[HN Gopher] Activist raided by London police after downloading d...
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Activist raided by London police after downloading docs found on
Google search
Author : BlackVanilla
Score : 142 points
Date : 2021-08-12 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Did they arrest GoogleBot as well?
| Jsharm wrote:
| Is he entitled to any compensation?
| crimsoneer wrote:
| Not really. They arrested him to investigate and let him go.
| It's not very nice, but it's lawful and working as intended
| gowld wrote:
| This is why people say that the police are an agent of the
| wealthy to oppress the common people. The wealthy "file a
| report", and the police "take the report seriously", trampling
| the rights and stealing precious time of people's lives (and
| sometimes much worse), but the common people can not do the same
| to their oppressors.
| woah wrote:
| Except the man arrested in this case was opposed to social
| housing for low income residents. What the police did was
| obviously wrong, but it doesn't really fit your narrative.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Everyone involved was getting paid their salary/wage throughout
| this, except the victim.
| pengaru wrote:
| Considering the amount of SWATing we've seen in the news, the
| police are an agent of anyone capable of dialing 911, not just
| the wealthy.
|
| Actually, one could argue the police are more likely to respond
| with greater exuberance when responding to a reported hostage
| situation in a mansion vs. trap house.
| frzj wrote:
| This is factually wrong. They are doing it based on the
| principles of equality and freedom. This is exactly what those
| terms mean. Your freedom is only limited if its execution
| limits the freedom of others. In this case he was free to
| browser the documents, but he was also impeding on the freedom
| of that corporation. Same with equality, it seems immoral when
| the rich always win. But morality is just a WAY OF DEALING with
| the contradictions of that are inherent to our economic system.
| People need to understand that freedom and equality can only be
| enforced by the state and people actually WANT the state to
| have the monopoly on the use of force. Separation of power and
| being democratic can be deduced from that too.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Several revolutions along the history of mankind show that
| freedom will frequently be enforced only by the revolutionary
| acts of the people. The government is only an agent of the
| dominant class.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| If they checked, who did access the files, don't the police
| should have seen, there was no password protection? Very strange.
| And the police nedded al his devices for 4 weeks to check that ..
| dopamean wrote:
| Presumably whoever called the cops turned the password
| protection on before doing so.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| But then they have lied to the police.
| tristor wrote:
| > But then they have lied to the police.
|
| Yes. Companies misuse the violence of the state for their
| own ends all the time (see: Union busting).
| Wohlf wrote:
| So do normal people, like reporting "suspicious activity"
| and SWATing.
| space_rock wrote:
| It's almost like the state is too powerful and criminals
| best tool is abusing the states systems to leverage its
| violence
| crimsoneer wrote:
| This job will have gone to some 20 year old PC. It's not CSI.
| lsllc wrote:
| Dupe:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28130002
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| This article leaves some really crucial parts of this timeline
| ambiguous. These things happened in some order:
|
| 1. Guy downloads stuff from website 2. Guy publishes stuff from
| website 3. Stuff becomes unavailable on the website 4. Website
| owners go to police, report "illegal access" 5. Police arrest guy
|
| Either the police arrested him, and the company declined to
| inform the police that these illegally accessed files has been
| free to access, thus actively misleading the police, or company
| did inform the police and the police acted heinously by arresting
| him anyways. Maybe there's a third option here that I'm not
| seeing. Seems pretty wild, and likely to me that the org should
| be criminally liable here (not that I know the laws or if they
| would be criminally liable.)
| nonfamous wrote:
| 6. No charges were filed
|
| >> "He was taken into custody and later released under
| investigation. Following a review of all available evidence, it
| was determined no offences had been committed and no further
| action was taken."
| brundolf wrote:
| > He was taken into custody and later released under
| investigation. Following a review of all available evidence, it
| was determined no offences had been committed and no further
| action was taken.
