In United States v. Schlingloff, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157272 (C.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 2012), Judge Shadid held that use of Forensic Toolkit’s (FTK) Known File Filter (KFF) to alert on child pornography files was outside the scope of a warrant issued to look for evidence of identity theft. The defendant in this case lived at […]
Cyber Crimes
Jeffrey’s previous post noted that the FBI was concerned about Bitcoins and their potential to be used to procure illegal items or facilitate agreements that otherwise would have drawn attention if done in regular currency. It is actually pretty startling to see what exactly Bitcoins can be used to purchase in the criminal [...]
Cyber Crimes
In In re Applications for Search Warrants, No. 12-MJ-8119-DJW (D. Kan. 2012), a magistrate judge adopted the Sixth Circuit’s Warshak view that electronic communications are subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy and held that search warrants for such information should be sufficiently limited to the relevant crime(s) and [...]
Cyber Crimes
In a Second Circuit case (United States v. Gonzalez, 686 F.3d 122 (2d Cir. 2012)) released earlier this year, evidence was presented at trial that had been e-mailed through Hushmail, a secure e-mail service used by “millions of people and thousands of businesses.” Hushmail’s website claims that they “encrypt your [...]
Cyber Crimes
Elizabeth E. Joh, Privacy Protests: Surveillance Evasion and Fourth Amendment Suspicion, 55 Ariz. L. Rev. 997 (2014). Abstract: The police tend to think that those who evade surveillance are criminals. Yet the evasion may only be a protest against the surveillance itself. Faced with the growing surveillance capacities of the government, [...]
Cyber Crimes
An Illinois woman recently argued that her former employer violated the Stored Communications Act after they accessed her personal e-mail account. (Borchers v. Franciscan Tertiary the Sacred Heart, 2011 IL App 2d 101257 (Ill. App. Ct. 2012)). Two accounts were accessible on her computer – her personal and work e-mail, and the [...]
Cyber Crimes
In United States v. Wurie, No. 11-1792 (1st Cir. 2013), the First Circuit held that the search of a cell phone incident to arrest categorically violates the Fourth Amendment. As a result, the court reversed the defendant’s motion to suppress, vacated the conviction, and remanded the case. While performing routine surveillance, a [...]
Cyber Crimes
** Relevant documents: Complaint, Def. Renewed Rule 12(b)(6) MTD, Pl. Opp. to MTD, and Order ** A federal court on Sept. 30th granted a motion to dismiss (in large part) a Georgia teen’s lawsuit for multiple causes of action arising out of a Technology Instructor’s use of a photo of her he obtained from her Facebook page; the [...]
Cyber Crimes
Viral Tolat, ex-CTO of Integral Development Company, is accused by his former company of copying gigabytes of source code and confidential files on his way out the door to a position with another company. He copied the source code to multiple places and uploaded some of the data to his personal Google Docs account. In Integral’s [...]
Cyber Crimes
In United States v. Kernell, the Sixth Circuit held that by deleting evidence of defendant’s hacking activities, he violated 18 U.S.C. § 1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. 667 F.3d 746 (6th Cir. 2012). The defendant used the forgotten password feature to obtain access to then-Governor Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account. [...]
Cyber Crimes