- This is literally unbelievable. Some low-level ISP technical
support button-pusher UNWITTINGLY found and reported to a newspaper a security
hole in its web site. In reward for his good samaritanship, the FBI fell
out of the sky and demanded he accept a felony charge and 5 years probation!
-
- This appears to be the reality in Amerika today. That
the cyberspace equivalent of reporting a home in a bad neighborhood with
its front door open at 3 AM is rewarded with handcuffs and a felony rap
sheet? I've read so many stories just like this one, involving precisely
the same types of people, reporting exactly the same kinds of computer
security screw-ups, which all led to annihilation of the good samaritans
making the reports by the feds. It's as though they don't even care anymore
about crimes being the mandatory prerequisites to sucking people into the
justice system for digestion. Instead, all you apparently have to do to
have "felon" permanently etched onto your forehead is to let
some federal cop know that you merely exist. ___
-
-
- FBI Treats 'Good Samaritan' As Public Enemy
-
- By John Leyden The Register - London
8-21-1
-
- A 'Good Samaritan' who alerted a firm about a serious
security flaw on their Web site has become the subject of a criminal investigation.
-
- Linuxfreak reports that Brian West, a 24-year-old support
worker with Oklahoma-based ISP Cwis, came across a security problem with
the Poteau Daily News Web site during the course of helping a colleague
prepare an ad for the site.
-
- While using Microsoft FrontPage, West discovered the
site required no authentication to edit any file on its servers. Naturally
concerned, he contacted the newspaper.
-
- However, instead of thanking West for his help, the editor-in-chief
of the paper, Wally Burchett, decided to tape West's explanation of the
problem and report him to the police.
-
- That's when the Feds got involved. While officers posing
as potential customers visited West's offices, others, pretending to be
Poteau Daily News employees, got him to run through the security problem
on the paper's server.
-
- As soon as he did that another FBI agent arrived on the
scene and served a warrant on the understandably shocked West, who neither
damaged or defaced the site, Linuxfreak reports. Of course, we haven't
heard the other side of the story here, but it all seems very fishy to
us.
-
- West troubles began in February 2000 but the case against
him continues to grind on.
-
- The FBI wants him to accept a felony conviction and five
years' probation. West continues to maintain his innocence. He is trying
to raise funds to pay for a lawyer in preparation Grand Jury hearing on
5 September. ®
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