How I almost got a Criminal Record

http://blog.superuser.com/2011/06/17/how-i-almost-got-a-criminal-record/

by sathyabhat • 15 years ago

86 66 15 years ago

blog.superuser.com

mirkules2• 15 years ago

My very first thought was do NOT go to the police station without a lawyer. Nothing good can come out of talking to the police (or anyone else) without legal counsel when you are the accused.

This video lecture by officer George Bruch really opened my eyes:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6014022229458915912#

ars8• 15 years ago

Wrong, as this very article proves.

That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested).

By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was.

If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out.

But that would not change the past, and he would have still spent time in jail.

If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind.

milkshakes4• 15 years ago

Maybe in Europe. Here in the USA, law enforcement is much more manipulative and narrow minded. If they're talking to you, they already think you're guilty, and they're trying to twist everything you tell them to fit their story.

Don't ever interview with police without a lawyer present.

mirkules2• 15 years ago

This article didn't prove anything. The author got lucky that he ran into a legal department that found their own error.

"If he has gone all lawyered up and refused to talk to them he would have essentially confirmed everything that they assumed they already knew. They would have arrested him, and only by the actual trial would the truth come out."

Obtaining a lawyer does not in any way imply guilt - you are exercising your right to an attorney and proper process of law. Watch the video.

"If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested. Once you are arrested, then, and only then, is it time to get a lawyer. Because if you are arrested then they think you are guilty and cooperating is not going to change their mind."

No. If you are _accused_ you should get a lawyer. A seemingly innocent statement can be completely taken out of context, again watch the video. Also, you are being foolish if you think you can change an officer's mind about arresting you by talking to him. I'll say it again, whether you are guilty or not, the only words out of your mouth when you are accused of a crime should be "I'd like to speak with a lawyer"

asnyder• 15 years ago

It's a slippery slope, if you're the main suspect in any case by talking all you're doing is giving them information which they can use however they want against you. If you give them no information the burden on them is to dig up whatever they can, if they can't, too bad. For example, in this case clearly the author is technical enough to have perpetrated this crime, and by divulging your technical knowledge you just make yourself more of a suspect.

Also, better to have a lawyer with you advising whether you should answer such and such question. Remember, the police are not your friends, as much as they would like to make it seem that way, they want to charge someone with a crime and close the case, everybody says their innocent.

It's real tough as lawyers are very expensive, and the police, feds, etc. will make it seem as if you don't need one, lies, all lies. At most, say it wasn't you, I was at such and such, any further questions, refer to my lawyer.

drivebyacct22• 15 years ago

>That advice is only good if you are actually guilty (or if you get arrested).

>By going to the police and cooperating, they ended up his side, and worked to figure out who the real person was.

That is incredibly, unsafely naive. I wish I were still naive.

jasonzemos• 15 years ago

There's an old saying that a good prosecutor will convict most guilty men, and a great prosecutor will convict a few innocent ones too. The sole purpose of law enforcement is to collect evidence to convince a trial jury of guilt. Whether or not you're guilty, have a lawyer, do a song and dance in the interview room -- it makes no difference to the police. They will only extract whatever they need to build a case. You can't expect "good faith gestures" to give you any bonus points -- there are only negative points.

mootothemax2• 15 years ago

Wrong, as this very article proves.

Hang on just a minute - you're saying that only the guilty take legal advice? That's crazy! I wouldn't go along to a sales pitch without a decent salesman, why should the law be any different?

If you are innocent cooperate as much as you possibly can - up until you are arrested.

By then it's too late; try googling "Miscarriage of justice." It's not unknown for the police to frame suspects - if you go along lawyered-up, the chances of the police fabricating evidence from your confusion will be greatly reduced.

radu_floricica• 15 years ago

Ok, HN, what's with you? I see no trace of anything offensive, trollish or off-topic in parent's posts, and yet they're all downvotted to oblivion. Come on!

danssig6• 15 years ago

Every post you've made in this thread is absolutely appallingly bad and naive advice. I hope no poor soul believes this uninformed nonsense you've written here and gets their life ruined because of it. I don't mean to have this kind of attitude on HN, of all places, but you obviously don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about (all of your "advice" is about how you would see it, i.e. less than worthless) but insist on continuing to blather on and on with your anti-advice. Please stop.

A cop's job is not to catch bad guys, it's to solve cases. If they are having a hard time solving a case and some naive person walks in and explains everything then they've just found someone with opportunity. Now they just need a plausible motive and their work is done.

