Earth: Mostly Harmless

Alberto Gonzales: Treating the American Constitution like toilet paper since 3rd February 2005

Gonzales’ latest remarks are indicative of the contempt shown by the current American administration for one of the greatest political documents and institutions of the past five hundred years.

I Am Not A Lawyer, nor an American, ergo he may be factually and legally correct. But arguing for this position is beyond the pale.

I rest my case.

The scales of justice

What happens when you publish information on a glaring and well-known flaw in American airport security?

Well, the answer is that the shit hits the fan, Cisco style.

Christopher Soghoian published a PHP script on his site which generates fake boarding passes in any name given, in order to demonstrate the flaw. Perhaps an error of judgement.

Except this time, unlike with the Cisco IOS affair,the flaw is so well known that a United States Senator has already published details of it in an official press release, as well as it being widely reported in the media (as linked above at Slate).

So will the Senator, and indeed Slate be prosecuted? I highly doubt it.

And now, Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who had earlier called for Soghoain’s arrest in colourful and quasi-patriotic language has retracted his request:

“On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to ‘apprehend’ and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass and use it to clear security, gain access to the boarding area and potentially to the cabin of a passenger plane. Subsequently I learned that the person responsible was a student at Indiana University, Christopher Soghoian, who intended no harm but, rather, intended to provide a public service by warning that this long-standing loophole could be easily exploited. The website has now apparently been shut down.

“Under the circumstances, any legal consequences for this student must take into account his intent to perform a public service, to publicize a problem as a way of getting it fixed. He picked a lousy way of doing it, but he should not go to jail for his bad judgment. Better yet, the Department of Homeland Security should put him to work showing public officials how easily our security can be compromised.

“It remains a fact that fake boarding passes can be easily created and the integration of terrorist watch lists with boarding security is still woefully inadequate. The best outcome of Mr. Soghoian’s ill-considered demonstration would be for the Department of Homeland Security to close these loopholes immediately.”

Here’s an earlier BoingBoing story on the matter:

FBI returns to “Fake Boarding Pass” guy’s home, seizes computers:

Xeni Jardin:
(Story background here). Christopher Soghoian today blogs that the FBI returned to his home last night in his absence with a search warrant, and seized computers and other belongings. The 24-year old computer science student is the creator of a website that generated fake airline boarding passes to illustrate a security flaw which has been documented on the ‘net since (at least) 2003. I reached Soghoian by email today, and he declined comment on advice from attorneys.

Snip from his most recent blog entry:

I didn’t sleep at home last night. It’s fair to say I was rather shaken up.

I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed.

Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers - and various other important things. I have no idea what time they actually performed the search, but the warrant was approved at 2AM.

Link to full text of post. Search warrant scans: page 1 (BB mirror), page 2 (BB mirror). (thanks, Jan Pederson, David Molnar, Craig, Catspaw, John Hudgens, and others.)

BACKGROUND POSTS ON BOINGBOING:

* Fake boarding pass guy reports he was visited by FBI

* Congressman wants fake boarding pass guy arrested

* Website generates fake boarding passes
* Slate’s Andy Bowers on airline security loopholes

PREVIOUSLY AROUND THE WEB:

A number of people before Soghoian have pointed out the airline security vulnerability his “Fake Boarding Pass Generator” website illustrated. Among them:

* Bruce Schneier (2003): Link

* Sen. Charles Schumer (2005): Link

* Andy Bowers, Slate.com (2005): Link

* Jacob Appelbaum (2005): Link

Reader comment: Kevin says,

I’m pretty sure that you can bank on the fact that the FBI will be going through the IP logs to see everyone that visited that site.

Steve Peterson says,

Here’s an article from Twin Cities newspaper with reaction from NWA (Ed. note: this one, not the one from Compton) to the Northwest Airlines Fake Boarding Pass Generator story: Link

UPDATE:
* Fake Boarding Pass Generator guy and FBI: what about the law? (10-28-06)

(Via BoingBoing).

Lawmaker Revs Up Fair-Use Crusade

Nice work, Rick.

Lawmaker Revs Up Fair-Use Crusade:

peipas writes “Wired News has posted an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA). In it he defends his stance in support of fair use and against the DMCA and other measures sought by the entertainment industry. The interview also touches on universal broadband and the recent overturning of the broadcast flag.”

(Via Slashdot.)

And here’s the Bill itself.