Police bail sysadmin in animal rights extremism probe

Here is the latest from the register about the arrest related to the latest imc server seizure. The arrested man is a sys admin who hosted several servers including the indymedia server. Apparently this is enough to get you held for 8 hours and bail conditions. But the comments get it -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/10/indymedia/comments/

Police bail sysadmin in animal rights extremism probe

Colo contract prompts Serious Crime Act arrest

By Chris Williams

Posted in Law, 10th February 2009 15:01 GMT

A Sheffield man has been released on police bail after being questioned in connection with comments posted to the activist news website Indymedia, which included the personal details of a prominent High Court judge.

The man, in his 40s and thought to work as a systems administrator, was arrested on Monday and questioned for about eight hours. He has been bailed without charge to appear at a police station in May. His home was searched and computer equipment and paperwork seized.

The comments at the centre of the investigation were critical of Mr Justice Neil Butterfield for the landmark blackmail sentences he handed down to seven animal rights extremists last month. One posting encouraged other Indymedia users to use the personal information to contact Butterfield and "to let this friend of [animal testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences] know exactly what you think about him".

Indymedia administrators deleted the personal information soon after it was posted, but they were contacted by Kent Police the following day requesting the IP addresses of the posters. The Kent force carried out the original investigation that resulted in the blackmail sentences handed down by Butterfield.

Indymedia told Kent Police it does not record IP addresses. The same day the force seized a server belonging to Indymedia and hosted at Manchester-based colocation provider UK Grid.

The Register understands that the man arrested was not responsible for either of the comments and is not an Indymedia activist or administrator. Rather the server was hosted by UK Grid under a contract in his name, along with several others on behalf of unrelated clients.

He was arrested under sections 44-46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007, which came into force on October 1 last year. The relevant sections criminalise "intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence", "encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed" and "encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed".

A spokeswoman for Kent Police confirmed the man was arrested on "suspicion of incitement" under the Serious Crime Act.

Indymedia has a long-standing policy of not retaining IP address logs to preserve anonymity, and the hard drive of the server taken from UK Grid was encrypted, as were the drives taken from the man's home. It's understood police did not use Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) powers to demand he turn over any encryption keys.

Refusing to provide encryption keys is an offence under section 49 of RIPA and carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

Now is the time to defend our media!

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

this is intended to change Indymedia's policy

10.02.2009 23:18

This is clear harassment, and intended to change Indymedia's policy on not logging and not encrypting, etc.

I'm sure no charges will be filed against this person, but that is irrelevant, the damage is already done.

Expect more like this from Big Brother in the future.

Practical solutions anyone?

anon

re: whats going on

11.02.2009 01:43

It's fairly simple, there is no big conspiracy:

I have no inside knowledge, this is just what I get from reading the reports:

a) The guy who was arrested was just someone who has several servers on his account at UK Grid, one of which happens to be Indymedia's. He's just like a middle-level ISP who sorts out servers on behalf of customers.

b) Most websites store IP logs for every single page hit. Indymedia doesn't, it just temporarily stores the IP address that posts stories as they come in. This is essential otherwise it makes it easy for spammers or political opponents to post thousands of junk stories.

Anyway, if you want your privacy, you shouldn't rely on Indymedia, whatever they say or are doing. Someone else said it only takes one infiltrator in the right place and your privacy is toast.

Work on the assumption that your IP address will be logged, and will be visible to the police (even though that is probably not true). Use Tor (

http://torproject.org) to read or post if your privacy is important - that will hide your IP address by sending your connection through a chain of randomly-chosen proxies, encrypted at each step.

anon

solutions

11.02.2009 01:51

blame the messenger

all credit...

11.02.2009 11:14

...to Indymedia for the strength they have shown to date. We, the so called activists, have been woefully inactive at challenging the increase to police powers year on year. It has surely got to the stage when we have to devote a lot more energy into defending ourselves, collectively, not just leaving it to a few individuals to carry the can.

Fighting Fit

Agree

11.02.2009 16:34

Very much agree with the last poster, we have to fight back for our rights to freedom of speech. If anyone is arrested unlawfully they must sue and put in a complaint to IPCC. Also get it in the press, the public should know what is happening to our rights. Intimidation tactics should not be allowed to prevent free speech and our democratic right to protest of course we have already lost the right to protest as Westminster). I did not see anyone from the CA arrested for 'incitement' when they stated they would carry on hunting regardless of the law, did anyone else?? Selective enforcement of so called laws seems to be rife at the moment but only for those who try to protect animals from abuse, not those who abuse!

anon

IM & El Reg challenge

11.02.2009 17:32

I am really interested in reading an interview with the person arrested, about his conclusions and experience. I am also interested in which one of you does this first.

Danny