[privacy] Guidance Software Makes Deal with Feds Over Data Leak

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:12:41 EST, Dude VanWinkle said:
> Kinda funny hey called someone else in to do the forensics for this break in
> 
> make you wonder...

Not really..

> > its approximately 9,500 customers about the attack and called on the U.S.
> > Secret Service to conduct an investigation. The company, one of the world's
> > top providers of forensic software, counts government and law enforcement
> > personnel and security researchers among its clientele. A handful of these
> > reported suspicious credit card charges after the breach.

I know a thing or two about forensics myself (or so I'm told) - and it's not
at all surprising they called the Secret Service.  You start doing the forensics,
and you discover the Packet of Pwnage came from a DSL line somewhere outside
Wichita.  Now how much further does *your* investigation go?  Probably not
much, if you suspect the box on the DSL line is some Joe Sixpack's hacked
Windows box.

On the other hand, if you call in LEO of some sort, they usually have means
not available to private companies to get more info out of that Wichita ISP
and trace things further.  The word "subpoena" has a lot of impact that
"pretty please go out of your way to help us" doesn't....
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 226 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://www.whitestar.linuxbox.org/pipermail/privacy/attachments/20061117/7161d011/attachment.pgp