EDIT: Spelling fixes

tlow• 15 years ago

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865... I believe this is the preceding video to George Bruch's.

I found both to be compelling.

peteretep• 15 years ago

This seems to be an American thing - many Europeans really trust the police. Certainly in the UK I expect police to be helpful, polite, and fair; from everything I've read, that doesn't sound like the case in the US

yuhong2• 15 years ago

FYI: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/why_you_should...

arethuza• 15 years ago

I'm also in the UK - while the individual police officers I've had any dealing with have always been extremely helpful and polite I think it is dangerous to extend this to uncritical trust of the police force as an institution.

iwwr2• 15 years ago

Still, there is no reason to take needless risks. Most may be helpful and polite, but the balance of power is not in your favor. There are way too many laws to make sure you are always on the right side. There may also be honest but false recollections both for you or the police.

Would people refusing to talk to the police actually make catching criminals harder? Perhaps. But that just means the legal system needs important simplifications. Also, the balance of power needs to shift in favor of the citizen.

Robin_Message• 15 years ago

A similar blog post by a UK police officer: http://nightjack2.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/a-survival-guide-... (some of it is tongue in cheek, like "get your complaint in first" and "allege homophobia or racism", but the point on not talking to your police without a lawyer is exactly the same.)

known• 15 years ago

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Criticism_of_...

runjake• 15 years ago

If you had read the posted link, you'd see that the author isn't American and they aren't afforded the same rights as those of us in the US.

We don't get letters from the police mentioning that we're a criminal suspect. Usually such notifications come in the form of a door kick or finding a magnetic tube on the underside of our car.

ars8• 15 years ago

Anyone else impressed that the police are actually taking this kind of thing seriously? How many stories do you read about "xx got laptop stolen and police won't do anything" - here it's hacking, and police got involved.

CWIZO• 15 years ago

Here in Slovenia they tend to investigate cases like this. I'm usually on the "give us the IP of this user" side of things (we run a social network page), so I usually don't know how things get resolved (and how long it takes if they do).

younata• 15 years ago

There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook?

First reaction: AWESOME. I won't see any spam about that in the feed (which I rarely view anyway).

Second thought: This cannot end well. It's so easy to spoof stuff that a lot of innocent people will have to deal with similar situations before the law gets repealed (if it gets repealed, most likely it'd just stop being enforced).

Unfortunately, most people would never think about how bad it could end, just about how people won't be annoying them on facebook.

pmjordan• 15 years ago

There are places where it's a criminal offense to go deface some person's facebook?

I think you'll find that to be the case anywhere that has laws about "computer crimes" - the laws are usually phrased as gaining access to or manipulating systems or data for which you have no authorisation.

wladimir• 15 years ago

Ouch. That'd be a very Kafkaesque situation to be in. You know you didn't do anything, but they claim to have your IP in the offending logs. Luckily, it sorted itself out.

This is really scary. With the little the police knows about IT, there's no way you could prove yourself innocent... even in the case of an accident like this.

I don't even want to think about cases where hackers would plant an IP address in the logs on purpose to get someone into jail.

dermatthias• 15 years ago

Same thing happend to a german professor in 2008, where they also accidentialy swapped IP numbers. The accusation was child pornography, the news got hold of it and, of course, his reputation was deeply damaged.

Original german article: http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Unschuldig-unter-Verdacht-291...

and translation: http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl...

Shenglong• 15 years ago

How did they get the police to actually act over a facebook account hack? Someone deleted a good 30,000 entries on my mySQL DB - I'd like to press charges for that.

pavel_lishin2• 15 years ago

> So, should you ever get into a situation where you are wrongfully suspected, make sure to let people know that there is a possibility of an error, even if they tell you otherwise.

Isn't this sort of obvious? If I'm charged with a crime I know I didn't commit, of course I'm going to tell them there's been a mistake.

dagw• 15 years ago

Then again if I'm charged with a crime I know I did commit, I'd probably also tell them that there's been a mistake.

harshpotatoes• 15 years ago

When I began reading the story, I was worried it would be about a NAT problem (since it involved his phone).

While I'm glad this guy got his situation cleared so easily, I wonder how you would defend yourself in this situation. Police ask telecom, "who has this address?" Telecom says: "this person has that address" (while failing to mention who else has that address). How would you refute such charges, since it would be true that you did have that ip address in this hypothetical situation?

How I almost got a Criminal Record

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