"Pirates with Attitudes:" Sharing or Illegal?

Background:
  
“Pirates with Attitudes” was a worldwide group distributing thousands of copyrighted software including the then unreleased Windows 2000.  The site did not actually sell software, but was more of a barter system.  Intel employees would give the site access to software they obtained from work in exchange for software that the site had.  Justin Robbins from Charlotte, NC was a Microsoft employee who supplied Microsoft software and allowed access to Microsoft’s internal network with his personal identification and password.  The software was available on a hidden internet site at a university in Quebec, Canada called Sentinel.


The Question:

The website did not receive a monetary profit for the software, but instead received additional software that they could use.  Think about the current controversy over Limewire and how songs are only exchanged with no money involved.  Do you think the Pirates with Attitudes group should be punished for sharing software among their group?


The Court's Answer:

Seventeen defendants were indicted from the group in 2000 by a federal grand jury after an undercover FBI investigation.  The members pleaded guilty and received jail time, house arrest, probation, and fines.   The group was in violation of the No Electronic Theft (NET)  act, which holds people responsible for copyright infringement even if no profits are involved.  So, basically, under the NET act you do not actually have to sell copyrighted software to be at fault.


Follow this link to view the indictment:
http://www.cybercrime.gov/pirates.htm
  



http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/pirates.htm

ISP Data Retention Mandate

There is little disagreement that internet crimes proliferate faster than law enforcement 's ability to investigate and prosecute them. However, there is significant disagreement over the measures that should be taken in order to address the problem.

Recently, the Department of Justice provided testimony to Congress regarding the issue of Internet Service Provider data retention. The testimony emphasized the critical need to preserve digital data and highlighted several cases where investigations of serious crimes were inhibited due to the lack of data retention by the ISP.

Currently, there are no standard requirements for ISP data retention and practices vary widely among providers. Privacy advocates argue that data retention should be minimized in order to protect individual privacy and prevent misuse of data. They fear that a data retention mandate would create databases that could be used to track the internet activities of all users and could inhibit freedom of speech . Service providers argue that data retention requirements would pose a significant cost burden that would have to be passed on to the consumer . In balancing those concerns against the priority of public safety, it is important to consider the following:

1. Law enforcement's ability to obtain data is controlled through laws regarding subpoenas, court orders, search warrants and surveillance requests. A data retention mandate would not reduce the protections provided by those rules.
2. The consumer already bears a high cost for the damage inflicted by internet crime. Increasing the ability of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute internet criminals could reduce this cost burden.

Standardizing data retention rules for ISPs is an important step in improving the ability to fight internet crime and the DOJ should continue to work with the ISPs , Congress , and other interested parties to find the best solution.

Read the DOJ testimony here: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/Justice%20Data%20Retention%20Testimony.pdf

Read Time Warner Cable's data retention policies here: http://www.timewarnercable.com/corporate/subpoenacompliance.html

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog, Law Enforcement on the Internet.  I find this a very interesting subject, filled with many different issues.  Over the last few years, the Internet has both helped and hindered law enforcement. It has certainly made communication between departments and agencies faster and more efficient.  Of course, there is a cost associated with updating federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies with newer technology - a cost that is borne by us, the taxpayers.

Cost isn’t the only issue associated with how law enforcement functions in the age of the Internet.  Previously, various agencies determined jurisdiction, or territory in which power can be exercised, by geographic location.  But now, it is harder to determine where a crime takes place.  Take wire fraud, for example: does the crime occur where the perpetrator is located?  Where the victim is located?  Where the victim’s servers are located?

These are just a few of the issues we hope to address in our blog and our class presentation.  We hope to be able to present some of these issues using real-life examples of current events in order to keep it interesting, and we will respond to any questions or comments you have.  Thanks for reading!

- Richard