Seattle police are learning that if you're going to use technical excuses you shouldn't go up against geeks.

The story begins in October 2008, when a drunken group of revellers were playing urban golf, firing large Styrofoam balls down the streets of Seattle with frequent refreshment stops on the way. One ball was misfired and bounced off a passer-by, who promptly called 911.

Four police turned up and started to take names and addresses of the drunken golfers. The man who hit the offending ball (an ID parade's dream wearing as he was English golfing duds, a Tattersall's hat and fake orange sideburns) slipped away but the police started insisting on asking for everyone's ID.

Now a lot of people wouldn't mind doing this but this group was largely made up of computer security specialists who tend to get very touchy about personal information and rights, for obvious reasons. Dan Kaminsky, famous security researcher was one of them.

"Twenty to 30 people are detained over a Styrofoam ball?" he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"This is ridiculous."

Kaminsky was not arrested, but was among those detained for questioning. But one of the group refused to identify himself on principle, researcher Eric Rachner. He was booked for obstruction.

Now despite recent rulings refusal to provide an ID is not a criminal act in this country for citizens and the case was dismissed, but not after a few thousand dollars in legal fees that got Rachner riled up.

All Seattle police have a video camera in their cars and usually wear a microphone as well. Rachner wanted to see the video and hear the arrest. He bombarded the police department with requests to see the footage and eventually was told that the recordings had been deleted.

"They just flat out said they didn't have it," he said.

So Rachner went to work. He sent off for the specifications of the audio/visual system and started going through them in a level of details you doubt the buyers did. What he found was that there were record keeping functions in the software controlling the system that logged every time videos were viewed, moved or deleted.

Rachner got his video, the police have promised to look into the matter and now lawyers are poring over similar cases where abuses may have been made. The message is clear - don't mess with the geeks.

23 Apr 2010