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Google Searches Used in Murder Trial? 260

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the thought-police dept.
mcrbids writes "Well, the details are a bit scant, but it seems that the content of Google searches were used to help establish intent in a murder trial. Will police in the future simply serve a subpoena to Google to find out what you've been thinking about? While this use of that information makes sense, at what point does your privacy give way to public concerns? Should police be able to search through your search history for "questionable" searches before you've been arrested for a crime, and what effect would this have on the health of society?"
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Google Searches Used in Murder Trial? More

Google Searches Used in Murder Trial?

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  • Clueless! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Threni ( 635302 )
    > Will police in the future simply serve a subpoena to Google to find out what
    > you've been thinking about?

    How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?

    • Re:Clueless! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:43PM (#14016695)
      How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?

      They're Google.

      • Re:Clueless! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Gary Destruction ( 683101 ) *
        Well you bring up a good point. I mean, how do they know that the search wasn't circumstancial? Just because he was looking up lake depths, doesn't necessarily mean that he was using that information to hide his tracks. He might have thought about going fishing after killing his wife. Stranger things have happened. It may be unlikely that he was going fishing after he killed his wife, but the fact is, they can't prove what was going through is mind when he was doing the search. They have strong reason to be

        • Re:Clueless! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Agarax ( 864558 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @07:30PM (#14017463)
          Evidence like this is usually used in conjunction with other evidence. Like if they think you set off a pipe bomb they could use reciepts of you buying PVC pipe, duct tape, and a bunch of nails, a pound of C4 found in your apartment, along with a search on "how to build a pipe bomb" to get a conviction.

          • Re:Clueless! (Score:5, Interesting)

            by RKBA ( 622932 ) * on Saturday November 12, 2005 @11:04PM (#14018319)
            When I was in high school a friend and I used to mix our own black power and explode pipe bombs in his father's field (it was a farming area) during the winter when there were no crops to damage. Can you imagine what would happen if any children tried that today?

            Even stranger to today's society, our parents knew and approved of our activities. FWIW, we both had First Class Radio Amateur Licenses and were in all the math/science/electronics classes together, so we weren't totally clueless about what we were doing. This was back in a time (~1955) when a group of us kids would think nothing of grabbing our .22 rifles, 12 gauge shotguns, pistols, or whatever we owned and favored (my cousin had a lever action 30-30 rifle just like "The "Rifleman" did on the television program of that name), and head out in the farming fields hunting Jack Rabbits - which were pests to the farmers.

          • Re:Clueless! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Viper Daimao ( 911947 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @11:10PM (#14018334) Journal
            yeah exactly, this is a very stupid summary just trying to troll for some reactionary privacy outcries. Guess what? if you get arrested for a crime you're privacy is going to be invaded a whole lot more than just "what you searched for at google". Your phone records get inspected, your computer gets inspected, heck, you're house gets searched. Somehow we are supposed to be concerned that your internet searches can be accessed when the police have already arrested you after getting an arrest warrent and invaded your home after getting a search warrent? Since when is your behavoir on the internet more private than what you have in your own closet?

    • Re:Clueless! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:50PM (#14016724) Journal

      How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?

      Gee, based on just the searches that I do? They could figure out that I work for a mental health agency, that I used to work for an insurance agency, that I'm considering getting engaged, that I perfer credit unions to banks, that I've filed or am considering filing bankruptcy, etc, etc, etc. Don't even get me started about my porn perferences ;)

      I can't even say that they couldn't pin all that down to an actual name any more either since I'm using G-mail and it receives the same cookie that google.com does.

    • Re:Clueless! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by forkazoo ( 138186 )
      Well, you don't write
      site:asstr.org filthy drugged school girl nipple-clamps
      into the search field unless there is *something* on your mind. That said, when did we start prosecuting thought crimes?

  • moronic question (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:37PM (#14016664)
    Will police subpoena google? No, because in this case, the
    search history was recovered from the local hard drive.

  • Note to self (Score:5, Funny)

    by ThatGeek ( 874983 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:37PM (#14016667) Homepage
    Note to self: Remeber to clear browser cache before killing someone.