|
| Sounds like the first one
| gpm wrote:
| This could also be "he was taken into custody, someone with a
| few more brain cells than average searched his computer,
| looked at his browser history, concluded that case 2 was the
| case and let him go".
|
| I don't think we have enough information.
| jdjdu wrote:
| If the website owner didn't think it was a big deal, why would
| they call police in the first place? Police are not just
| sitting and eagerly waiting for the ridiculous calls and
| complaints they receive. Most likely the website owner made the
| story sound like sort of theft occurred.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| El Reg doesn't say in so many words that Hutchinson didn't know
| he was in a password-protected area (sorry, double-negative).
|
| I mean: I believe that if he knew the material he accessed was
| behind a password wall, and that the search-result had pierced
| it, then he would be in violation of the CMA. That is: I think
| the Act doesn't require any kind of "breaking in" to create an
| offense; you just have to believe you're not supposed to be
| there.
|
| IANAL.
| sxp wrote:
| https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/10/police_raid_man_for_d...
| is a better article with pictures.
|
| The key bit is
|
| > The raid by four Metropolitan Police constables took place
| after Southwark campaigner Robert Hutchinson was reportedly
| accused of illegally entering a password-protected area of a
| website.
|
| > "I was searching in Google and found links to board meeting
| minutes," he told The Register. "Board reports, none of which
| were marked confidential. So I have no question that it was in
| the public domain."
|
| So they're name dropping Google in the title for clickbait when
| the core issue is that the website didn't properly protect its
| data.
| [deleted]
| tpmx wrote:
| No, the core issue is the London Metropolitan Police being
| incompetent (and slow).
| gowld wrote:
| Not just incompetent, but callous and cruel toward the
| citizenry, making themselves agents of capitalist oppression.
| ryanlol wrote:
| There's no reason to blindly believe every report of crime.
| In this case there probably wasn't sufficient evidence on
| the victim's side that any crime had happened.
| jdjdu wrote:
| How? By investigating a report of a crime, determining it
| was false, and releasing the guy?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| They charged him without any evidence. They were
| harrassing an activist. It wasn't incompetence.
|
| [Edit: the article didn't say they charged him; I was
| wrong]
|
| Well, that's how it looks to me, on the basis of a single
| report in a tech journal with a sort-of tabloid outlook.
| Maybe there will be more information in coming days.
| feu wrote:
| >They charged him without any evidence.
|
| The article explicitly says that the police did not
| charge him.
| tssva wrote:
| No where in the article does it say they charged him with
| anything.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I'm wrong - they didn't charge him. I don't know why I
| wrote that - I had read the article.
|
| But they did arrest him.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| That's how the UK legal system works. An arrest is an
| investigative tool.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > They charged him
|
| Eh?
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| A British term, means formally charged with an offence.
| Police compile evidence and/or arrest a person. If the
| Police think there is enough of a case, the Crown
| Prosecution Service (CPS) decide if there is enough
| evidence to support a 'charge'
|
| https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-says-role-cps-
| deciding-w...
|
| Basically Police arrest, looked at the evidence then took
| no action as Police decided no crime - therefore not
| charged.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Yeah I know what it means. But he wasn't charged. I don't
| know why the person I'm replying to is saying that
| because it's untrue.
| dheera wrote:
| There is no reason to take the guy into custard for
| downloading a file, he didn't do anything violent, and
| should be allowed to stay home as long as he cooperates
| with the investigation.
|
| Cooperative people accused of non-violent crimes should
| NEVER be taken into custody until proven guilty in a
| court with fair trial.
| jdjdu wrote:
| >Cooperative people accused of non-violent crimes should
| NEVER be taken into custody until proven guilty in a
| court with fair trial.
