Completely clueless

[ang&jon]

What is the name of your state? missouri

We are needing some advice. Here is what happened:

2 days ago, I got knocking on the door. My fiancee was at work. I opened the door and 3 police officers were standing there. One of them asked me if my fiancee was here and I told him where he was at. He then proceeded to tell me that he has a search warrant for any electrical devices that can store data files and pictures for child porn. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As they were searching my house, I called my fiancee to get home quick. The police officers were gathering up all of our computers including monitors, keyboards, mouse. Once my fiancee got home, they read him his rights and told them what they were looking for. My fiancee is knowledgable about computers and gave the police items that was in the warrant that the police didn't even know what they were like thumb drives. The officer told us that police in a different county retrieved a computer that had child porn on it and one of the files came from our IP address. We were fully cooperative with the police. My fiancee was asked to go to the station to write a statement. We found that they had taken one of my photo albums which they stated in the report it was of "young girls". I pointed it out to the police officer that it was mine and it was girls pics of when I did their hair for prom and homecoming because I use to have my cosmetology license and made a portfolio of the work that I did. The police officer let me take it with me but we are worried that they are going to turn the slightest thing into something its not. My fiancee has no such crap on his computer or mine. My fiancee was honest with the police and told them that he did have some adult porn on his computer but nothing of children. I do my schooling online and now I dont have any way of doing it since they took every computer. We do not have a local forensic lab so it will take several weeks if not months or years before we get our computers back. The police left our house in shambles when they did the search and never read me my rights before starting the search. We recently found out that someone has been using our wireless network since our computers were taken. We don't want the police to think we are hiding anything by hiring an attorney right away but also want to protect ourselves because my fiancee did nothing wrong and would never ever have anything like child porn in this house or anywhere else. What should our next step be and has anyone had this happen to them before?

 

[outonbail]

We recently found out that someone has been using our wireless network since our computers were taken.

Could you explain what you mean by this comment.
Who is using your wireless network?
How were you able to discover this?
Do you have any solid evidence of this?

 

[efflandt]

What security do you use for your wireless network? Any neighbor could use your wireless if it was running "open system" with no key at all, and that could easily explain how you were used. If it was at least running WEP (if not something more secure like WPA) they would have at least had to go through some effort to crack it.

If you think or know it is being used, why is your wireless network still on if you have no computers?

 

[racer72]

We don't want the police to think we are hiding anything by hiring an attorney right away

This is the stupidest thing you can do. It's the guilty that wait to get an attorney, the innocent get one right away.

 

[ang&jon]

We are just thinking of all possibilities. We live on a dead end street and have been noticing this same vehicle being parked in our driveway. As soon as this car sees us, they leave pretty quickly. Well my parents let us use a computer so my fiancee could log into his router. The router has never lost power and should be showing our own computer Mac addresses for the past couple of months. We only found Mac address of the computer we just got and that it was reset the day after the police searched our house, which we had no computers connected. Also, in the router, it is showing wireless packets being transmitted when we only have the one computer now that is hard wired. We are hoping that leaving the wireless network on, we might be able to find out the Mac address of another computer using it. We don't even know anyone that lives in the other county. As soon as we can afford too, we are going to hire an attorney.

 

[ang&jon]

Could you explain what you mean by this comment.
Who is using your wireless network?

We don't know who is/was using the wireless network. we were hoping that once we got into it that we would get a mac and be able to give the cops something.

How were you able to discover this?

We logged in to the router.It was reset on a day that there was no computer on it. The log was set to record any attempt to access the router. Well this log file was gone. so my guess is someone got in to it and reset the router. We are hoping that the cable company will be able to show internet activity on the days that we didn't have a computer here.

Do you have any solid evidence of this?

Other than our word on the router and just a police report about the car i don't think that it is really solid. The police here really don't know anything about computers and showing them the packets being transmitted over wireless network, won't mean anything to them because they don't know what it is.

But with all the free stuff out there on the web. Getting a hold of the programs or tools to do ip spoofing, mac cloning, network routing (bouncing your internet of other computers) scanners that keep testing network keys till they get in or heck even old programs like "back orifice" that just requires to have a small bot on your computer for full control with out the users knowledge. Thats why we have 5 year colleges for network security.

But here's the problem. people with computer knowledge know this and understand this. But what our problem is that MOST people in this world are really not that computer savvy and don't understand something they either fear it ... or don't believe it.

 

[outonbail]

If your fiancée is so knowledgeable about computers, why didn't he take the necessary steps to stop someone from being able to tap into your router's wireless frequency and use your account to do whatever he/she did with it?
Are you sure this mystery car that was parked in your driveway wasn't the police or detectives trying to investigate you and your fiancée, so they could collect evidence to present to a judge in order to get him/her to sign a warrant to search your home?

 

[ang&jon]

necessary steps

If your fiancée is so knowledgeable about computers, why didn't he take the necessary steps to stop someone from being able to tap into your router's wireless frequency and use your account to do whatever he/she did with it?

We did. take steps. but as you can read in the post before there is nothing that is 100% safe. If someone wants to get in to a system they can do it. It's just a matter of time that it takes. The Wireless network was incripted but like we said before people can download programs to crack this off the internet. So having your network incripted; all it does is slow them down. Again thats why there are 5 year colleges for network security, to help stop that.

Just do a Google search for "hacker help" and you come up with 94,800,000 different pages the first being "The Happy Hacker -- Help for Beginners" so there is so much stuff out there that nothing is safe. And my router is now showing wireless packet uses with out a wireless computer.

Is there any computer geeks out there that can maybe give us a idea of something we can do to try and find out what is going on with the wireless network?

The only reason people think that he is so knowledgeable about computers is that he can build one. (there not that hard to do) and he knows standard windows and networking. All from trial and error. He knows how to defrag, set up a wireless network, do file and printer sharing. that kind of stuff, but he doesn't know much else.

 

[The Occultist]

This is a legal advice forum, not tech support.

 

[ang&jon]

We are aware that this is a legal advice forum. You had asked questions and I responded to them. There was a few people that asked if the network was secure, how can someone get into it and I answered it. Don't criticize me for giving the courtesy to answer the possibilities about the situation. All I am trying to find out is whether an IP address is enough to get a search warrant or if it is legal to take things out of the house that is clearly not listed in the search warrant like a monitor or keyboard when the warrant clearly states any electrical devices that can store data or pictures.

 

[45Frank]

Get a lawyer like yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The police prey on the honest helpful people. You are an easy target if you already helped buy giving them things that weren't in the warant.
Do you think the police will go after someone who is dangerous or may give them grief or even a hard time? No they go after the easy target, you. You are an easy statistic.

 

[ang&jon]

Your absolutely right. I have talked to a few different attorneys and I go in for a consultation beginning of next week. The attorney told me that it sounded like they did an illegal search. She had told me also that it is better to get an attorney before any charges are made because it will be cheaper and she can try to get the whole thing dismissed because of the incompetence of the local law enforcement.

Does anyone know if their is a statute of when charges can be filed after the warrant is issued and the items are seized? And also, since they are looking for child pornography (which of course they are not going to find) can they charge for a different matter? I had gotten a subscription to a website to be able to download music, so can they charge us for piracy or anything of that nature even though the warrant was dealing with child porn?

 

[ang&jon]

Also, another question that I have is, when my fiancee got home the day of the warrant, his rights were read to him right away. Then the officer questioned him some. My question would be, since the police questioned me as well before my fiancee got there, my rights were never read to me. Is this in violation of my rights since I am being investigated as well or does it just mean that anything I said cannot be used in the court of law if any charges are ever filed?