FBI seizes anonymizing server in bomb threat probe

FBI seizes anonymizing server in bomb threat probe

Groups using the server said there's little chance the FBI will be able to trace email sent by the machine

"This is plainly extra-judicial punishment and an attack on free speech and anonymity on the internet and serves as a chilling effect on others providers of anonymous remailers or other anonymous services," Riseup said in a news release.

Riseup acknowledged that Mixmaster could be abused, but said the abuse rate is low. Criminals already have lots of other options to maintain their privacy, such as hacking computers and stealing mobile phones, the group maintained.

"In absence of any other leads, the FBI needs to show that they are making progress in this case, and this has meant seizing a server so they can proudly demonstrate they are taking some action," Riseup said.

FBI officials could not be immediately reached.

FBI seizes transgender couple's computers in Pitt bomb-threat investigation
Thursday, April 19, 2012
By Michael A. Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Cambria County couple under scrutiny in the University of Pittsburgh bomb-threat investigation said today that FBI agents served them with a search warrant Wednesday night and seized a personal computer, a laptop computer, a cell phone, a computer router and CDs from their apartment.

Seamus Johnston, 22, said about eight agents arrived at the apartment in Jackson he shares with Katherine Anne McCloskey, 56, about 7:30 p.m. The agents had a search warrant but Mr. Johnston said he asked for an affidavit of probable cause linking the couple to the crime being investigated.

He said he was told he could not see it. The document is usually public once the search warrant has been served but is under court-ordered seal.

"Until I can look at the affidavit of probable cause and see for myself what evidence they have against us, I consider what happened simply an armed break-in," he said. "I have no idea when we'll get the stuff back and no idea why they took it."
There were two threats emailed today to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters, causing the evacuations of 12 buildings on the Oakland campus. In all, there have been more than 40 threats, most of them emailed to reporters, causing more than 100 evacuations of Pitt buildings.



[I wonder if LBGT groups will jump to their defense]

somebody does not understand how the system works ..........



FBI Seizes Activists' Anonymizing Server In Probe Of Pittsburgh's Bomb Threats



As anonymous bomb threats rattle the University of Pittsburgh, the FBI is taking some extraordinary measures to identify their source–ones that are raising the hackles of digital anonymity advocates.

The Seattle-based digital activist collective Riseup Networks released a statement Thursday that the FBI used a search warrant to seize one of its servers from a colocation facility in New York provided by the firm High Winds and used by the Italian-based activist group the European Counter Network. As well as a collection of mail lists and websites of political groups, the server ran a program called Mixmaster, used for rerouting email to hide the identity of the sender, and Riseup believes that server was seized as part of an investigation into anonymous bomb threats emailed to the University of Pittsburgh over the last week.

Devin Theriot-Orr, an attorney and spokesperson for Riseup, says he’s sympathetic to the University of Pittsburgh’s anxiety over the dozens of bomb threats that have hit the school over the last weeks, but less than pleased with the FBI’s aggressive measures to out the source.