Don't read into this article that I'm anti-Europe. Trust me I'm not. My wife is European and my parents are also. But it's ironic that the European Union is all up in arms about Google's search engine possibly violating the European privacy rules (see article), when these same rules allow for the increase perpetration of fraud or at a minimum slow investigations of it down to a halt.
I investigate fraud every day - it's literally my job - both here in the United States and in Europe. So I know a thing or two about this topic. But I wanted address an issue which no one seems to recognize or at least not willing to acknowledge.
Here's a war story. We were conducting an investigation in Germany. One the best sources of information for a case is the hard drive from the laptop of the suspected perpetrator. So we create forensic images of the hard drive in order to (1) preserve it and (2) easily analyze it in a read-only manner. Well in this case we wanted to image the hard drive of the suspect - normal procedure in the US. In fact, here we can usually do it with out telling the person what or why we are doing it. Not the case in Germany. After taking a 2 hour train ride in from Switzerland to conduct the image, I had to wait another 2 hours until the suspects 3 lawyers showed up. After that it was finally agreed that I could start the imaging. But the fun doesn't stop there! As part of our imaging process, we verify that the image was made correctly. When I got to that point in the procedure, the lawyers ears perked up - "there's no way you are doing that, you might see something of a personal nature". What!! All I'm going to do is verify the MD5 hash is correct and I can read the files on the drive. No. Out of the question. Then the perp pulls out a document from his back pocket that basically says nobody can look at the contents of his hard drive with out his union rep and lawyer present and then nothing marked "private" or "personal" can be looked at by any party.
Now, think about it. You want to commit fraud in Europe, plaster or hide all your bad stuff in a folder or email that says "private" or "personal". Also, make sure you put your grandmother's recipes at the bottom of every email! That way you get away with it and your friends get to eat good.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
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Best Place to Commit Fraud: Europe |
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FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data |
An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignite...
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RAM Ruling Portends a New E-Discovery Brawl |
A federal magistrate's order that stops a Web site from routinely tossing relevant data could, if replicated, carry broad e-discovery implications. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian's May 29 order requires TorrentSpy to turn over customer data only ephemerally kept in its computers' random access memory, or RAM. It could result in floods of similar requests in other civil cases, according to Ira Rothken, the Novato, Calif.-based attorney for the TorrentSpy site.
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FBI pulls plug on several botnet hackers |
More than 1 million computers are used by hackers as remote-controlled robots to crash online systems, accept spam and steal users' personal information, the FBI said Wednesday.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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ICS Forensic Solo III - New Apple Mac Option |
This Mac Acquisition Software allows you to acquire data from unopened Mac computer. The new Mac Software for the Solo 3 Forensic (Forensic Mac Acquisition option), allows the user of ICS's ImageMASSter Solo 3 Forensic to Image data from unopened Mac computer through 1394B or USB ports. The Suspect’s data captured with Forensic Mac Acquisition Option can be hashed and verified to comply with the highest standards of Computer Forensic Regulations, either with MD5, SHA-1 or SHA-2. Consequently the Mac acquired data is forensically guaranteed to be an exact image of the suspect’s data without modification, re-arrangement or corruption. The Forensic Mac Acquisition Software can be used only with ICS' ImageMASSter Solo 3 Forensic. More Info Here...
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High FCPA Risks in Medical Devices |
In a recent public announcement, Johnson & Johnson disclosed that it may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") and had reported potential violations to the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Johnson & Johnson’s disclosure highlights the risks of FCPA violations for the medical device industry. It also reflects a broader trend of increased FCPA enforcement, as do recent cases involving multi-million dollar fines....