Politics and Law

Social-networking sites and other Web services can't be held liable in a sexual assault on a minor that stemmed from a meeting online, according to a ruling in a California appeals court that consolidated a number of complaints against MySpace on behalf of teenage girls and their parents.

Reuters reported late on Wednesday that the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles cited the Communications Decency Act in coming to the conclusion. Claiming negligence and product liability, the plaintiffs had alleged that MySpace had failed to put in place age verification software or to keep profiles on a "private" setting.

Other federal courts have come to similar rulings. Last year, a Texas court ruled that the family of a 14-year-old girl who was assaulted by a man she met on MySpace could not hold the social network responsible. The girl in question had lied about her age when she created a profile, claiming to be a legal adult, and the court ruled that it was her parents' job, not MySpace's, to keep her safe.

This week's ruling in Los Angeles received a thumbs-up from MySpace and parent company News Corp. It could also have repercussions across other social networks and community-based Web sites, which have been subject to scrutiny from authorities over both safety and decency standards. Craigslist, for example, has faced a crackdown on sex-related ads after both allegations of rampant prostitution and a high-profile case in which a Craigslist encounter allegedly ended in murder.

The situation can be different, if there is actual harassment conducted through the social network, rather than an offline assault. In that case, if it appears that a Web service isn't doing enough to keep members safe while using the site, it can, in some cases, be held responsible.

Facebook and MySpace are working with state attorneys general to keep registered sex offenders out of their user bases, following allegations from lawmakers that they weren't doing enough to maintain a safe environment for minors.

On Thursday, the sentencing is expected in another Los Angeles court for Lori Drew, who has been convicted of three misdemeanors after impersonating a teenage boy on MySpace and harassing a 13-year-old girl allegedly to the point of suicide.

Drew could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and forced to pay a fine of $300,000, a far lesser sentence than she originally faced.

Eurojust, an EU agency that coordinates judicial cooperation across member states, has significantly altered a statement in which it said criminals were using Skype to avoid detection by the authorities.

One week ago, Eurojust announced it planned to "play a key role in the coordination and cooperation of the investigations on the use of internet telephony systems (VoIP), such as Skype." The agency said its role would be to smooth out the technical and judicial obstacles to the interception of Internet telephony systems, taking into account the various data protection rules and civil rights. Eurojust also said it had become involved at the request of the Italian anti-mafia directorate.

"Skype's encryption system is a secret which the company refuses to share with the authorities," Eurojust's statement of last Friday read. "Investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps in recent years. Customs and tax police in Milan have highlighted the Skype issue. They overheard a suspected cocaine trafficker telling an accomplice to switch to Skype in order to get details of a 2kg drug consignment."

Skype reacted strongly to that statement at the time, saying it remained "interested in working with Eurojust despite the fact that they chose not to contact us before issuing this inaccurate report".

On Wednesday, Eurojust issued an update to its original statement, which was entitled "Eurojust coordinates Internet telephony investigations." The new statement, entitled "Eurojust will be requested to coordinate Internet telephony investigations," makes it clear that the anti-mafia directorate's request for judicial coordination has not yet been made formally.

The Internet telephony-tapping probe is expected to be officially introduced at Eurojust "in the coming weeks or months," a spokesperson for the agency told ZDNet UK on Friday.

In addition, the revised statement made it clear for the first time that the initial meetings between Eurojust and the Italian judicial authorities had taken place in September 2006, and that Skype itself had been present at those discussions.

"Representatives from the company Skype S.A. were invited and present at this meeting," the revised statement reads. "There was a positive message from the Skype representatives during the meeting, showing their commitment to cooperate with the law enforcement authorities in the fight against serious, cross-border organized crime."

In the new statement, references to Skype's alleged refusal to share details of its encryption system have been excised.

Skype has welcomed the revision of the statement. "We are pleased that Eurojust has clarified their previous statement and has recognized our commitment to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, which Skype does as much as is legally and technically possible," it said in a statement on Thursday. "Skype looks forward to working more with Eurojust in the future."

Speaking to ZDNet UK, Eurojust's spokesperson said the original statement had not targeted Skype in particular. "We didn't only speak about Skype; we used Skype as the most known Internet telephony company," the spokesperson said. "There are others--Truphone, instant messaging, and so on."

