Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Dallas FBI raid, part 2

Wired Thread Level has a writeup of that recent Dallas FBI raid that seized all the computers at a couple of colos. In particular, they have a copy of the warrant authorizing the raid. It confirms what I said in my previous blog on the subject.

Being technical means I'm more interested in reading the search warrant itself than I am reading the Wired story. Being technical, I wish more news articles were like that Wired article publishing the raw, technical sources of their data rather than digested summary of the content. I hope one day that it will be journalistic ethics that interview notes and other material be posted online next to the stories.

In any case, if you read the warrant, you see it's about this guy Mike Faulkner. It certainly appears this guy is up to no good. The warrant lists a number of places to search, such as his home, business, mail post office box, and so forth. However, is also lists the "Core IP" location that made the news. I've read the affidavit twice and found nothing that implicates "Core IP" other than the fact that one of Faulkner's business was once a customer of Core IP. There is certainly nothing that justifies the grabbing of all the customer equipment at the Core IP location.

As I said in my previous post, the FBI is good at crime, and it appears probable that Faulkner is a criminal. On the other hand, they are bad with computers, and there is nothing that justifies the way they raped Core IP and its customers.

5 comments:

Michael Janke said...

This quote is scary:

FBI spokesman White says the equipment seizures were necessary.

"My understanding is that the way these things are hooked up is that they're interconnected to each other," he says. "Company A may be involved in some criminal activity and because of the interconnectivity of all these things, the information of what company A is doing may be sitting on company B or C or D's equipment."


Damn - that sounds like cloud computing to me!

Anonymous said...

"I'm more interested in reading the search warrant itself than I am reading the Wired story."

You might want to reconsider that seeing how the allegations were made by a disgruntled former employee.

Nothing "technical" about a snitches word.

Anonymous said...

Pardon my French, but that is bullshit (the FBI, not this article :D).

Thanks for finding a copy of that warrant, I was interested in this when you first posted on it.

SecurityFocus Legal Review said...

As many of you have pointed out the warrant and the case is absolutely stunning. I am sure that many of you are trying to piece together all of the pieces, news reports, facts by Mr. Faulkner, and evidence gathered by the Dallas FBI cyber crime squad.

As such, I have gathered all of the court documents and many of the reports, including the full amended complaint filed by Liquid Motors. Liquid Motors was the first company that had filed legal proceedings in the case of Liquid Motors, LLC v Allyn Lynd / USA. Claiming that the company’s, fourth amendment rights (pertaining to against reasonable searches & seizures) have been violated. You can view all case material's at

http://www.securityfocus.tv/dallascolo/

Including the evidence list detailing all of the items taken from the Faulkner residence.

Unknown said...

From Faulkner him self ...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13974347/mirror-of-wwwuwwwbcom-FBI-indiscriminate-actions-in-fascist-america?autodown=pdf