2001 Conferences

8th CACR Information Security Workshop
2nd Annual Privacy and Security Workshop

Title
Cybercrime Trial: "Privacy: The First Cyber Crinme Victim"

Abstract
The case being "tried" is that of an American member of an anti-nuclear group, David Moon, charged with electronically breaking into the computer system of a Canadian nuclear plant: PowerNow. The case will involve issues such as seizure of electronic equipment, electronic evidence, evidence from an Internet service provider, wiretapping, international police cooperation, loss of intellectual property and compromised electronic security.

The trials participants include:

  • Scott Hutchinson, who is a Senior Prosecutor with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, and co-author of Computer Crime in Canada: An Introduction to Technological Crime and Related Issues.
  • Jennifer Granick, who is the Director of the Public Interest Law and Technology Clinic at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
  • David Banisar, who is a Research Fellow of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
  • The Honorable Mr. Justice Joseph Kenkel of the Ontario Court of Justice.
  • Kelly Anderson of the Electronic Crime Team from the Ontario Provincial Police.
Contributors also include:
  • Sushel Gupta, a Federal Prosecutor/Computer Crime Advisor with the eProsecutions Secretariat of the Department of Justice Canada
  • Kristen Tsolis, a Computer Security Researcher with the United States Navy Postgraduate School
The accused was first suspected when it was learned through an anonymous informer who called the new "E-CrimeStoppers" line that he had sold an electronic copy of the highly confidential Safety Precautions and Emergency Manual to a weekly news magazine.

Police further learned that Moon had traveled to Buffalo to visit fellow energy activists. On a ruse the E-Crime Unit had an undercover officer contact Moon at his Buffalo hotel and invite him to come to speak to a group of students at the University of Waterloo about computer privacy and ethics. When he arrived at the conference he was arrested by the Ontario Provincial Police and his laptop seized incident to his arrest. At the same time agents of the FBI in Boston acted on a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request made by the Government of Canada. They obtained a warrant from a federal magistrate that authorized them to seize any computers at Moon9s home and at the Boston offices of the CEF. These included the servers used to maintain the CEF website and its WAN for other operations.

FBI agents arranged for Erika Chozik, Moon's secretary at CEF, to work as an operative to assist in the investigation. She agreed to allow police to tape a staged telephone call she placed to Moon shortly after he was released on bail in Canada. In that intercepted communication Moon is cautious and apparently concerned about the possibility of a wiretap, but did have a few suspicious comments.