Asked about the original statement's specific references to Skype and its encryption systems, the spokesperson said: "The first information (was included) as background based on information we got from a police officer in Milan."

ZDNet UK asked whether the removal of the references to Skype meant they had been incorrect, but Eurojust's spokesperson refused to comment.

Ever wonder just how anonymous your online searches from a public library were? Ask Richard Leon Goyette, arrested Tuesday on federal charges involving 64 threatening letters with white powder and one bomb threat that were mailed October 17.

Goyette, 47, was arrested in an Albuquerque, N.M., airport after an investigation that involved the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service regarding the case. The letters, sent to JP Morgan Chase offices, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) from Amarillo, Texas, contained unidentified white powder and a threat that the person breathing it would die within 10 days. Tests showed the powder to be harmless--not like the fatal letters with anthrax powder sent in 2001--but threats are enough to trigger criminal charges.

It's no surprise that authorities can piece together digital information to pursue perpetrators. But it is revealing to see just how it was done in this case.

Goyette apparently gave investigators a head start by allegedly sending angry e-mails, according to investigation details released in a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas.

Upset about losing $63,525 in stock value during the closing of Washington Mutual Bank, a person using the Yahoo Mail address richgoyet@yahoo.com and including Goyette's name and address sent messages on September 26 to the FDIC and the OTS, according to the complaint, which details the FBI investigation in an arrest warrant affidavit. In September, the OTS had placed WaMu into receivership; the FDIC took over the bank then sold the assets to JP Morgan Chase.

"I told myself I was not going to accept any more losses due to the reasons I mentioned. I have pursued a path of doing things right, but unfortunately I've paid a terrible price for those who will do whatever it takes to defraud, steal, manipulate, and screw over average stockholders. This seizure was the final straw and I will now pursue any path to get the return of my investment. Since legal means are apparently useless, I will have to consider any viable method applicable to rightfully reclaim my stolen funds," another e-mail sent September 29 to the OTS said, according to the affidavit.

And in an October 7 letter to an attorney handling WaMu investor inquiries, Goyette said he would "most likely have to employ the same type of tactics used to cheat WaMu shareholders to recover stolen assets if all meaningful efforts to rectify this situation don't come to fruition," the affidavit said.

Next comes the search evidence.

Records obtained from Yahoo through a federal search warrant showed the FDIC and OTS letters were sent from a computer at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, the affidavit said. Five days later, a computer at the college also was used to search for the location of Chase branch offices. Six days after that, the affidavit said, a library computer at the University of New Mexico's Albuquerque campus was used to search for nearly all the Chase Bank branch locations that received the threatening letters; "The Chase branch locator services from the UNM computer were the only searches conducted in the months leading up to the mailings which covered that many victim branches," the affidavit said.

Scottrade account records also showed Goyette used computers at the Central New Mexico Community College and University of New Mexico, the affidavit said.

Formatting on the envelopes matched that on the Web sites, including one case in which the word "freeway" was bumped from the end of the first line of the address to the beginning of the second, the affidavit said.

Then comes a detour from the virtual world to the real world.

The Goyette address in the e-mails was for a post office box in Tijeras, N.M, near Albuquerque, but the physical address on its application form wasn't Goyette's. On December 7, a surveillance team saw Goyette pick up his mail from the P.O. box and drive away; the license plate showed his truck registered to Michael Jurek of Albuquerque. The driver's license photos showed Goyette and Jurek to be the same person, the affidavit said.

Then we have the credit card charge.

Citibank records showed that Michael Jurek used a credit card at Enterprise Rent-a-Car on October 17, the affidavit said. Using his driver's license with the Jurek name, Goyette rented a car and obtained permission to drive to Texas. He drove 618 miles; and the U.S. Attorney's Office points out it's 284 miles from Albuquerque to Amarillo.

The letters began arriving October 20.

Regardless of whether Goyette is guilty--and it should be noted that people charged with crimes are presumed innocent until convicted--the case shows just how many digital fingerprints people leave as they go about their daily lives.

Tracking people through digital records will only become more important to law enforcement as more people live their lives online through e-mail accounts, Web site comment posts, Yahoo Search Pad research, and other activity. And, of course, it will become more important to others as well, such as private investigators, hiring managers, nosy parents, and former and future boyfriends.

