Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency data requests”

Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by voxic11 on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @11:27AM (#30843871)

So every major technology company will need to figure out the real contact details of every town government (how do you propose they will they do this?) and then when they receive one of these "life or death situation, you must respond immediately" requests they are supposed to call up the town, get the number for the police department in the town (hopefully the police department isn't shared between multiple towns or this could get confusing) and then call up the police department to confirm that they are the ones who sent the request?

I guess I don't see the value the town government contact details is providing here. If you have some way of figuring out the real contact details for every town why wouldn't that same mechanism work for figuring out the real contact details of every police department?

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by joelkevinjones on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @11:46AM (#30844096)

In the United States, does <area code> 555-1212 not work anymore? It certainly seems to: https://www.businessinsider.com/555-phone-number-tv-movies-t... https://www.nationalnanpa.com/number_resource_info/555_numbe...

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by R0b0t1 on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @01:30PM (#30845734)

Yes? Tech companies don't have to do arbitrary things for whoever calls up. The court or law enforcement official has to convince you they are real and that they have a warrant.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by coospep on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @01:42PM (#30845921)

Try refusing to comply with a real warrant because you aren’t convinced that it’s real. You will go to jail.

Turns out the government actually has no duty to convince you, locking you up tends to be convincing enough.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by R0b0t1 on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @04:50PM (#30848189)

They'll lose their case if all they did was call you and make a demand. Expecting them to show up in person in some capacity and show you the paperwork is fully reasonable. For a while they mostly operated with letters and sometimes registered mail but that can be faked also.

Look, if you want to preserve your rights you've gotta stand up for them.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by rosndo on Wednesday March 30, 2022 @04:29AM (#30852678)

This is so deeply wrong. You will go to jail if you act like this.

> Look, if you want to preserve your rights you've gotta stand up for them.

You have absolutely no such right to refuse to comply with subpoenas, search warrants or court orders not delivered via your preferred means.

> Expecting them to show up in person in some capacity and show you the paperwork is fully reasonable

It’s not reasonable, because actual judges will not partake in such games. They will just hold you in contempt.

It might sound reasonable to a layman, but your lawyer will think you’ve gone crazy.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by R0b0t1 on Wednesday March 30, 2022 @12:51PM (#30857749)

The only real reason you get charged with contempt is for ignoring the warrant. If you try to verify it you're not ignoring it. If you ignore something that's not a warrant they're SoL. It's my understanding these "emergency requests" have no legal basis. The ability of the state to pressgang people into service is very limited.

I'm willing to agree the law is crap and you might go to jail (briefly) anyway, but that's not an excuse for "it should work this way" which is the direction everyone seems to be taking it.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by rosndo on Thursday March 31, 2022 @02:05AM (#30864292)

Don’t get stuck on the “emergency requests”, the people faking those are perfectly happy to fake court orders too.

> but that's not an excuse for "it should work this way" which is the direction everyone seems to be taking it.

I see many people arguing that the recipients should solve this problem by doing better verification, I don’t think that’s reasonable.

This is absolutely something that the lawmakers need to fix, but that will be a herculean task.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by R0b0t1 on Thursday March 31, 2022 @07:41PM (#30873527)

I'm aware they'll fake court orders too, which is your defense if you piss off the court. Sadly this is only an issue that can be solved by the recipients doing more verification. If the courts offered more verification, you still need to teach the recipients to make use of it.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by mywittyname on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @11:35AM (#30843982)

Someone will sell this information. West Law / Lexis Nexis already provide a lot of this kind of thing (contact info for judges and people in various government agencies).

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by voxic11 on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @11:42AM (#30844065)

I wasn't able to find this information on West Law or Lexis Nexis, do you know what term they use to describe this category of information?

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by mywittyname on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @01:17PM (#30845535)

Try Judicial Profile.

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Re:Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake “emergency dat... by tiahura on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @11:49AM (#30844139)

Accurint

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