Geeks vs. Technophobes: The New War

During the investigation of an email sent to a Boston College mailing list accusing a student of being gay, local law enforcement searched a student's dorm room and confiscated all his computer equipment, his cell phone, ipod, and other devices.

They are claiming the student is guilty of various charges including "obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation" and "unauthorized access to a computer system." So it would seem there was more to the investigation than follow up on a hateful email, or charges of "flaming" on a public forum. Usually those sorts of things are just deleted by an admin, and maybe the user is banned for terms of service violations. Not this time.

Where this case gets totally ludicrous is in the justification for the search warrant. This is where probable cause has to be shown to defend the removal of a citizen's rights. In this case though, the probable cause includes things like the fact that the student was seen with "unknown laptops" that he claimed he was fixing for other students. I guess they didn't believe him, though I can't imagine even so what they thought he'd be doing with the "unknown laptops" that was so bad.

Better yet, is the reasoning that because the student "uses multiple names" to log on to his computer, and uses two different operating systems, one of which has a command line interface, that this constitutes probably cause for a search warrant, the confiscation of all his electronic devices, and the search and analysis of all his private information.

I really wasn't aware that using multiple login names or running more than one operating system were in any way criminal or suspicious. If that's enough to get a search warrant in these times, I better make sure no one ever finds out how many different operating systems I use, nor how many different login names like "Admin" and "User" I have on some systems, much less that I have systems that use a command line. Hell, I've got a computer that doesn't even have a monitor attached to it. It's just this mysterious black box with a couple lights on it that purrs away silently day and night. You want to talk about "unknown" computers... bet that one would scare the shit out of em! The computer next to that runs not one, not two, but three operating systems! And has room allocated for two more! Five operating systems? That must put me on the level of an international terrorist!

Anyway, maybe this kid did commit some sort of computer crime. I really don't know. You can't tell anything from the allegations and probable cause released by law enforcement, which means whatever they suspected him of doing, they didn't have any real proof. What this means, last I checked, is that it's totally unconstitutional for them to have searched his dorm room and seized his equipment based entirely on their technologically ignorant "fear the unknown" tactics. Scary.

You can read the full article at the EFF website.