Just a few months ago, Sid Agrawal, the chief operating officer of a 4-year-old semiconductor start-up in Santa Clara, Calif., was opining on the Silicon India site about the technology industry, noting that "green technology is the buzzword of the day" and bemoaning the challenge of "hiring good analog designers."

Sid Agrawal's recent Silicon India post was titled "Opportunities Galore for Semiconductors."

(Credit: Silicon India)

On Friday, however, Agrawal, 56, became one of three victims in a fatal workplace shooting that has saddened friends, colleagues, and family members, and left Silicon Valley employees--already shook up over constant reports of layoffs and bad economic news--feeling all the more uneasy.

"Silicon Valley has lost a great warrior," said Deepak Bhagat, a close friend and fellow alumnus at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Bhagat said Agrawal wasn't someone who talked a lot, but what he said was "loaded with wisdom."

The tragedy unfolded at almost 4 p.m. PST Friday, as police officers responded to a report of multiple gunshots fired at a Santa Clara office park on Scott Boulevard in a suite occupied by SiPort, which makes digital multimedia broadcast chips for mobile markets, according to the company Web site. Dead at the scene were Agrawal of Fremont; Brian Pugh, 47, of Los Altos, who was vice president of operations; and Marilyn Lewis, 67, of San Jose, who was head of human resources.

The suspect, Jing Hua Wu, 47, of Mountain View, had been terminated from his position as an engineer for SiPort and reportedly asked for a meeting with his former employers to talk about his employment. He allegedly shot and killed all three victims with a handgun and fled the area in an SUV, police said. At about 10:45 a.m. Saturday, Santa Clara police arrested Wu on public road in Mountain View and booked him on three counts of homicide. His arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Initial stories widely reported that Wu had been laid off from the company, but SiPort on Saturday issued a statement clarifying that Wu was terminated and SiPort has never had any layoffs.

Jing Hua Wu

(Credit: Santa Clara County Department of Corrections)

"The entire SiPort staff and board are in mourning," Aiman Kabakibo, the new CEO and company founder, said in the statement. "We are a close-knit team of engineers and entrepreneurs who built this company together."

Santa Clara Police spokesman Lt. Mike Sellers said the incident, especially amid the economic climate and continued layoff announcements, has triggered many questions about office security. So much so that he had planned a small press conference Monday to talk about related securities resources and programs for companies. That said, however, Sellers sees Friday's shooting as "an isolated situation." The victims likely didn't suspect a problem, he said, or else they wouldn't have agreed to meet with the suspect.

Still, the incident has people saddened and worried, said Seshan Rammohan, executive director of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Silicon Valley, whose members were friends and colleagues of Agrawal's "It's really devastating...and very sobering," he said. "People are very circumspect when they have to deal with layoffs and with terminations."

Bhagat, who was with Agrawal at a dinner party two Fridays ago, said his friend was cautious about he economy in general, but seemed very confident about SiPort's position, as it recently got its chip working. With his industry experience at Adobe and Bell Labs and with two prior start-ups, Agrawal--who came emigrated to the U.S. from India in 1975--was a very "capable executive" who always "pushed the technology envelope," Bhagat said.

Yet Bhagat too--along with his colleagues--said he can't help but wonder about how the shooting relates to the stresses of the economy. He got an e-mail from a colleague in India today who had heard about the killings and wondered, "Is this the tip of the iceberg?"

Here's an old photo of Hans Reiser from his Stanford days. A San Francisco Chronicle reporter said at his sentencing Friday, however, Reiser's hair was grown out and he looked more like Art Garfunkel.

(Credit: via Stanford University)

In what appears the final chapter of the Hans Reiser crime saga, the Linux programmer convicted of killing his wife was sentenced Friday afternoon to 15 years to life in prison under a deal he worked out with prosecutors in exchange for leading police to his victim's body.

Reiser--known to the technology world as the founder of the ReiserFS file system software--was found guilty in April of first-degree murder in the 2006 killing of his wife, with whom he was undergoing a bitter divorce. The jury convicted him largely on circumstantial evidence and despite the fact that Nina Reiser's body hadn't been found before trial.

