Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
11th April, 2007 at 02:04:54 -
For starters, say that Person A knew as a fact that Person B had committed a serious crime, such as murder but Person A had no evidence apart from his own knowledge. If Person A hacked into Person B's computer and found evidence which proved Person B committed this crime, could Person A use this evidence in court or to give to the police to convict (or at least start an investigation into) him\her?
What I'm asking is, if you hacked into someone's computer and used information found on their computer which linked them to a crime, could you use that against them? Or would this information be not valid, because you were not authorized to take it? Secondly, would Person A get into any trouble with the law for hacking in the first place, even if this information was for the benefit of conviciting a killer?
I'd appreciate any opinions, and if possible anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. Do we have any lawyers on TDC? I'm from Australia by the way, the laws might differ slightly... this is all hypothetical, of course. Thank you.
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
11th April, 2007 at 02:16:26 -
I'm in a business law class studying to be a lawyer and I read about a case here (USA) where some lawyers had some people steal evidence out of an office building, and it was okay because the courts had a similar case where people stole evidence and the court allowed it.
I have no idea about Australia laws though. I'll ask my teacher.
Edited by the Author.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
i have nothing to back it up, but i'm quite sure that if you do something illegal to obtain evidence, you can't use it in most courts.
n/a
Deleted User
11th April, 2007 at 05:57:14 -
In the United States it's possible to repeat something that has already been done, like Peblo said, and there would be the same consequence for the hacker unless the situation demands it differently. Otherwise, you'd need to get a warrant to search his computer and find them. Or maybe trick his/her lawyer into presenting it to the court as to make them believe they've nothing to hide, etc.
At least, that's what a lawyer friend told me.
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
11th April, 2007 at 08:55:30 -
PhreddySE - That's very true. There's nothing to stop Person A planting evidence in the first place. I didn't think of that. So it's not very credible then.
As for getting a warrant, that probably wouldn't work. If Person A told the authorities, then they wouldn't do much. The police aren't going to search somebody's computer, just because someone called and told them to. Say this was for an unreported crime as of now (but still a serious one), such as aggravated assault or rape. If Person A just called up the police, they probably wouldn't think that would be enough to issue a warrant - otherwise anyone could just call up the cops and tell them to search for child porn on somebody's computer that they don't like
I don't think it's very plausible that Person A would only have his own knowledge of a crime, and no evidence. If there's a murder, there's a body - there'd be a motive and there's be a means of killing them. If you saw any of this, you could report the details to the police, and this would be evidence.
Assault Andy Administrator
I make other people create vaporware
Registered 29/07/2002
Points 5686
14th April, 2007 at 09:21:49 -
For murder there would definitely be lots of evidence. But say for a crime that happened a while ago. What about if someone was assaulted for instance, and you hadn't alerted authorities. All the hard evidence would be gone, but there might be chatlogs or videos on a computer somewhere. The same thing goes for a theft or rape, there might not be any immediate evidence left.
Does Shadowcaster read these boards anymore? I never see him on msn either.
Well, or say it's not murder but the premeditation of one. There's no physical evidence, only maybe a chat-log. And in that case, although it's not really a crime yet, the police could hire an investigator, etc.
I guess you are within your rights to give evidence anonymously. In that case questions cannot be asked as to where the information came from, however it may not be enought to warrant an arrest, but would probably be enough to go on to obtain the information in a legal way, i.e. search warrant so that the computer's files could be extracted in an official manner and given as evidence. I doubt a chat log by itself would ever be enough as I could spoof one now but the problem is that there isn't any evidence of its originating source. The evidence could then however lead to the confiscation of the computer and maybe even a subpoena on the internet activity logs ISPs are meant to keep by law for a limited period of time. Thats when they play the "my router isn't secured, anyone could have connected to it by spoofing my mac address" card lol.
btw... if you want the evidence to be accepted into court you'll either need to subpoena somebody to give testimony (if they knew what was up) or get a search warrant.
I didn't feel like reading everytthing everyone posted but Phred is right.
a) if you hacked in, you can plant evidence
b) the person b will be investigated
c) you do get in trouble because regardless hacking is illegal no matter what
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I'm from Australia by the way, the laws might differ slightly... this is all hypothetical, of course. Thank you.
Edited by the Author.