    Thanks for the reminder slashdot!
    • Even that isn't a fool proof way of avoiding detection. With a simple site counter from statcounter.com a webmaster can see what search query you used to visit their website. So if you're looking for "torture" "device" and the website has the words torture and device on it, and you go to it, then let's say by coincidence your neighbour is tortured to death the next week. You were just curious about history of torture devices, or have a sexual fantasy about torture, but now they have circumstancial eviden

    • Re:Note to self (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Duhavid ( 677874 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:09PM (#14016827)
      Note to self: Remember to do a few leading searches on the computer of the person I am trying to frame for a crime.
    • I know you're joking but unless he wiped the area of the disk upon which the cache previously resided, forensics might have still been able to recover it.

    • You need a reminder? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TCQuad ( 537187 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @06:08PM (#14017085)
      You mean you've forgotten about this [kstatecollegian.com] already???

  • Obvious Answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Transient0 ( 175617 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:38PM (#14016670) Homepage
    The stated use (subpeonaing google for information on a person who has been arrested and they are building a case against) is perfectly reasonable, assuming they have reason to believe google would have useful evidence. That's what happens when you get arrested, they try to collect evidence to use against you from any source the can.

    And of course, the slippery slope case presented in the intro copy would NOT be reasonable. If i am arrested for valid suspicion i would expect them to try to build a case against me. But, in a free society, it is not acceptable to have everything i do fed into a system which is flagging people as POTENTIAL criminals.

    so: yes. and no.

    • Re:Obvious Answer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:55PM (#14016759)
      I have not read the article (look at my UID, I've obviously spent many years being conditioned to not read articles). However, was this information gathered via google or just by searching this guy's cache? Or was it gathered by getting his login information for his google account from him (or his computer) and then doing a search of his history?

      The reason I ask is that google talks about how the information they gather (including in search history, I guess?) is aggregated and in no way identifiable and linkable to an individual. So, then, how could a subpeona to google result in anything useful being returned?

      However, this isn't a huge deal, really. I'm not one of those detestable "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" idiots, but the thing to learn here is that it's okay to look up "snap" and "neck" and even "how to murder someone" via google or any other engine. However, if you actually ARE going to murder someone, you probably should not look up "snap" and "neck" or "how to murder someone" via google. Or, rather, if the authorities are trying to tie a suspect to a murder, he is not going to be convicted soley on a few google searches. It will just be additional circumstancial evidence to add to the pot.

      These sort of things only become a problem when they start seeking out suspects and disrupting innocent people's lives because the people made particular searches in a search engine. So rather than saying "We're pretty sure this guy killed this other person and we want to see his google history", they start going through all of google's data and investigating every person with suspiciously strange search keywords just in case whoever they are have committed whatever crime against whatever unknowned victims and are suspects soley because of the information they sought.

      • Re:Obvious Answer (Score:5, Informative)

        by Yottabyte84 ( 217942 ) <yottabyte@@@softhome...net> on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:03PM (#14016795)
        According to the article, this information was recoverd from his computer.
      • However, if you actually ARE going to murder someone, you probably should not look up "snap" and "neck" or "how to murder someone" via google.

        Usually those who get caught are not "profr. Moriarty" cold-blooded murderers who calculate all their movements and erase all possible evidence. But rather emotionally unstable people who, in a desperate situation, opt to kill the one causing them trouble

        And when you're in a desperate situation, you usually don't think "Ah... will the police use the google caché

  • Bad affect, exposes the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by external400kdiskette ( 930221 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:38PM (#14016673)
    that a lot of bored people in the supposed privacy of their own home will search for a lot of crazy things that in 99.99% of cases they have no intention of carrying out.
    • Fair enough. But, if, say, your browser history includes a couple pages describing ANFO bombs indicating those pages were viewed a few days before a major ANFO bomb goes off, and the police already suspect you for other reasons, I think this could be seen as effective supporting evidence.

      It's not like the only evidence they have is the Google search history, or that that's how they identified their suspect. Rather, the Google search history of a suspect supports everything else they've been building in

  • I don't see any controversy here (Score:3, Insightful)

    by usermilk ( 149572 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:40PM (#14016679)
    "Should police be able to search through your search history for "questionable" searches..."