|
| Uh, so if someone set fire to a bunch of homes in a
| neighborhood, and there's video of them doing it, but
| they did it knowing the homes were empty, they should
| just be left free until the trial is over? I'm sorry but
| I feel like a lot of online comments on criminal justice
| are very shortsighted
| mellosouls wrote:
| _There is no reason to take the guy into custard for
| downloading a file_
|
| He was definitely in a jam
| [deleted]
| crimsoneer wrote:
| The reason will have been to secure any potential digital
| evidence. Could have done it with a warrant, but it's
| much of a muchness frankly
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we'll change to that from
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58165478. Thanks!
| rexreed wrote:
| A Title change might be good too, because like others, I
| thought it was Google Docs snitching on a downloader.
|
| A possibly more accurate title would be: "Activist raided by
| London police after downloading docs found on Google Search"
| dang wrote:
| Ah ok. Fixed. Thanks!
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| I would change "raided" to "arrested". The word "raid" is
| only used by El Reg and not any primary source. The
| account the arrestee gives in the BBC is "four police
| officers turn[ed] up at [my] door at 8:30" which suggests
| to me they just served him with a warrant and he let them
| in. Perhaps some people might call any execution of a
| warrant a "raid" but to me it suggests a forced entry.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > So they're name dropping Google in the title for clickbait
|
| We're talking about The Register here. Clickbait is
| foundational to their business model.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The law must have a different definition of "password protected
| area" if it can be accessed without entering a password. It's
| like the people who get tickets for speeding or for going
| through a red light while their car is parked, because their
| street-side parking in front of their house is in the field of
| view of the license plate reader.
|
| They're denying a tautology! A document is not password
| protected if you can access it without a password. A person not
| in a vehicle cannot commit a moving traffic violation. However,
| the automated computer system which issues those tickets does
| not actually comprehend those concepts, or any concepts at all.
| It merely follows rigid rules to send an alert on access to a
| particular file, or to issue a ticket with to the owner of the
| license plate number identified by the camera when a speed
| sensor returns a value not less than the speed limit (eg. NaN).
|
| But who is the "they" who are denying those tautologies? As we
| abstract more and more to automated systems, it's important to
| remember that these systems are as dumb as a brick. A brick
| connected to the Internet and with very complicated melted sand
| inside, but a brick nonetheless. When decisions recommended by
| these bricks have significant consequences, it's important to
| keep a human in the loop.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| > ... the core issue is that the website didn't properly
| protect its data.
|
| It seems that the bigger issue is that the activist was
| arrested by the police on supposedly only IP address evidence
| presented by the company/society.
|
| Somehow the IP had to be linked to the person, probably a
| warrant should be needed for that too.
| throwthere wrote:
| That's not a bigger issue because the police simply had a
| warrant for the person who shared the documents. The first
| sentence of the article is:
|
| > A man who viewed documents online for a controversial
| London property development and *shared them on social media*
| was raided by police after developers claimed there had been
| a break-in to their systems.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Quoting from the article:
|
| _"...Hutchinson said his identification by Leathermarket
| and subsequent arrest raised questions in his mind, saying
| police confirmed to him that the company had handed over an
| access log containing IP addresses: "Now, how that ended
| up with me being in the frame, I don't know. There's part
| of this that doesn't add up..." ..."_
| Maxburn wrote:
| They didn't even have that much evidence, google didn't
| participate in finding the defendant. He shared these docs on
| social media and was found that way.
| capableweb wrote:
| > So they're name dropping Google in the title for clickbait
|
| No, Hutchinson found the documents by searching on Google for
| the meeting minutes. The website might have protected the place
| where you found the link to the meeting minutes, but the
| meeting minutes themselves were hosted in a directory that not
| only was publicly accessible if you had the URL, but also
| allowed Google's crawler to access it and store it.
|
| There is a slippery slope here, either way (if he gets free or
| if he gets sentenced), but none the less, Google is relevant to
| the case.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Google is super relevant to the case if they identified
| someone who downloaded a non-protected file in response to a
| police request. Not sure there is any slope left to slip on,
| this is basically the worst case scenario already I think.
|
| Edit: Whoops, all of my assumptions were wrong!
