Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 13:50:17 -0500 >From: Doctor Math Subject: File 2--HoHoCon and the SS The recent "shadow" SS raids on both PumpCon and the 2600 meeting scare me. The implications are chilling. In both cases, the law enforcement conducting the raid had "legitimate" reasons for doing so - the raid could stand up in court if it had to, all by itself. So the SS (and who else? FBI? DIA? CIA?) gets the best of both worlds: meetings of the "Underground Hacker Menace" are broken up while the SS doesn't have to take bad press for it; most mainstream media doesn't mention the SS if there's any coverage of the incident at all. I really wanted to go to HoHoCon this year. I was even prepared to be photographed by whichever federal agencies decided to attend. More notes for my file, at least. This didn't bother me, since I don't do anything interesting or "dangerous" enough to get myself investigated (at least not for the past couple of years). A little surveillance, no big deal. Now I'm not so sure I want to go given that it appears likely that some sort of law enforcement will be there conducting some sort of raid and making some sort of arrest... later they will deny any involvement of any federal agencies, claiming that they had their own investigation into the (pick one or more: stolen property, illegal K0DEZ, underaged participants, hijacked source code, proprietary documents...) and that the bust stands on its own merit. Right. Another note: Was the 2600 meeting that got raided the only one to occur on private property? I think the Bill of Rights says something about the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, but the Mall was indeed private property and they could theoretically suspend this right. Of course, that should have amounted to "chasing off a bunch of kids" as it almost always does, not "detain and confiscate". Would it have been any different if the meeting was being held in a public park, assuming that the park was open and that the participants weren't breaking any local ordinances about noise or failure to obtain permits for a meeting of greater than X people (yes, there are ordinances like that in some cities) ? Would it be any different if the meeting was held in someone's house (other than perhaps generating additional liability for the host) ? Pipe dream: Secretly replace the attendants of a given conference with lawyers at the last minute. Install hidden cameras and microphones at the site of the convention. Make sure that the "attendees" aren't doing anything that is even slightly illegal. Wait for raid. After raid, sue. ------------------------------ Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253