    Yes they should. I think that using a search engine to research methods of breaking someone's neck and water levels in nearby lakes is evidence that should be available to officers trying to find out who broke someone's neck and dumped them in a lake.

    While this evidence alone is not enough to incriminate someone it does provide extra evidence to lead to their future incarcination. Lets face it, things add up and being able to find the pieces of a puzzle is an important part of researching a crime.

    You can't arrest someone for looking at certain things but knowing they looked at those things is important in figuring out if they did commit a crime.
    • >You can't arrest someone for looking at certain things

      Oh yea? ;o)
    • I think that using a search engine to research methods of breaking someone's neck and water levels in nearby lakes is evidence that should be available to officers trying to find out who broke someone's neck and dumped them in a lake.

      What if there are no suspects in the case? Should the police be able to subpoena Google for a list of all searches from all IP addresses used in the area with search terms related to water levels and/or breaking someone's neck?

      • What if there are no suspects in the case? Should the police be able to subpoena Google for a list of all searches from all IP addresses used in the area with search terms related to water levels and/or breaking someone's neck?

        Why not? I really can't think of any reason to not allow the police to use every means necessary to investigate and find suspects in a crime. Looking up information on murder techniques is not enough of a reason to incriminate someone but if it helps the police locate suspects I ca

        • Re:I don't see any controversy here (Score:4, Insightful)

          by slackmaster2000 ( 820067 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:55PM (#14017031)
          I disagree.

          Well, I guess it depends on the service when trying to determine how much privacy you should expect.

          I live in a small isolated town of less than 50,000 people. Let's say a local serial killer crops up and the police use public library records to find out that over the past year I've checked out a dozen books about serial killers, more than anybody in town by a long shot. Does that make me suspect? In their minds it very well may, but logically it should not. (this issue came up with the Patriot Act, if you remember) Why the hell would I be so interested in serial killers? Am I some kind of sicko?

          1) A person should feel free to pursue knowledge that isn't specifically illegal without fear. This is a very important aspect of a free society. You can't determine intent by analyzing what a person has chosen to learn about. If I do a bunch of research about the theory of evolution, does that mean that I'm a scientist learning about evolution, or does it mean that I'm a christian fundamentalist looking for flaws to prop up the idea of intelligent design? You can't be certain. So maybe you find out that I'm a christian, does that sway you in one particular direction? Well, it might, but it *shouldn't*. And so on and so forth...it can really snowball until you think you've really got me pegged.

          2) The police are not infallible, by any means. It is not uncommon that when a good suspect is found (good being subjective), they will concentrate most of their efforts on that suspect, sometimes overlooking clues that would lead them to the real perpetrator. Plenty of people have been wrongfully incarcerated due to purely circumstantial evidence.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I think that using a search engine to research methods of breaking someone's neck and water levels in nearby lakes is evidence that should be available to officers trying to find out who broke someone's neck and dumped them in a lake.

      Have you ever heard of the term "circumstantial evidence"? Google it. And find:

      Circumstantial evidence is a fact that can be used to infer another fact.

      In other words- you can't use circumstantial evidence to infer guilt in a crime. Joe Shmoe could "google" the local

      • You can't use circumstantial evidence to infer guilt in a crime but you can use it to build up a case against someone.

        From wikipedia:

        "A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence. This is only partly true: direct evidence is generally considered more powerful, but successful criminal prosecutions often rely largely on circumstantial evidence, and civil charges are frequently based on circumstantial or indirect evidence..."

        Most criminals are sma

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Have you ever heard of the term "circumstantial evidence"? Google it.

        Or, even better, Research It [ciar.org]! :-)

        -- TTK

      • and how happy I am that most judges are appointed, not elected

        This is the only point I take issue with. Do you really think it's wise to allow Bush and co to stack the judiciary with religious fundamentalists and ultra-conservatives? I'm not saying that voting judges in would produce a better result - it would produce a different result - perhaps better, perhaps worse. After all, the people voted the current government in - at least this time anyway. The way they got in the 1st time demonstrates the prob

  • RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jeian ( 409916 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:41PM (#14016682)
    The information on the searches came from his browser history, not from Google.

