We've just heard from the Met that they are dropping their investigation into MN Swatter

[JustineMumsnet]

We received this mail from the Met today. Not great news but I thought some might be interested in the outcome.

Hacking enquiry

"I am afraid that we can no longer pursue the hacking investigation of Mumsnet any further, there are no other lines of enquiry that we can follow up on. In order to identify the user of the online moniker of DadSec we have approached Twitter for their assistance however they cannot. The suspect used a number of different methods to hide their true identity from using TOR, proxy websites, compromised details and jurisdictions which are not Law enforcement friendly. All of this added together means that we do not at this stage have any viable leads and therefore will have to close this investigation.

I am more than happy to come across and discuss this in more detail in person. Please let me know a date and time and I can visit your offices to speak further.

I am sorry that in this instance we could not find the others who were responsible. If there is anything else that I can help with please do let me know.

Kind regards..."

I'm pretty surprised. They seem to be saying that they could catch him ? Is the crime not serious enough to warrant them doing that?

I'm guessing it's not serious enough for them to dedicate more resources to it.

They seem to be saying that they could catch him ?

I don't think they are. They are saying that the person covered their identity in numerous ways and they are unable to trace it.

Well they could compel Twitter with a court order and the other proxies but aren't

Not 'law enforcement friendly' doesn't mean they can't, it means that they won't (for whatever reason).

Thank you for keeping us in the loop

I'm sorry to hear that. It's really frustrating. It was such a nasty thing to have done.

David Buchanan the Mumsnet hacker is currently at Bristol University I wonder if he regrets what he did. I know he wasn't the person responsible for the swotting attack but if he wasn't involved it wouldn't have happened.

It's not surprising, priority crimes for police to deal with are ones that can be evidenced and solved in a simple manner.

I hope whoever did this doesn't do
It to any other website but it does feel like they got away with it.

we have approached Twitter for their assistance however they cannot

Their reply is very badly written.

The hacker will be delighted when they see this. It'll probably encourage them to do worse.

Twitter as form for not helping police investigations.

I guess it's just not a priority for them, is it?

Is there a link at all to the case?

This explains what happens from our POV

It's not that it's not a priority, some countries don't have the same laws as ours so when servers are based in that country their laws apply. It's the biggest issue with the internet is the ability to just use servers that are favourable to your cause.

Yup. What Faithless said

Thanks for the update, Justine. Disappointing, but not too surprising.

"Not law enforcement friendly"

Diddums.

Not surprised.

It does read a bit as if they don't want to dedicate any more resource to the investigation. I think for me the worst bit was the use of swotting. That waste of public resource and the possible harm that could have been done surely warrants effort. Presumably that is a criminal offence?

Thanks for the update

Twitter have very clear policies about the circumstances under which they will release information to law enforcement agencies. Mostly designed to protect its users' personal data, but it's frustrating when it appears to stonewall legitimate requests for information. Considering that they don't allow governments to access information to help thwart terrorist activity, I'm not surprised that Twitter hasn't been more helpful in this case.

That's really disappointing, I'm sorry to read it Justine.

I'm surprised that they aren't going to pursue something that resulted in in two police teams being deployed for no reason.

I'm sorry - particularly for Justine and the MNer who were the specific targets. It must have been so distressing - and to find out the bastard has just got away with it is really galling.

They can want to pursue it all they like; without the evidence from Twitter they won't have a case for the CPS. They won't be allowed to charge. Most social networks hide behind the legislation of where their servers are based and refuse to divulge client information as it 'invades privacy' but will happily sell that information to advertisers.

Hope MNHQ and the swattees are not too pissed off about this... MN rocks so the swatter may be thinking they've had the last laugh but I wouldn't agree.

Well done Met police for failing to set a precedent.

I'm sure we can look forward to more hacks like this in future seeing as there is apparently nothing more they can do.