But it is fine to use for sharing Mexican Donkey porn, right?

I tend to use Asian porn at my local coffeehouse - smaller people, higher compression rate

Technically the article seems to imply the tip is not to do it more than once.

First three things you read at the site:

Man charged with sharing child porn in Minneapolis coffee shop

A 47-year-old man was arrested and charged with sharing child pornography at a Minneapolis coffee shop.

A 47-year-old man was arrested and charged with sharing child pornography at a Minneapolis coffee shop


The StarTribune sucks.

I'll be sure to remind my brother.

dwyrin
Technically the article seems to imply the tip is not to do it more than once.

Better the IP of a coffee shop than your home IP.

PopCultureReference: The StarTribune sucks.

I only read it for the comments. In which old people with too much time on their hands biatch about every single article.

neither the strib nor the pioneer press are good papers. mcclatchy sucks.

dwyrin: Technically the article seems to imply the tip is not to do it more than once.

Yeah, the fact the guy kept going back for more shows it wasn't a one time "accidental" downloading or whatever other excuse he might want to use.

Being forced to use library computers for the short-term future and wondering about any recent 'discoveries' over at Foobies, I'm getting a kick out of this thread...

PopCultureReference: The StarTribune sucks.

Indeed they do.

Also, I'm not positive (since they didn't identify the specific coffee shop), but I'm pretty sure I live a couple blocks from the one in the story. Nice place. Mediocre coffee.

Protip: Protip is not funny.

bravian: PopCultureReference: The StarTribune sucks.

I only read it for the comments. In which old people with too much time on their hands biatch about every single article.

there is a significant itg element to the strib readership. comedy gold if you ask me.

Since when?

Okay, I'm just going to ask. Let's say I'm sitting in a coffeeshop, using their wi-fi. Let's say I'm clicking through the links at my favorite website, barelylegalbelgiantrannymidgets.com. Let's say I'm the only person in the joint with a computer.

When the barista goes around to the back room where the computer doohickeys are set up, under NORMAL circumstances, what can she learn about my surfing habits?

I know that with enough effort and techno-savvy, or with special software, the person whose connection I'm using can know pretty much everything I'm doing. But I'm curious what you can know just from the USUAL setup at such places.

What say you, Fark?

sgnilward: Can anybody in the IT security community here expand on who can see what and how they do it remotely?

Is it that simple to scan computers on a network or was this guy doing something really stupid? (Besides the obvious)

He likely was file sharing child porn, and the FBI got the IP of the coffee shop from that. Once they contacted the coffee shop, they likely replaced the router with one of their own that they could monitor, and waited for him to come back. As soon as they see the same activity start again, look at who's inside using a laptop, then check said laptop's WiFi MAC address against the MAC used by the suspect.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

Not an IT guy but my reading of it was that FBI guys bumped into him on the net (undercovers I suppose posing as other pervs).

They traced him and noticed he was at a coffeeshop chain. You can't get the guy because he might leave by the time local law enforcement arrives.

So, keeping his username in mind and hoping he would frequent the establishment again they wait for him. Sure enough he did it again and this time they were in place to get him.

Unless they're using a big brother style surveillance system to monitor EVERYTHING but I doubt that.

He just neeeded creamer for his coffee.

semiotix: When the barista goes around to the back room where the computer doohickeys are set up, under NORMAL circumstances, what can she learn about my surfing habits?

The barista likely can't find out anything, but the IT guy could log everything done by every PC on that network. If he really wanted to he could monitor everything sent and received from your PC that's not encrypted. (https:// is encrypted, http:// is not, for example.)

Most IT guys I've known who were managing public space WiFi might check out visited sites lists for a laugh (people go to some really weird sites), but unless there's a reason to do so don't have the time or desire to watch what you're doing. For troubleshooting it can be useful to see that the customer complaining was trying to access gogle.com and not google.com (aka not my problem), and that was mostly what I used that type of logging for.

Fluorescent Testicle: He just neeeded needed creamer for his coffee.

/FTFM.
//Preevieew is your frieend.

With my home router, it is very easy to pull up a list of all the computers connected to it, their internal IP, their mac, and the network name of the computer, and have it logged along with up/down stats to a local or remote file.

I imagine a coffee shop could have something of a bit more commercial variety that would have equal or better software.

warfarkingeagle: Protip: Protip is not funny.



R.I.P. PRO-TIP

davidphogan: sgnilward: Can anybody in the IT security community here expand on who can see what and how they do it remotely?

Is it that simple to scan computers on a network or was this guy doing something really stupid? (Besides the obvious)

He likely was file sharing child porn, and the FBI got the IP of the coffee shop from that. Once they contacted the coffee shop, they likely replaced the router with one of their own that they could monitor, and waited for him to come back. As soon as they see the same activity start again, look at who's inside using a laptop, then check said laptop's WiFi MAC address against the MAC used by the suspect.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

Some ISPs track (or block) certain types of activity as well, some block torrent applications, and many/most universities track filesharing applications to detect people uploading. They can't monitor everything, but it's pretty easy to tell when a known filesharing app is uploading/sharing information, and that's where most copyright suits (and this case) are concerned anyway.