  • Let's conduct an experiment... (Score:5, Funny)

    by aurb ( 674003 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:41PM (#14016687)
    *launches google*

    *types "how to bomb white house"...*

    **KNOCK KNOCK**

    "Who's th....
  • Some employers already Google potential employees. Information available on you, through searches, is public information. Anyone can get it.

    In this case, it looks more like they went through the guy's web caches on his computers. Assuming the computers were properly obtained, they're evidence. I don't see anything scary or privacy-killing here. Yes, the details are sketchy--but if he's on trial right now for a crime committed two years ago, it's pretty safe to say that he was arrested for the crime before t
    • Some employers already Google potential employees. Information available on you, through searches, is public information. Anyone can get it.

      Yeah, but who's to say the infomation Google turns up has any truth in it. It's just whatever's on the web after all.

  • Already done (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dg41 ( 743918 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:42PM (#14016690)
    This isn't new. Last year, I was a juror on a trial for various sex/computer crimes, and part of the evidence admitted were the search strings from Google in the IE history/cache. In the interest of keeping my lunch down, I'm not going to reprint some of the searches here. We'll just say that they're bad.

    • Re:Already done (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:57PM (#14016768)
      Who hasn't done some weird ass searches, though? Hell, I've done searches on the old "26 ways to kill a person" howto. That doesn't mean I'm going to do it. But if I've killed someone and they then use my searches as *additional* evidence in my trial, there's no problem with that. Just don't go out hunting blindly through every individual that's done that search to pin a crime on them.

      • Actually, even using things like this as "addition evidence" is problematic, IMO. If you have enough evidence to convict someone, go ahead and do it - but you won't need their browser/search history. And if you don't have enough evidence to convict someone... well, then the fact that they did search for a
        specific term cannot (or at least should not) be grounds for a conviction.

        As you point out, many people search for strange terms out of curiosity, just to see what comes up, and that is enough to ensure tha
        • That's fair. Search is only circumstantial evidence.

          What history could show however is pre-meditation. e.g. Did the person we know committed the crime search for the implements in the months and weeks leading to the crime?
        • The significance attributed to searches is for a jury to decide, as a question of fact.

          Bear in mind too that in murder trials a whole lot hinges on prior intent (i.e. the difference between execution and a few years in prison!) In the article cited, the plaintiff was found to have searched for a variety of information in support of the killing: information on how to kill, information on currents in the body of water where he ditched the body, etc. If I were on a jury, this sort of information would go a

    • Re:Already done (Score:5, Funny)

      by kesuki ( 321456 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:54PM (#14017027) Journal
      That's why real criminals [slashdot.org] use firefox ;)

      Anyone stupid enough to use IE to aid in committing a crime Deserves to have the book thrown at them.
  • In most cases, privacy on the Internet is an illusion. People simply don't realize that the things they post on their web page or in their blogs is, unless they protect it with a password or something, visible to everyone. I've already seen a few people deleting their blog entries because they didn't want some of the things they had posted to be public. And there's probably thousands of people that have gotten hurt because of something personal they posted, not realizing that what they wrote is going to be

  • Why shouldnt they be allowed to? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chrisxkelley ( 879631 ) <chrisxkelley&gmail,com> on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:43PM (#14016697) Journal
    I dont see why police shouldn't be allowed to search through your google history- or anything else on your computer for that matter, just provided that they have a warrant. It's no different from searching through your house or any of your personal belongings, which is perfectly fine provided that they have a warrant or reason to do so.
    • "I dont see why police shouldn't be allowed to search through your google history- or anything else on your computer for that matter, just provided that they have a warrant."

      I'm not worried about the search, I'm worried about the conclusions drawn by those searches. If it is assumed that everything that is typed in to Google is an admission of intention at face value, then the wrong conclusions are going to be made. If you did a search for 'pre-teen books', would you appreciate it if I jumped to the wrong

  • We will have to rename google to:

    go:ogle

  • Sounds like Madison Ave. material to me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:43PM (#14016700) Homepage
    Need information to help with killing your wife? Choose Altavista, the Cops would never think to ask us!

    Visit altavista.com and search "Snap Neck"

  • Not a Big Deal (Score:2, Insightful)

    by VaticDart ( 889055 )
    Nothing to really worry about here.

