have been convicted of a crime.
Parent
Re:Now it's personal (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I'm sorry, this isn't correct. No one loses their rights when they are under investigation; believing that they do is the first step towards acknowledging that "rights" are something that governments give you, a privilege that can be taken away. That's what governments want you to think; and it's exactly backwards.
Your rights are INALIENABLE, you *always* have your rights, no matter what actions the government might take to quash them. They are yours as a member of the polity, or as a member of the human race.
Why, then, can the government break down the doors of those who are suspected of a crime, or arrest someone on probable cause, or imprison them if found guilty? The reason is not that your rights disappear, but because we allow that in certain circumstances, your rights are trumped by the need for a government to police us and maintain public order, functions that we the people entrust to them, and which they have at OUR pleasure. That's it... the *only* reason that rights are superseded (not "lost", or even "suspended") is the presence of a greater potential harm to society than the temporary superseding of your rights would be.
Parent
Re:Now it's personal (Score:3, Insightful)
Already somewhat tracable (Score:5, Insightful)
telephone comparison (more or less?) (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately for us, he's dramatic- and doesn't read headers. Our other brother was the one who got his terrible goth poem by email, from a free account, and we seem to have narrowly averted disaster- he was out in Arkansas, it turned out, having a breakdown. (The brother who got the email sat down and found out where he sent it from, and checked in with the rest of us to let us know that the kid was alive. We'd called the police and the police were spectacularly unhelpful, we had to call them back and tell them where he was. "How do you know?" they asked us.) If he hadn't been traceable, he might have been dead by the time we got to him.
I have accounts that i use regularly that are free accounts, yes. And I'd resent them being read by strangers (Do we really think that the government are the only ones who want us all to be visible on the map? See my journal entry today on microchip implants in mexico... how long till your email ID is on your chip?) but i was thankful, that once, that anonymous doesn't always mean anonymous. Mixed feelings on this one... i wouldn't want my phone tapped, but i do want 911 to be able to see where i am. There's a differene, but only in degree.
Parent
This won't work out (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, if you have a criminal intent and use a free address to stay anonymous, you won't give your real physical address unless you're really stupid. But then they won't need that info to track you down, as you probably allready posed for a security camera, and left your wallet on the scene of the crime....
Oh well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this is just yet another reason to switch from plain text e-mails to more secure alternatives [gnupg.org].
Free email targeted by police? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet was founded on the propogation of information as freely as possible. This means that Web surfing, Usenet threads and email messages are all equally valuable and important, and removing free email services would remove the infrastructure of one of the Internet's most fundamental protocols. Though it is true that many free email users are fly-by-night peculiars such as trolls and paedos, we have to understand that they provide a service not unlike those of coin-operated telephone boxes and stamp-operated postal services, and that vigorously spying on free email users is tantamount to removing phone and mail boxes or tapping them.
Besides, keeping an eye on free email services won't reduce the problem. If child pornographers and spammers are determinted to get their messages through, then they can just use encryption, or the Freenet protocol to make them untraceable - or both, in which case nothing can be done. Public key encryption algorithm implementations such as RSA, DES and AES mean that the police would reqire upwards of 75,000 manhours per email message to discover inappropriate content; despite being impossible, this is still a violation of our privacy rights!
In addition to this, by carrying out these actions the police are effectively saying that ISP and other pay email accounts are in some way superior to free email accounts. While they may be superior, there can be no way of saying that an email from someone using AOL is more reputable than one from fastmail.fm or any other ISP/POP3 provider using open source software. Just because an email provider happents to use UNIX/Linux servers doesn't mean that they are necessarily infested with unsavoury characters; in fact, I have received more unwanted email from large ISPs, IAPs and LAPs than from fleeting servers hidden somewhere on Christmas Island.
I could continue, but I think that with more than a cursory notice the other multitudinous incarnadine problems with this new system become clear, and we must make sure that these plans do not become widespread. Fortunately, they are quite impractical, so a few negative anecdotes should encourage most middle managers in service providers and tech support to avoid implementing it.
In Malaysia... (Score:4, Insightful)
The implication of this is that many large local portals, like Catcha [catcha.com.my] or BlueHyppo [bluehyppo.com] have an IC field. Whether or not this is mandatory depends on company policy, but if legislation were introduced to make this mandatory, this would immediately provide an easy method of identification should the need arise.
I suppose an alternative would be to allow relative anonymity, but at a price to deter wanton abuse of the system.
Personally, I am intensely concerned about the importance of privacy but this needs to be balanced against the need for social accountability.
Look, you dumb Ozzies (Score:4, Funny)
The price you pay for getting something free (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems ok to me. When you sign with a non government or for profit organization in order to get a free service you should be aware that you will be getting more than you bargained for.