Stuff you're just downloading like webpages would be very hard to track (unless you're set to track certain IPs), it would just be a massive ass sea of data, and music companies usually ignore the downloaders anyway.

if your doing something and you want no tracks go to a different free internet site each time, change your wireless mac and hostname each time. i wonder if they could track that.

Barakku: davidphogan: sgnilward: Can anybody in the IT security community here expand on who can see what and how they do it remotely?

Is it that simple to scan computers on a network or was this guy doing something really stupid? (Besides the obvious)

He likely was file sharing child porn, and the FBI got the IP of the coffee shop from that. Once they contacted the coffee shop, they likely replaced the router with one of their own that they could monitor, and waited for him to come back. As soon as they see the same activity start again, look at who's inside using a laptop, then check said laptop's WiFi MAC address against the MAC used by the suspect.

At least, that's how I'd do it.

Some ISPs track (or block) certain types of activity as well, some block torrent applications, and many/most universities track filesharing applications to detect people uploading. They can't monitor everything, but it's pretty easy to tell when a known filesharing app is uploading/sharing information, and that's where most copyright suits (and this case) are concerned anyway.

Stuff you're just downloading like webpages would be very hard to track (unless you're set to track certain IPs), it would just be a massive ass sea of data, and music companies usually ignore the downloaders anyway.

URLs visited are trivially easy to track, log, and search.

I don't go to coffeeshops to drink lattes and surf the web, I go to the library instead. At least you don't spend money.

bastian_74: if your doing something and you want no tracks go to a different free internet site each time, change your wireless mac and hostname each time. i wonder if they could track that.

Hostname does not matter, but yeah, spoof your mac address and change it frequently. If you continue to go to the same place it wont help though. If the 12 year old girl FBI agent you are talking to tracks you back to the same coffee shop they will just wait there till you show up again and nail you.

sgnilward: Can anybody in the IT security community here expand on who can see what and how they do it remotely?

Is it that simple to scan computers on a network or was this guy doing something really stupid? (Besides the obvious)

semiotix: Okay, I'm just going to ask. Let's say I'm sitting in a coffeeshop, using their wi-fi. Let's say I'm clicking through the links at my favorite website, barelylegalbelgiantrannymidgets.com. Let's say I'm the only person in the joint with a computer.

Got some worried people in this thread, kind of creepy.

is there really a list of rules?
rule 34
rule 1 ect?
i need the list, or is that against the rules

Barakku: Stuff you're just downloading like webpages would be very hard to track (unless you're set to track certain IPs), it would just be a massive ass sea of data, and music companies usually ignore the downloaders anyway.

It's really, really easy to have a database of every activity of every computer on a network. Since it's a database, it's trivial to find any amount of data you want from it. Most companies I've worked with doing public space internet access don't bother, but if they wanted to they easily could. Most intentionally stored as little as we were required to (either legally or by the contract) to avoid potential data breaches. Remember the AOL search database that was leaked?

One did store a ton of data, but nothing that would directly link a user to their activities without getting into a separate payments database or without the user doing something to cause their identity to be logged (eg. using a web page with the login name in the URL.) That also stopped about 5 years ago for security reasons though.

The most likely scenario isn't that the coffee shop was using wireshark or whatever to filter out suspicious web searches and then flag the mac address or some complicated sting, probably he just viewed the images on his laptop in plain view, someone noticed and told the coffee shop people who called the fbi and made sure to be on the lookout for the guy.

zfarkingman: is there really a list of rules?
rule 34
rule 1 ect?
i need the list, or is that against the rules

AFAIK, there is no one set list. Rules 1, 2, and 34 are the only ones that seem set in stone, but here's the ED page (new window, possibly NSFW)

freakdiablo: Rules 1, 2, and 34 are the only ones that seem set in stone

Apparently the only ones set in stone are the sums of fifth powers of first n Fibonacci numbers?

bravian: PopCultureReference: The StarTribune sucks.

I only read it for the comments. In which old people with too much time on their hands biatch about every single article.

As opposed to Fark, where young people biatch about every article.

freakdiablo:Rules 1, 2, and 34 are the only ones that seem set in stone, but here's the ED page (new window, possibly NSFW)

I am a naif at some things, but I took a wild guess at what 1 and 2 might be, and was not disappointed.

skinink: But it is fine to use for sharing Mexican Donkey porn, right?

As long as the donkey is over 18 you should be fine.

Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?

So no /b/ at Starbucks. Thanks. Good tip

warfarkingeagle: Protip: Protip is not funny.

Yes, the use of *Protip* is old and tired.

It also seems like some of you have a need to share suggestions and advice for maintaining online anonymity while engaging in some questionable behaviors...don't they already have a group for that?..something like MENSA or RAMBLERS or something?

It also helps if you wear a sockpuppet on your hand when you type. They will think someone else is typing it.