    What this guy did was about as dumb as buying books/magazines/journals on these subjects, and then having sticky bookmarks on all this kind of info when the police search your home. Not that different from the countless individuals who get caught with child porn because they forget, or simply don't know how, to clean our their caches and histories.

    If he had been using Safari on OS X, he could have been in "Private" mode and avoided this whole mess. OS X! Great for the cr

  • What an inflammatory submission... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jester99 ( 23135 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:48PM (#14016715) Homepage
    "Details are sketchy...?"

    From the article:

    "More than two years after Janine Sutphen's body was discovered floating in a Raleigh lake, investigators continue to find new evidence on computers seized from Robert Petrick's home that prosecutors say support their arguments that Petrick killed his wife.

    The Google search was the latest in recently discovered evidence found in the 100 million pages of content removed from computers"


    In other words, they looked at the files on his computer as evidence. That's been done for ... years now. Said files happened to contain browser history. Not much news here.

    Might they subpoena google in the future? Maybe, but that hasn't happened yet...

  • Plain old browser history (Score:3, Informative)

    by ewg ( 158266 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @04:48PM (#14016716)
    The article says "investigators continue to find new evidence on computers seized from Robert Petrick's home", suggesting that this information came from the familiar browser history feature rather than from Google's databases.

    Since the defendant was already a suspect, reviewing his browser history is no different than searching his personal papers or anything else in his home.
  • Should police be able to search through your search history for "questionable" searches before you've been arrested for a crime, and what effect would this have on the health of society?
    This is no different than being able to subpoena any kind of privately held information in relation to a crime. In other words, this is a non-issue.
  • Obvious question on this topic and discussion thread: Does Google itself permanently keep at least some of the information associated with Google searches? And if so, what information? Do they keep, for example, the originating IP and any other identifiers?

  • There's no need to subpoena Google when you can just get a warrant to search the person's house and effects for evidence. Their "effects" would naturally include their computer, including any information in the browser cache.

    Oddly enough, that seems to be exactly what the police did in this situation, based on the article text: "investigators continue to find new evidence on computers seized from Robert Petrick's home". (Okay, I'm kind of assuming they had a warrant, but seeing as how the guy's on trial f

  • If you leave something in public... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by borgheron ( 172546 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:14PM (#14016852) Homepage Journal
    It can be used as evidence against you. For example if a murderer smokes a cigarrette and discards the butt in the trash and a police officer sees him do it. There is no need for probable cause or any of the other legal fancy-shit, since the article was discarded, and was in plain site.

    The same should apply to the internet. What you leave here is not private. By definition if it is on the internet it should be considered *public*. Far too often I've run into people who don't want you to look at their "private" webpages even though they are not protected and indeed are searchable on the net! People like this need to take a clue from this trial. If it is on the internet it is public... PERIOD.

    GJC
  • what effect would this have on the health of society?"

    To make people think twice before murdering? Sounds pretty healthy to me.

    I like to live in a country where the judge can gather evidence to resolve a crime. This is called the healthy rule of law, and has nothing to do with the government spying on the citizens, which is very unhealthy. This kind of confusion is really hurting our privacy rights.

  • There are 3 ways I can think of off the top of my head that Google information can become evidence:

    1. As in this case, information on what was searched from his own computer

    2. Information on what was searched from Google via search warrant.

    3. Google the people involved and follow some relevant links.

    It should be obvious how one's cyber-life can provide clues, motives, evidence, or even alibis.

  • Think of the trees (Score:3, Funny)

    by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:25PM (#14016889) Homepage Journal
    100 million pages removed from his computers is simply inexcusable.

  • If Google really wants to "not be evil"... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bloxnet ( 637785 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @05:29PM (#14016909)
    ...in my personal opinion the biggest thing Google could do would be to have a personal preferences section and a "wipe my history" button. When clicked, this action would wipe out all of the data collected on me to date (by my cookie data, gmail data, etc).

    That would probably be the single biggest proof that Google truly does stand apart from other all other companies.

  • This reminds me of the way Libraries responded to portions of the Patriot Act requiring them to make information about patrons available prior to due process. They simply deleted their databases and stopped keeping track of what people had checked out once items were returned.

