Cybercrime Review post on tower dumps cited by North Dakota Sup. Ct.

Congrats go out to Jeffrey for a mention in In re D.O. __ N.W.2d __ (N.D. 2013). The relevant excerpt: The "totality-of-the-circumstances" regarding D.O. include a confidential informant's tip and an anonymous tip about his involvement, his cell phone activity around the sites at the times of the burglaries, his publicly available Facebook postings and pictures, information garnered from a probation search of his residence and matching shoe prints found at three burglary sites. Although the matching footprints were not successfully linked...

Read More

Featured Paper: The Good-Faith Exception and Unsettled Law: A Study of GPS Tracking Cases After United States v. Jones

David J. Twombly, The Good-Faith Exception and Unsettled Law: A Study of GPS Tracking Cases After United States v. Jones, 74 Ohio St. L.J. 807 (2013). (J.D. expected '14, Ohio State).  A key quote (and, one I agree with): Setting aside the policy question of whether the exclusionary rule ought to stand or fall, lower courts should not take it upon themselves to extend the good-faith exception to cases of police negligence....When the right case comes along, the Supreme Court can clarify whether everyday police negligence...

Read More

California Attorney General announces the arrest of alleged revenge porn website owner, charged with conspiracy, identity theft, and extortion

Yesterday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced the arrest of Kevin Bollaert, the “alleged owner and operator of a revenge porn website who facilitated the posting of more than 10,000 sexually explicit photos and extorted victims for as much as $350 each to remove the illicit content.” Bollaert, a 27 year-old San Diego native, is allegedly behind the site “ugotposted.com.” According to allegations in the arrest warrant, the site allowed posters to upload nude images of victims with accompanying personal information, which...

Read More

Law enforcement tracks child pornography distributor to hotel WiFi networks across the country using his GUID

Using public WiFi networks such as those in hotels can make it much more difficult to catch criminals in the act such as those downloading child pornography. As one defendant recently learned, however, police are capable of using old-fashioned investigative work when it comes to cyber cases. In United States v. Pirosko, No. 5:12CR327 (N.D. Ohio 2013), an investigator tracked the sharing of child pornography to a hotel in Nebraska. The same computer (as determined by the GUID) connected to the Internet using the hotel's IP address five nights...

Read More

Appellate court: Forcing father to install home security cameras does not encourage him to disseminate child pornography

We do not often write about family law cases on this blog, but I recently ran across an interesting custody order from an Ohio case. I'm not sure if this is ever a standard provision for certain types of cases, but I figured it was worth sharing. In O'Malley v. O'Malley, 2013 Ohio 5238 (Ohio Ct. App. 2013), the mother argued that it was a violation of the children's constitutional right to privacy for the court to order that the father install security cameras in his home. Here's the order: 6. For the purpose of assisting the children in making...

Read More