Google Searches Used to Convict Wireless Hacker
Filed in archive Wi-Fi by jeff goldman on December 20, 2006

WebProNews' Philipp Lenssen today picks up on a CNET News report noting that computer expert Matthew Schuster got 15 months in jail for hacking his ex-employer, Alpha Computer Services -- and Schuster was convicted party due to having made such Google searches as "make device interfere wireless network."
"Court documents are ambiguous and don't reveal how the FBI discovered his search terms," CNET's Declan McCullagh writes. "That could have happened in one of three ways: an analysis of his browser's history and cache; an Alpha employee monitoring the company's wireless connection; or a subpoena to Google from the police
for search terms tied to his Internet address or cookie."
"In this case, an Alpha employee might well have screened the logs, as Matthew used their system to search Google," Lenssen writes. "In other cases, a subpoena to Google is also likely, and we might not be able to ever know when that happens -- at least when the government is behind the request."
As Platinax's Brian Turner points out, this "does demonstrate increasing concern over privacy issues, not least the fact that search engines such as Google can assign personal names to recorded behaviour, if subscribed to their services."
Permalink: Google Searches Used to Convict Wireless Hacker
Tags:
Google hacker hack wireless WiFi WiFi Wi+Fi searches searching Patriot+Act ACLU privacy subpoena FBI
Trackback: http://www.creative-weblogging.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.pl/46614