    If Google wishes to maintain their "good guy" reputation, they could simply update their privacy policy to state that they only store aggregate anonymous information.
    • Libraries never have kept information of what you had checked out once it is returned (unlike Amazon that has a record of all your purchases). I've been working with library circulation systems for thirty years, and ALWAYS there is an RFP requirement that "the system shall not keep a record after the item is returned. The link between patron and item must be broken..."

      (Full disclosure statement: Patron history is allowed and kept for so-called "Outreach patrons" who enjoy a personalized level of library se

  • dirty little secrets (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How many people do harmless furtive stupid things with their computers? How many people would never 'fess up if they did? How many jurors would express shock and horror at things they've maybe done themselves, because they don't want to implicate themselves? I've worked on a lot of other people's computers. It's amazing what you discover without even trying. Just open a file explorer to create a folder to put some files, and you might see all kinds of things. Open the browser, and see what you discove

  • Google Sets (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tim Ward ( 514198 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @06:18PM (#14017131) Homepage
    Google Sets will need a little more work before it knows what people are thinking. It's OK for things like "Beatles songs" or "Cambridge colleges", obvious stuff like that, but when I entered the names of half the girlfriends I've had it didn't come out with the other half of the list.

  • As a roleplayer... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sean-Khan ( 930331 )
    I often search the web for material for my games, using words like names of different weapons, ritual magic, sacrifice, summoning demons, explosives and such - Would this put me under the magnifying glass?
  • In this case, Google did not provide the information to the police, rather the browser cache did. And yes, when looking for evidence of motive in a murder trial, many things can and should be admissable, provided they are legally seized via a search warrant. This isn't a music company fishing for copyright violations, this is a man who murdered his wife.

    If he had left notes on stickies somewhere about how to hide a body in a lake, it would be no different from this. If he hadn't wanted anybody to know wh
  • From TFA: The Google search was the latest in recently discovered evidence found in the 100 million pages of content removed from computers.

    Are they printing on post-it notes or what?

    Or did some reporter just Google a Kb to printed-page-equivalent [davedoyle.com] conversion? 'Cause I doubt they're going to find much useful information in the .dll libraries and executables...

  • RTFA. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Max Threshold ( 540114 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @06:29PM (#14017167)
    The article isn't very technical, but it suggests that the evidence was obtained from the suspect's computer, not from Google itself. In other words, they looked at his browser cache. I doubt Google keeps logs of every search -- at least, not for very long.
  • From implementing some form of 'thought police'.

    Just look for patterns in search habits, then go collect the offenders for questioning.

  • Slashdotters know that systems are too easily compromised, bytes on a harddrive too easily planted, and tracks too easily erased for this to be used as evidence in a capital crime. A good defense attorney should be able to blast holes in this via "reasonable doubt."

    Unfortunately, unless the Judge knows enough to block this outright, the jury will hear it. And they, nontechnical as they are, will probably lean towards this as being a smoking gun. This is how the DAs use computer forensics like this as a s

  • Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims"

    Yes, that's right. The same government that'd believe the bytes on a harddrive somewhere "prove" somebody searched for something on Google, also would trust the contents of a hard drive containing "intelligence" on Iran.

    Right now, the US is trying to build a case against Iran armed with a "stolen" hard drive. Sure, Mossad could have just cooked up the same data, but hey -- it's on a computer right? It's gotta be true.

    It's just like those TV ads
  • "dynomite", "hole", "blast", "ass", "trick", "slashdot", "pleasure", "bigger", "troll"

  • Prove it! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bonewalker ( 631203 ) on Saturday November 12, 2005 @10:02PM (#14018122)
    My concern with any kind of computer or technology being used as any kind of evidence is this: prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was sitting at that keyboard and computer and performed whatever searches you claim. Unless there is video of me sitting there, and it shows the screen as well, how can anyone prove that I was the one who did the searches.

    Unless you have a computer that is physically off-limits to anyone else in the world, I don't see how this can easily be proven. Even if I logged into to some account, that doesn't prove I was there doing it. For example, my browser remembers my name and password for several accounts. Anyone else could sit down and my computer and log into those accounts.

    So, whose to say someone isn't trying to frame me by entering my home and using my computer to make 'questionable' searches? For that matter, who's to say someone couldn't have remoted in to my computer and performed those searches.

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