Caveat Empor.
If you want a more secure form of communication just pay for an E-mail address and encrypt with PGP/GPG.
Of course you can also take it to the next level and compose your E-mails on a machine that is disconnected from the Internet. Encrypt the message with a one time pad cipher before removing the message to a Internet available machine. Once on the Internet machine you send a PGP message to your recipient and agree on a time windows of 1 minute sometime in the future. You then construct a secure FTP over SSH and connect it to the Internet for that 1 minute only, logging all the traffic from and to that machine while it was on-line. You sit and pour over the logs and see that your recipient was in fact the only person that made the ssh connection and that it was not spoofed. You can then destroy the hard-drives of the machines you worked with.
Or you can really be paranoid and ...
Maybe offenders should... (Score:5, Funny)
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
then some real criminals can be apprehended =d
Waste of effort (Score:3, Insightful)
Any criminal who are serious are going to be a bit more clever - open proxies, fake credit cards, etc to hide their identities. Or just a free email provider in a country that is out of the jurisdiction of the AFP.
Forcing people to pay for email just wont work. People have become used to having free email addresses, and there *will* be ways for people to still get it. Sure, MS may charge, as may yahoo, but many other providers wont.
Re:Waste of effort (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymail (Score:5, Informative)
Payment for the service is by hash cash, a computationally expensive operation you must perform to be able to register, as a way of deterring spammers and other system abuses. In that respect it's better than conventional e-mail at present - no spam to my mailbox yet.
American privacy in Australia (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, move along please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Email accounts should all be traceable. It should be legislated that some kind of physical address/person identification is required for any form of email access, free or paid for. It's not stopping you from emailing, or censoring you - it's just making you accountable. It's getting to the stage with spam etc. that really we need a licensing system to be allowed to run a MTA. All ISPs by law should be forced to block SMTP traffic except from their registered MXs, and the administrator of the system should have to be licensed, just like a radio operator. Too much spam coming from your MX? Your license gets revoked. Of course, all the whiners who can't configure sendmail to save their life (but run it anyway, usually as an open relay) would be up in arms about such a scheme, but it's about time it's done.
It seems like so many people are taking principles of anonymity to the levels of zealotry (just look at the responses to this article to see what I mean). When anything ends up getting 'religious' it hurts the cause. What do we want? An accountable email system where the police only have to log/record/watch suspects, or an unaccountable email system where they have to watch much more, with the associated 'collateral damage' of ending up watching some non-suspects because you don't know who they are? You just have to look at the real religions (such as Christian fundamentalists) to realise when anything gets religious, it ends up in destruction. How many people have Christian zealots killed? This can translate to "How many potential Linux users have Linux zealots turned off?" or "How many people who care about privacy have been turned off by the rantings of ACLU zealots?"
Re:Nothing to see here, move along please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite right, and we must leave no haven for this criminal filth by addressing this in a global way. North Korean and Chinese police must be able to track down dangerous criminals like democracy activists!
Joe2883 a.k.a. thingboy a.k.a. ravenousbeast666... (Score:5, Funny)
FBI man #1: I think I found another one.
FBI man #2: Who is it this time?
FBI man #1: JohanSBach@freemail.ms -- he claims to be 4 years old and living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
FBI man #2: I think I got one too! GWBushy@mailrus.gov claims to live in the same place!
FBI man #1: You know, when I started this project, I thought it would be a little easier than this.
FBI man #2: I know what you mean...we've gone though 150,000 email accounts so far and have found only 5 accounts that weren't fraudulent.
Free E-Mail not the point (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue at hand is the fact that law enforcement (police AND the politicians that support them) are operating from a, "Take away the rights of innocent citizens to catch the criminals" mentality.
While I recognize that my view is American and not Australian, this is not the way to do things. This is the equivelent of arming the police exclusively with grenade launchers and fragmentation grenades.
"We got the criminal, and the 20 innocent victims around him...."
Privacy Is Ancient History (Score:4, Troll)
Not saying its right, but its today's reality. Until the people ( that's ALL of us ) decide its not going to be tolerated and stop it.
The few of us that are willing to do so, cant do it alone.
Ultimate logical step? (Score:4, Interesting)
No running - or writing, or trafficking in - SMTP and POP3 software without a World Government licence, you GNU/lunix using terrorist.
When (if ever) will Plod realise that it's all just IP packets, and that anybody in the world can run any service they want? You want to ban anonymous email? Right, you go ahead and try and find my SMTP server running behind my firewall and accepting SSL encrypted connections from my friends over a non standard port and logging to /dev/null. And at least I know I'm doing that. How are you going to find and stop all the Joe Sixpack trojaned machines running SMTP proxies, all across the globe?
