Given the abysmal coverage of this story in the MSM, it is entirely unsurprising that Ms. Hechme might think that she has been spied upon by The Feds. However, the content of her latest interview with Canadian Press makes this even less likely:
Hechme disputed an initial media report that her wireless Internet access was unsecured and therefore easily hacked. In fact, she said, it required an encryption key that could not have been guessed or casually cracked.
When she forgot the key, even she couldn't access the connection, she said.
"It was so secure to the point I couldn't get into it (so) I'm not sure how they got into it. It's very bizarre."
Since most of the initial news reports on this issue came through the National Post, its not surprising they were bung jobs.
However, lets run back through the two operative theories of how the CHRC might have gotten access to Ms. Hecme's wifi:
1) From CHRC headquarters at 344 Slater (Ottawa, Ont.), a distance about about 400 meters from Nelly Hechme's condo, and through a block of office buildings, commission staff located Ms. Hechme's secure network and, employing super sekrit technology, hacked it.
Note: Your typical wifi connection is good for up to about maybe 100 meters, so probably the boyz from the Commission needed to use some additional super-sekrit technology to even pick up her signal through all the metal and concrete in between.
2) CHRC investigator Dean Steacey, who is legally blind, somehow transported himself to the doorway of Nelly Hechme's condominium building and hacked her secure wifi network from a car outside or the condominium lobby. This would alleviate the need for one set of super-sekrit technology to pick up her signal over great distances.
Wow! you're probably thinking that these guys must not only be Evil to the level of Magneto or Dr. Doom, they must have access to 23rd century tech support! Cue the black helicopters!
Except that, if Dean Steacey or any other CHRC employee bent on nefarious deeds had stepped outside the door of 344 Slater, they would have found themselves in range of any number of unsecured wifi outlets, as well as within 200 meters of a fistful of Starbucks, which usually have wifi service. So all their elaborate scheming would have been completely unnecessary.
18 comments:
Occam's Razor! Quick!
All of this foofaraw flowed from one thing: Lemire's timing and dating of a "Jadewarr" posting. THat time set the parameters for an investigation of the Bell logs, and everything that followed.
I have no techie expertise at all, but can't timestamps be altered? (In Blogger, I actually have to adjust the timestamp because the clock records the time at which one begins composing.)
Man, we need Buckets on the case.
I didn't read that this woman's access point was secure - I read it was wide-open Also, what's to stop someone from taking a laptop out for a walk and wardriving froma bench under her window?
BTW, the Keith's beer spokesman is using this defence against child porn charges, IIRC.
Dawg,
All that can be altered. What we have is an IP number that Lemire supplied the court, which everyone assumed would connect with a CHRC employee. Came up this lady's. It was supposed to have been pulled from a website log but who really knows.
Act,
Ms. Hechme is now claiming it was a secure access point. SHe says the origonal National Post story got it wrong.
BCL:
I'm in deep waters here, for me at least, but that IP address was a dynamic address, right? So a few hours earlier or later would have meant someone else had it, not Hechme. Hence the real time of posting the "Jadewarr" message is of importance. I might be missing something here, of course.
Dawg,
I have kind of refused to play "Buckets" here, just because I was sort of in on what he was doing for awhile with the Lucy thing and it became pretty obvious that Marc Lemire and co were not very good as techies, even if it wasn't clear just how they had gone wrong.
That said, I have READ that Bell Sympatico assigns IPs dynamically.
What's probably even more important is the fact that CHRC employee laptops were NOT wifi enabled at the time. They could NOT connect to this lady's network in the first place.
ah, but FreeDers would say. Maybe they used a personal PC...
I'm also not at all a techie, so apologies if this is totally wrong (or technologically unfathomable) but I know I read somewhere that the IP in question was some sort of regional hub, or routing station (I don't mean anything technical by "routing station" just, "address a lot of traffic from different people goes through"). I know I read somewhere that something like 400,000 people could have been routed through that IP address.
Is that crazy?
Did anyone else read that?
LK,
That's the lucy thing. You can read about it here in summa or read Buckets at "Bouquets of Gray".
The IP Lemire et al thought was Warman's turned out to be a Roger's proxy server forwarding traffic from all over Ontario. The guy that wrote the post re Anne Cools could literally have been any of Rogers high speed internet customers.
"Nelly Hechme and her hacked wireless account. "
This is hardly the Occam's Razor explanation, and seriously indicts your reasoning capabilities. Maybe leave the thinking to the smart guys, eh?
Fakename:
Are you confused? I invoked Occam's Razor precisely because the notion of a hacked account is part of an increasingly complex hypothesis by the speech warriors wrt the CHRC. Simpler hypotheses have been advanced to fit the available facts.
Ezra and company would rather turn surmises into facts and proceed on that basis. The problem is that they are developing a very silly argument, that would have CHRC staff engaging in criminal activities that aren't even required for them to do their investigations. The conspiracy language used by the speech warriors at this point is typical when ever-more-elaborate hypotheses start to collapse under their own weight.
Time for these guys to get their shaving cream.
Dr. Dawg: I wasn't addressing you, as I don't regard you as a serious person.
I repeat: the suggestion that the internet account in question was hacked is not the most plausible explanation.
Fake,
So what is?
Don't be coy, BCL, you can figure the rest yourself. Maybe take a look at Ezra's analysis for a hint.
fakename is the one being coy. Perhaps he's the fellow on other boards who's been arguing that Hechme is involved.
More shaving cream, please.
"fakename" urging someone that they "not be coy". oh! the iroby!
KEvron
er, "irony"....
KEvron
It remains a heckuva coincidence that Nelly Hechme just happened to live close to CHRC headquarters.
BCL makes a weak defense of the CHRC in this matter but I haven't read a truly solid explanation of this issue yet. In the end, I doubt it will be flattering towards the CHRC.
- Paul S
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