First-degree murder carries a sentence of 25 years to life, compared with 15 years to life for second-degree murder. But in anticipation of his sentencing, Reiser, 44, brokered a deal with prosecutors that went generally like so: If he brought police to his wife's body and he gave up his appellate rights, he could plead guilty to second-degree murder and get 15 years.

And that's what happened in an Oakland, Calif., courthouse Friday, after Reiser pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, according to media reports. He'll be eligible for parole in about 13 years, having already served two years since his October 2006 arrest.

Nina Reiser

(Credit: California Department of Justice)

Throughout the drama-filled six-month trial, Reiser maintained his innocence. Arguing the so-called geek defense, his attorney said that while Reiser may be strange, arrogant, even abnormal, his odd behavior following Nina's disappearance wasn't evidence of murder. On trial, Reiser smeared the mother of his two children, alleging, among other things, that she was likely hiding out in her native Russia with money she stole from his now defunct company, Namesys.

Nina Reiser's remains were found in Oakland's Redwood Regional Park, about a half a mile from where she was last seen. Click image for full map.

(Credit: Google)

Reiser, handcuffed to his attorney, did in fact bring authorities to a grave site Monday containing his wife's remains in a heavily brushed, secluded area about 40 yards off a road in Oakland's Redwood Regional Park. The grave site was located about a half mile from where Nina was last seen in 2006 at Reiser's mother's house, where he was living.

It's unclear whether the cause of death was ever determined through an autopsy. But Wired reported that after the sentencing, prosecutor Paul Hora revealed some of the details from Reiser's confession. Reiser first punched Nina in the mouth, then strangled her to death, Hora said. Hora added that Reiser "stored the body in the bathroom, then moved it to his car, where it stayed for two days while he searched for a place to bury her," according to Wired.

Wired's David Kravets added that before he was formally sentenced, Reiser vowed to make up to society for what he had done and said he was putting Namesys and ReiserFS into a trust fund for his children. Reiser added that he hoped to earn money for his kids while in prison, assuming he's "able to get access to a computer and the Internet," according to Kravets.

Fans of home automation systems controlled by a personal computer like to speculate about how their software might be able to snare intruders. An Indiana man named Fred Thompson actually did it.

Court documents show the story started after Thompson's home in Fort Wayne, Ind., was burglarized. Thompson responded by setting up a video camera hooked up to his computer and configured it to remotely notify him when motion was detected when the house was supposed to be empty.

On October 10, 2006, the system notified Thompson that movement was detected. He jumped in his car, called the police, and headed home.

Thompson and Officer Stephanie Souther found that the house's front door was unlocked and a window in the rear was open, but that nobody was actually inside. The recorded video showed a man entering from the rear of the house, unlocking the front door to let someone else in, and then the two walked around inside. An eight-foot piece of copper pipe was missing.

After the police failed to turn up any leads, Thompson posted the video on YouTube a week later with the title "Burglars Caught in Fort Wayne." It now appears to be deleted. Detective Everett D. White of the Fort Wayne Police Department's Neighborhood Response Team--who was off-duty and at home--happened to notice it.

He showed it to his colleagues at work the next day, and one recognized the two men.

On November 16, 2006, Richard Klaff was charged with felony burglary and felony theft. A jury convicted him the following June, and a judge sentenced him to six years in prison and one year of probation.

Klaff appealed his conviction, claiming the evidence was insufficient. But the Indiana appeals court ruled on March 31 that the recorded video "establishes that not only was Klaff present at the house, but also that he was an active participant, and thus the evidence may raise a reasonable inference of guilt."

Score one, home automation. (Yes, perhaps this isn't technically home automation in the same way an Indigo-and-Insteon-equipped home is, but it's still pretty close.)

For background on automated burglar-nabbing, check out this tale of another successful effort. Here's a Windows tutorial; Linux users have the Motion project. I use Perceptive Automation's Indigo software on my Macintosh computers at home.

Of course, you should remember to configure your computer to upload or e-mail the captured images to a remote server instead of storing them locally on a hard drive that could be stolen. And if that doesn't work, this might be an even better countermeasure (and video). Bonus: It should deter FBI agents sneaking into your house, too.