These guys are either breathtakingly ignorant, or are wilfully trolling. Budget time again, huh?
Flawed archaic logic (Score:3, Insightful)
RIGHT! The elimination of all innovation that small minded/sighted fools and archaic organizations cannot compete with is surely the only way to reestablish our utopian society. (because we know that child explotation NEVER happened before the internet!). While international boundaries can complicate investigation I find it difficult to believe that it makes it impossible. There is always the question that the case for the investigation is not substancial enough but thats something for another day. Perhaps the solution lies not in the elimination of service but in the responsability of parents to their children.
Free things are bad! Nothing should be free, all you free software users are going to hell and sending the rest of the world to hell with you!
Ok, enough venomous humor. Is it me or does this whole thing sound like something Ashcroft would do/say? I'm truly concerned about protecting children online as well as in the real world, but I don't believe that our technology has surpassed our ability to protect without stripping away our global commons. But I have the IQ of an empty shoebox, so what do I know....
Australia a technology TryHard (Score:4, Interesting)
We have a task force that deals with Nigerian Scams and public complaints in regard to loosing money therfore as the comment says they want premium access to information from anyone and everyone.(make them pay big $$$$ in administration is a great start)
If you are a free e-mail provider please think before you act on behalf or possibly cooperate with Australian loosers,They are very small and many have noidea what a line of HTML is that run our policing/crime system.
In the spam department I have been an Innocent Victum via Hotmail of which I replied to a bulk mail by mistake and had my account terminated without question.
I could go to jail for this if Australia had anything to do with the way things are run.
The latter dose not matter as my spam dose cost many a ISP in being blocked and hence alot of cash however Australians certainly have noidea WHY spams happens or why crime happenes.
Identification to use the Internet is Australias best chance of battling against the whole world and its self to combat computer crime.
We are being banned from certain TV stations which means certain imports so I see no reason as to why they should not start restricting Internet unless you have a passport.
They are just plain dumb.
I contacted my Local Australian Police about thousands of dollars in Illegal software with a full traceout and address and information on how to track this market down as they never even moved from their seat.
The e-mail was opened for 3 secs then deleted.
How much easier can it get? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the AU "problem" is simply a matter of technological ignorance on the part of the police.
Not that I'd be in any hurry to enlighten them, the AU government seems to be establishing the kind of legal framework to legalize actions that will put them in the "worst human rights abuser" category someday.
"People always get the kind of local goverment they deserve"
E.E. "Doc" Smith
Why Australia (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet, on
Re:fastmail.fm (Score:5, Informative)
When it comes to such things as privacy, freedom of speech, and so on, all bets are off and you are at the whim of the government. Traditionally, Australian governments have respected such things, but the current government, in the name of anti-terror, is steamrolling tradition.
Parent
Re:fastmail.fm (Score:3, Informative)
help@nym.alias.net
For instructions.
Re:He has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like arresting drug addicts in no way helps stop drug abuse, arresting pedophiles or even monitoring them because you expect them to fuck some child is just stupid.
Like with drugs, the motivation behind child pornography is profit. To stop child pornography, you have to find the people who profit from them. And just like the ones who profit from drug abuse aren't really drug addicts themselves, don't automatically assume that those who profit from child pornography are actually pedophiles.
Parent
Re:He has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
And there are plenty of naïve youngsters ready to try "something new and exciting", thereby creating more demand for it. The only way to stop the demand is to stop the supply, since the supply is what's used to create demand in the first place.
So does dealing with drug addicts work at all? Sure. You want them to come off drugs, and to r
Re:He has a point. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like beeing an alcholic doesn't mean you're a drunk. If someone live out their alcoholism, s/he will become a drunk - if someone live out their paedofiliact tendencies, s/he will become a childmolester.
Please do not interprent the avbove statement as as defence for paedofiliacs. I find the idea sick and twisted - but I aslo belive that like beeing homosexual, some people just can't control what they are turned on by. Controlling their urges on the other hand, is something all grown-ups should and could be capable of.
Beeing a peadofile is a bit like beeing an alcoholic. If you got it, you have a problem you must work with to overcome.
Parent
Re:What???? (Score:3, Insightful)
Former NCA member Greg Melick told the committee there was an easy way to eliminate the anonymity that protected criminals online.
"Do away with free internet (email) accounts," he said. "If they aren't free then people will pay by credit card and that gives law enforcement some starting point.
The key word here is former. His comments and opinions are irrelevant.
Note: if you want to assume that there are obviously others in the NCA who share his ideas, you can just