RE: 2002 murder suspect located via MSN Map search

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

On the flip side, one wonders why companies like Google and Yahoo find it
necessary to go out their way to implement software which looks up what
specific IP addresses and cookie ID numbers are searching for: 

Verbatim: Search firms surveyed on privacy
http://news.com.com/Verbatim+Search+firms+surveyed+on+privacy/2100-1025_3-60
34626.html 

Given an IP address or cookie value, can you produce a list of the terms
searched by the user of that IP address or cookie value?
Langdon: Yes. 

Given an IP address or cookie value, can you produce a list of the terms
searched by the user of that IP address or cookie value?
Yes, we can. 

Another question here is why are these companies saving search history tie
to IP addresses and/or cookie values in the first place.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org] On
Behalf Of Paul Schmehl
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 2:09 PM
To: 'FunSec [List]'
Subject: Re: [funsec] 2002 murder suspect located via MSN Map search

--On February 4, 2006 9:57:43 AM -0500 "Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>
wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/technology/04privacy.html
>
> The break in the St. Louis murders came in 2002, when a reporter 
> received an anonymous letter with a map generated by Microsoft's MSN 
> service - marked with the location where a body could be found.
>
> The F.B.I. subpoenaed Microsoft for records of anyone who had searched 
> for maps of that area in the days before the letter was sent. 
> Microsoft discovered that only one user had searched for precisely 
> that area and provided the user's Internet Protocol address. That 
> address, in turn was provided by a unit of WorldCom, which identified 
> the user as Maury Troy Travis, a 36-year-old waiter. (Mr. Travis was 
> arrested and hanged himself in jail without ever admitting guilt.)
Boy, you just have to love the Times, don't you?  They're so fair and
open-minded.

Here's the first few paragraphs of their story.  The highlighting is mine.

Who is sending threatening e-mail to a teenager? Who is saying disparaging
things about a company on an Internet message board? Who is communicating
online with a suspected drug dealer?

These questions, and many more like them, are asked every day of the
companies that provide Internet service and run Web sites. And even though
these companies promise to protect the privacy of their users, *****they
routinely hand over the most intimate information ***** in response to legal
demands from criminal investigators and lawyers fighting civil cases.

Such data led directly to a suspect in a school bombing threat; it has also
been used by the authorities to track child pornographers and computer
intruders, and has become a tool in civil cases on matters from trade
secrets to music piracy. In St. Louis, records of a suspect's online
searches for maps proved his undoing in a serial-killing case that had gone
unsolved for a decade.

In short, just as technology is prompting Internet companies to collect more
information and keep it longer than before, prosecutors and civil lawyers
are more readily using that information.

So, even though serial murders that have "gone unsolved for a decade" are
now solved, and even though a school bombing case may have been solved, and
even though child pornographers and thieves stealing copyrighted material
have been busted, there's just something eeeeevvvviiiilllll about IPSs just
"giving away" all the "most intimate information" about you.  Even though we
have well-established rules for obtaining that evidence, and even though the
courts have established a system that, in my view, protects the criminals
*too* much.

Heh.

Apparently, in the Times' world, we shouldn't be allowed to see the evidence
of your crime unless it's laying out in plain view.

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/
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