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I beg to differ. I _don 't_ think Google is relevant.
|
| As far as I can see, Google provided a search-result, which
| eventually (after Google's batted it around internally a
| few times) turns into an HTTP request to the CBS website,
| which resulted in password-free access to a public
| document.
|
| So that will show up in the CBS webserver's access log;
| that's how they got the IP address. Nothing to do with
| Google.
|
| Getting from the IP address to the person is messier;
| websearches, requests to ISPs, and presumably searches of
| activist databases the cops no doubt maintain might all
| have played a part.
|
| My guess is the cops knew there was no case against him,
| because they tried the URL, and saw that there was no
| password challenge; but charged him anyway, because he was
| an activist, and they wanted to intimidate him.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| He wasn't charged.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I did not get that impression. The defendant said he used
| google to find these things, google did not snitch on him.
| He was in turn discovered by sharing them on social media.
| jsnell wrote:
| But we know from the article that's not how he was
| identified. Instead it was from the access logs of the
| company that he downloaded the file from.
|
| > Hutchinson said his identification by Leathermarket and
| subsequent arrest raised questions in his mind, saying
| police confirmed to him that the company had handed over an
| access log containing IP addresses:
| mattmanser wrote:
| Police statement from the article:
|
| _He was taken into custody and later released under
| investigation. Following a review of all available evidence,
| it was determined no offences had been committed and no
| further action was taken_
|
| So they already dropped it.
| jzb wrote:
| "already dropped it"
|
| That doesn't make it okay. Being taken into custody is
| something I'd consider an overreaction and frightening for
| a person to endure. They should've looked into it before
| moving to pick them up in the first place. If the shoe was
| on the other foot- an activist claiming a developer broke
| in to obtain info- I bet police would've done more
| research.
| mattmanser wrote:
| I personally think it's fair enough, the company probably
| claimed it was secure, therefore he must have hacked
| them. The police reacted, but when he could show it
| clearly wasn't secure and exposed to the public, they
| dropped it. And hopefully gave the company a private
| ticking off about wasting police time.
|
| In the UK, an arrest under reasonable suspicion gives
| them the right to search your property for evidence, and
| to be honest they had reasonable suspicion, he had
| private company documents.
|
| It's not like that company can cry wolf again, the police
| will be far more skeptical next time of their claims,
| having dealt with them before.
| trhway wrote:
| >I personally think it's fair enough, the company claimed
| it was secure, therefore he hacked them. The police
| reacted, but when he could show it clearly
|
| it is absolutely not fair. The fair would be if the
| company had to show before the arrest that it was
| minimally secure. I mean they for sure had the HTTP
| transaction in their own logs - like GET document,
| response 200. They couldn't have reasonably in good faith
| claim "secure" and "hacking". What the company did is
| bordering on the false police report, and it would be
| fair if there were a recourse for the falsely arrested to
| use against the company.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| Different societies have different social standards. This
| is assuming you are none British/English/etc.
| filoleg wrote:
| >That doesn't make it okay. Being taken into custody is
| something I'd consider an overreaction and frightening
| for a person to endure.
|
| Fully agreed. And not just that, the law enforcement
| officers seized his personal devices (phone + laptop) for
| 4 weeks and went through them.
|
| Note: I am not sure if both phone+laptop were taken away
| for 4 weeks, but the article states that both were seized
| at one point, and explicitly mentions that the laptop was
| held for 4 weeks before being returned.
| corobo wrote:
| Yeah but the title makes it sound like Google Drive or
| something grassed him up. They weren't downloaded from
| Google, they were found using it
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| ...but that means Google has downloaded it earlier to index
| it. I guess Google should get raided as well.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| > So they're name dropping Google in the title for clickbait
| when the core issue is that the website didn't properly protect
| its data.
|
| The core issue is the government raided someones house for
| doing nothing wrong.
| shellac wrote:
| The police raided someone's house after a complaint. The
| government had nothing to do with this.
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