Internet Tracking

you may not know this but anyone who knows how can look at EVERYTHING you've done on the internet ever since you started your computer (except if you rebooted it or something like that). well....one time i read an article that this woman was suspected of killing her husband using Antifreeze as poison. the police questioned her but didn't have enough evidence to put her away. a few weeks later, they confiscated her computer and looked at what she's been doing on the Internet: she's been at websites that teach you how to kill someone with Antifreeze. so with taht, they locked her away. not only that, government has been going to colleges and universities and demanding that they fork over the names of people who download pirated media by using the Internet tracking. as a result, many students were sued (actually some colleges refused to hand that information over becuz they believed it was an invasion of privacy) so my question is where do you stand on this?

if it was legal to look at this Internet History, we can put away more criminals like phedophiles and possibly terrorists

if it wasn't legal, hundreds of thousands of people will be checked on regularly and have no privacy at all on the Internet

 

Well it is an invasion of privacy. Regardless it's quite creepy and almost makes me want to reformat.

 

i actually dont' know where i stand on this. i guess it MIGHT be worth it to give up my privacy if it would stop a terrorist attack but i'm not happy about them seeing me go to porn sites, lol

 

It wouldn't entirely help you catch pedophiles since many criminals know how to handle their internet privacy. Some remove their HDDs and destroy them after finishing something 'important' on their computers as to not leave traces or hard evidence to convict them later.

As well, there are procedures in place that are supposed to protect your internet privacy--at least from the legal standpoint. Sure, there are hackers and the like that can peep on those who aren't careful, but you were referencing authorities who took this woman's computer away and found evidence to convict her of murdering her husband. First of all, in order to be able to confiscate her computer, these authorities require a warrant to do so. And to get this warrant, there has to be enough significant evidence collected beforehand against the person in question that could render them truly suspect. This collection of evidence then has to be displayed before a judge official, by which the prosecution then has to convince the judge official of its legitimacy before the warrant is issued.

So it's not like people are randoming coming into your house and taking away your computer. There is a long process behind it before it gets to that point.

 

wow you seem to know an awful lot

 

Only way I could see this being justified is with a warrant from a judge/DA to be able to do so. Most people keep private things on their computers: bank records, family records, job info, student portfolios, whatever else. And for someone to just go in and read those would be sort of identity theft among others.

Chances are your social security number is on those bank records. That shouldn't be shared with anyone besides you and professionals. I know I needed mine to register for school and for tax information. But aside from that, no on should know without probable cause.

If the legal officials procure a warrant to seize the hard drive of...say a suspected pedophile...fine. If they go into a college campus and seize the personal computers of students because they think the students are downloading music...I'd say it's up to the college to decide. Chances are if it's personal computers the college would say no but if they were college computers connected to the college's server then yes since it's the college's property.

I'm mixed on this issue.

Short version:
Probable cause with warrant: Yes
Suspected from rumors: No

 

i agree with that. i dont' like that i was FORCED to type that info to register for college and that peeps can just grab it

 

Internet tracking, I think, can be a great thing in helping the authorities. However I think it should only be done when there is an actual reason for it (like the others have said).

I don't think they should be allowed to take just anyone's computer though, I think that is a complete abuse of power and an invasion of rights.

Eck I hate that I sound like I am just repeating everyone -__- but it is what I think too.


Yes it is fine if there is real sound evidence and reason to go into it.

No if it is just a hunch.​

 

i find it odd that they never told us the reason the police just decided to confiscate her computer 2 weeks AFTER they first brought her in

 

Well they wouldn't be allowed to fully disclose all the details, they're not allowed to do that. Maybe some new evidence came to light that gave them a reason to suspect there might be evidence in her computer.​

 

i also think the woman was pretty stupid for going to sites to learn how to poison someone to death with ANtifreeze, i mean it can't be TOO hard to figure it out on your own i would think

 

Maybe there was more to it than that, she could have been searching for other ways and come across that by accident? Afterall how many times do you end up at random sites when searching for things? :P I know I often end up with something completely different to what I was originally searching for xD

Also, she might not have been aware that they were going to take her computer and search it's history xD

I do agree though that it was rather stupid of her xD ​

 

I think that computers are viable evidence, just as searching your home would be if you were suspected of a crime, such as this woman was. I'm sure they had to have a warrant issued by the judge to even go back to her place and search it so that I cannot say I am against.

