91 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
91 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
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POLICE SET UP BULLETIN BOARD STINGS
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By Jim Forbes
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Infoworld Staff
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AUSTIN, TX - Law enforcement officials here have joined a growing number of
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police agencies nationwide running "sting" operations to catch persons using
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bulletin boards for illegal purposes.
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Based on information posted on a bulletin board it operated, the Austin
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Police Department said it has been able to turn off two pirate boards here and
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expects shortly to make a number of arrests for misdemeanor violations of
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Texas' newly enacted computer crime law.
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For more than two years, the department secretly ran a board called the
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Underground Tunnel, which was set up to appear as a bulletin board run by a
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system operator called Pluto. But late last month - to the surprise of the
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board's more than 1,000 users - Pluto was revealed as Sgt. Robert Ansley, a
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seven-year veteran of the police department.
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"Most of the users were people interested primarily in several on-line
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fantasy games or in electronic messaging," Ansley said. "To get to the levels
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where people posted information on how to crash corporate systems, the user had
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to ask for increased access. We were very careful not to solicit or entrap
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anyone into leaving illegal information."
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The Austin police department disclosure caught most of the board's users by
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surprise. "I liked the board's electronic messaging capabilities," said user
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Michael Whalen, the managing editor of the Daily Texan, the student newspaper
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of the University of Texas here. "I was really surprised at how the officer
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was able to pull this off."
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What the police found, according to Ansley, included access codes belonging
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to the world's largest credit reporting organization, TRW Information Services
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Systems Division of Orange, California. "Most offenders seem to be real big on
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TRW," said Ansley.
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Sting and intelligence gathering bulletin board operations are on the rise
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throughout the country, according to law enforcement officials. Several police
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departments nationwide have already used bulletin boards to track down and
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arrest microcomputer users who post illegally obtained calling card codes,
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mainframe access procedures and passwords, or other confidential information.
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According to one high-lvel West Coast law enforcement officer who declined to
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be identified, federal officials are now joining local authorities in running
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bulletin boards in several key metropolitan areas.
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"You better believe law enforcement agencies are interested and, in some
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cases, running bulletin boards," said Dan Pasquale, a sergeant with the
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Fremont, California, police department. Last month, police in Fremont capped
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three and a half months of bulletin board operations by arresting eight
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individuals for alleged credit card fraud, misuse of telephone credit card
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operations, and technical trespass. Pasquale said most corporations whose
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passwords or calling card numbers were posted on Fremont's board were unaware
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that their information had been compromised.
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Although police are pleased with their results, some users say they feel the
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sting bulletin boards are unfair to both innocent users and suspected criminals
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alike. Whalen said students at the University of Texas used the board
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extensively, and he claimed that some people accused of posting access codes
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and other information on the board felt they had been entrapped when they
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discovered that the board was a police sting operation.
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Whalen also said that some users where concerned about the privacy and
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sanctity of electronic mail left on the board. "Ansley said users are foolish
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if they don't think a system operator reads the mail on the board," he added.
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Indeed, as police turn increasingly to bulletin boards to catch suspected
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criminals, the issue of entrapment has also become a growing concern, one to
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which police are sensitive.
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"At no time did the police department urge users to leave access codes,
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applications, or passwords for corporate computers on the Tunnel," Ansley said.
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To prove entrapment, a suspect would have to cleary show that a government
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agent offered some type of inducement to promote criminal activity, said Jim
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Harrington, the legal director of the Texas Civil Liverties Union here. "The
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whole are of police gaining information on [criminal activities] by reading
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electronic mail is very interesting."
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Fremont police held a series of meetings with a district attorney before
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they started the board, according to Pasquale. "We established a point where
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entrapment began and made sure we never crossed that point," he said. "In
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fact, messages on the board were scripted in conjunction with the district
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attorney's office."
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