Campus cops treat Ubuntu use as sign of criminality

[Bill Ricker]

> e campus police were investigating a case of
> e-mail harassment and seized a student I.T. worker's computers.
> In their application for a warrant, some of the signs of his "illegal
> activities" were that he was a computer expert, ran multiple operating
> systems, and even used a command-line interface!

If Competence was the *only* reason to suspect the ubuntu wizard, if
this was a misdirected fishing expedition,  this is indeed a travesty.
But this probably isn't *quite* as goofy as the short form sounds.

Standard investigative & prosecutorial tripod of proof is
   * means
   * motive
   * opportunity
(see Holmes & Marple)

The campus-wide network makes Opportunity for this "crime" universal.

Since the harassment was apparently forged or anonymized, suspicion
quite naturally did NOT fall on the half-vast majority of students who
are lucky to be able to change windows from Facebook to MS Word to do
their homework because no-one has shown them ALT-Tab. Only we the
technically proficient have the Means to commit this "crime" of
"email-harassment".

If the police and court aren't entirely incompetent, they would have
heard some indication of Motive as well, like what prior history
existed between the victim of the emails and the victim of the search
warrant, but for privacy reasons that might have been omitted from
coverage.

Also note that the covenants involved in living on campus waive many
rights you expect in normal society, and make the Campus Code against
offending any being binding. No one but a dorm resident need fear a
Seizure Warrant for Email harassment!

The (mis)information from the disaffected roomate may be actionable if
no actual criminal activities are found. Life is indeed tough on the
student deprived of his job and studies meantime.

--
Bill
n1vux-WYrOkVUspZo at public.gmane.org bill.n1vux-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org