Man Charged With Using Open WiFi To Send Death Threats To VP Biden
from the but-look,-they-figured-it-out! dept
For years and years, we've heard that one of the evil things about open WiFi is that someone could connect to it, do something bad, and then get away totally free, since there would be no way to trace him. Of course, as we pointed out at the time, that assumes that whatever evil things they do won't be traceable via other means. In fact, as we've noted, good old fashioned detective work can often catch those folks. It looks like we've got another case of that happening. Reader btr1701 points us to the news of a guy who jumped on his neighbor's open WiFi to send a death threat to Vice President Joe Biden. The threat read:This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously. I hate the way you people are spending money you don't have ... I'm assigning myself to be judge, jury and executioner. Since you folks have spent what you don't have, it's time to pay the ultimate priceCreative. Apparently, the guy who did this, one Barry Ardolf, was trying to frame his neighbor. Around the same time, he apparently also sent child pornography to his neighbor's co-workers, using a fake email address pretending to be the neighbor. If the "open WiFi" haters were correct, he would have been able to do this without any way to catch him. But, of course, that's ridiculous. With a little effort, the FBI was able to trace the origin right back to Ardolf -- and he's now been arrested for threats to the VP and for identity fraud.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: biden, identity fraud, open wifi, threats
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
There could even be meta-framing involved. The guy who owns the wireless network could spoof the neighbor's information and frame him for framing him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
the next door neighbor could also set the wifi owner up in a pseudo meta frame scenario, wherein the neighbor frames himself framing the wifi owner.
the neighbor would get away free because the evidence of the frame would be evidence that he was framed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ouch... My brain hurts now...
The Point being that there needs to be other evidence than 1's and 0's to prove a case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If this is true, then with the MAC address, they could trace the manufacturer and from there (if they have minimally decent logs) they could find to what store the wireless card (or PC) was sold to. With that, they may be able to find who the store sold the card to. If they were sloppy, this will lead the police straight at them.
Just an idea...I'm no detective.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Doesn't have to be the next door neighbour
Nah, it's easy. Just ask you friendly neighborhood StreetView database if they have a physical location for a given Mac address. With a subpoena, of course, because they'd probably prefer to do no evil.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Heck, with an extra cable modem, I could walk to my neighbor's house and connect to their wired network by splicing into the cable on the outside of their house.
Stopping people from creating open WiFi access points just makes it inconvenient for the people that want to use them legitimately. If someone wants to do something nefarious, encrypting the WiFi at the local Starbucks is not going to be a deterrent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This all assumes that he was traced through the wifi
Also notice that none of the other crimes were even investigated, the child pornography went un prosecuted etc. The only crimes the guy was accused of revolve around the "threat" to Biden...
Would any resourced have even been invested had that threat not existed?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Other than that as long as you dont send your name or compromising information over the connection there is absolutely zero physical evidence to connect back to a person. This guy was caught because his neighbors already suspected him, he had motive, and opportunity.
If he had actually cared about sending threats to Biden he could have drivin down the street and done it from another open or WEP connection and he wouldnt have been cought.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
MAC address
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
MAC address
[ link to this | view in chronology ]