As for the college issue, it is the right of the college in the end to determine if they would allow people to search their computer isp because the college does provide the students with access to the internet. When you use a college computer connection, you are viable to their standards of compliance. If you disobey it, you are bound to be in some trouble.

However, if it went into...say going into your home computer and they have no reason to suspect you of anything and then low and behold found porn on someone's computer who is under age...well, that is wrong to me. A child's computer by rights is the parent's property to investigate; not some outside force unless there is a legitimate warrant and reason. I don't see that things have gone that bad though as of this time so I hope that it continues to not get to that point. It is something to watch for though so that if something like that were to happen, we could all raise voices against such things.

I do see a need to have caution with this and it is good people know of it because as someone else pointed out, a lot of information is held on computers including links to sites they might not want people knowing of, social security numbers, bank statements, ebay accounts etc. These sorts of things hackers will try to get but as long as we don't just download questionable material and have a good virus checker for trojans and the like, we are relatively safe. Legal matters with a warrant I'm not against if it prevents catastrophe or does put some pedophile away etc.

 

Yeah, the same thing has been running through my mind. But, wouldn't this make software pirates impossible to catch as long as they don't brag about it?

 

I'm pretty sure there's no guarantee that they won't get caught, but it's certainly very hard to catch people who pirate if they aren't involved in anything highly criminal.

I mean, DVD ripping for example, has been going on for years and every now and then there are 'raids' by authorities who try to put their foot down on the issue and go looking for these stores in plazas, etc. But from what I can tell, during these times the stores just close their shops until the event is over, then go back to selling after. In other cases, the pirating stops for a while (stores get fined/persecuted) then the stores soon remake themselves and start again.

I'm not 100% sure on the legal loopholes that are evidently behind these things--I think it has something to due with the entire "DVD burners are meant to backup DVDs you already own" idea, even though everyone should be perfectly aware that pirating goes on anyway--but essentially yes, it is pretty hard to crack down on software/music/movie pirates if they're not involved in more incriminating affairs that can lead to a legitimate warrant.

I think a lot of the issue is that it would cost far too much money, time and effort to crack down on every single internet pirate out there. No one is willing to go out and persecute a random person who downloaded a single 3.5mb music file, because once that happens, the defense will argue that if you can do it for one person (as insignificant as it was to download one file), you should crack down on everyone else as well who pirated the same amount (and we can only imagine how many people out there who have downloaded just one music file). Such an endeavor I imagine is well in the hundreds, thousands, <.< maybe millions.

Since it's sort of a ridiculous legal venture that just simply can't be afforded, cracking down on serious offenders (those who make substantial amounts of money from pirating for example) are easier to deal with since both the number of offenders of this magnitude is smaller, and the offense is much greater, and thus more worth pursuing; quality over quantity of offenses.

In my opinion, if you're pirating and keeping yourself quiet about it, and if you're pirating for personal use (i.e. not financial gain), you're pretty safe for the most part. The only thing you're potentially affecting in the long run is the economy, but that's something you'd have to live with.

 

"Those who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserve neither and lose both"

I think government agencies in the interest of security have forgotten about privacy and liberty. Passively checking all phone calls and e-mails (apparantly they do) for certain key words is a gross invasion of privacy. Tracking all that you do on the internet without a warrant (i.e. an acceptable reason under law) is just wrong >_>

But I agree that some level of internet tracking has to be in place, but not used as much as it is now.

 

i don't know, there are ALOT of solutions to many problems but ppl don't want to implement them becuz it would mean giving up a LITTLE bit of their rights.

 

Only stupid pirates brag about what they've done (i.e. the idiots behind hacking Microsoft and Nintendo for the Euro version of Halo 2 and Super Mario Galaxy).

 

???? i have no idea what you are talking about

 

He means that the main way they 'track' people is they search forums and sites for people talking about illegal activities. Then they monitor certain people more closely.

Sometimes they just search for key words being used such as 'bomb', 'Islam', 'Al Queda', 'suicide' in combinations. They are then flagged by the system and investigated. Most would be false alarms (i.e. someone talking about something in the news or something) but there are the few occasions where they may come across a genuine perceived threat.