I'm more bothered by the idea that the architecture of the Internet would be turned into a "get out of jail free" card. Unless your attacker is completely incompetent, the only evidence you'll have is an IP address; if you can't use that then you have nothing.
I hate to parrot quotes as an argument, but I feel like this one is appropriate here: "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - William Blackstone (various others have said it over the years with "ten" replaced by some other value, usually even higher than ten)
Given that having your computers and data seized is already punishment for a lot of people, possibly significant and life-altering punishment, I think courts should be damned careful about allowing police to take that action. I've known people who's businesses have been destroyed by computer seizure. And I've known people who have only gotten their computers back years later (which effectively is the same as "never", because computers have a relatively short shelf life), despite no charges ever being brought against them. My business probably wouldn't currently be destroyed by the loss of all of my personal computers, but it would certainly be a very serious hardship, far beyond what I feel would be just punishment without a trial. And, seizure of all of my servers (including the ones where the backups are stored) probably would very nearly destroy my business and cost me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales and data.
A search is one thing, effective theft of my means of putting food on my table is something altogether different, and I think police ought to have to have a pretty damned good reason for taking away my livelihood for an indeterminate period of time.
Err, you do understand how warrants work, right? You don't get one by proving someone is guilty, but by showing there is probable cause.
>The standard for a search warrant is lower than the quantum of proof required for a later conviction. The rationale is that the evidence that can be collected without a search warrant may not be sufficient to convict, but may be sufficient to suggest that enough evidence to convict could be found using the warrant.
And issuing a warrant based on an IP address is roughly akin to issuing a warrant to search a random person on a bus, because someone who may have committed a crime is known to be on the bus.
I'm simply uncomfortable with the level of the bar on probable cause with regard to IP addresses, given how little information an IP address actually provides, even when government has cooperation of the ISP to identify users of that IP during the actions in question.
I'm also uncomfortable with the history of how computer seizures have been handled, and how little respect is shown in such cases. Given that seizing computers is not the same as searching a home; once a search of your home is over, it's over. With alleged computer crimes someone's business could be destroyed by the time the computers and data are returned. And, historically, it has occasionally required a lawsuit to get the computers and data returned (and the data may have been tampered with or destroyed).
I'm comfortable with using IP addresses to issue warrants -- I don't think it's a stretch to say that a reasonable percentage of the time it'll turn out to be accurate.
The way computer seizures are handled is fucked up, though, totally with you on that.
Good thing that's not what the FBI is doing.
can we really say for sure who caused any transmission from a PC?
If a computer is seized from a teenager's bedroom and it has LOIC installed and it isn't malware-infested...