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Humans generally prefer a high range of prosody

Investigations like this generally consist of three distinct phases.

Phase One: Traffic Analysis reveals the location of a suspect

This is usually because the suspect did not use any anonymity measures, so their IP address was logged by some LE fuckwad. The IP address by itself is not enough to get a conviction because results from traffic analysis can be misleading, but in most cases the results do point to the correct suspect. An example of when the results are misleading would be if the previously mentioned LE fuckwad logs an IP address of an open wireless access point that was used by the real target, or if they log the IP address of a proxy exit node that was used by the real target, etc. The results from traffic analysis are used to get an initial search warrant for the home of the owner of the identified IP address, as well as warrants to confiscate the computer equipment at the identified home so that they can be subjected to computer forensics. A counter measure against traffic analysis is the use of Tor. There are several techniques used though, some people use Tor, Freenet or I2P, others use http proxies, others use paid VPN services, others use Botnets, others use open WiFi access points, some people hack into the servers they access and actually delete log files, etc. Generally people consider Tor, Freenet and I2P to be the best measures for protecting from traffic analysis, VPN services are hit or miss but more often than not the VPN will only provide temporary and limited protection from an attacker, same for open proxies for the most part. Botnets are actually considered as one of the most secure ways of protecting from traffic analysis, I have even heard the Tor developers say that somebody with a botnet bigger than Tor can have protection greater than Tor can provide, so having a really big Botnet is probably your best bet for maintaining anonymity, with Tor, I2P, and Freenet coming in close second.

Phase Two: Field agents raid the suspect and seize computers

After identifying a suspect IP address and determining the person it is associated with, the police get a warrant and carry out a raid of the suspect. This doesn't happen in all cases though due to the limited resources of the police, in fact only a small minority of IP addresses identified as engaging in illegal activity are ever followed up on, generally sorted by the severity of the crime (ie: the more they want you the more likely they are to spend their limited resources actually raiding you etc). One of the reasons that they want to force ISPs to store logs of which customer is assigned which IP address at what time is because sometimes by the time they work through their list of identified suspect IP addresses to a certain target, they can no longer associate the IP address with a subscribers account because the ISP no longer has logs. Anyway, the way a raid is carried out will differ based upon the skill level of the raiding police as well as their own analysis of the level of security they expect you to be utilizing. If the police raiding you are not skilled they will likely simply kick your door down or knock on your door, arrest you, unplug your computers and send them to a forensics lab. If the police raiding you are skilled enough, and they think that you are using encryption, they will very likely try to obtain your computers while they are still booted up and then try to obtain the encryption keys from RAM prior to sending them to a forensics lab. There are techniques you can use to protect yourself from field agents obtaining your encryption keys during a raid, some people have hotkeys that instantly wipe encryption keys and power off the machine after they are hit, some people even make deadman switches that will wipe encryption keys and power off the machine if they do not have pressure applied to them (ie: you sit on it, and if the police tackle you to the ground your encryption keys are instantly wiped and your system shuts down), I have heard of people monitoring entrance points to their homes with CCTV cameras, and there are also technical solutions that can be attempted such as using Tresor to store encryption keys in CPU registers instead of in RAM.

Phase Three: Forensic technicians analyze the seized computer attempting to gather evidence

Depending on the type of investigation this step may play a critical role. In the case of drug trafficking investigations a forensic analysis of the seized computer will likely not be crucial to obtaining a conviction, the drug trafficker will likely be caught with drugs during Phase Two, or following Phase One they will be put under surveillance during which they are observed obtaining and/or sending out drugs. In a drug trafficking investigation the forensic analysis will largely be in an attempt to find addresses or names or phone numbers of contacts/customers, possibly chat logs between the vendor and his customers/supplier, and perhaps evidence of ties to a ring or similar. On the other hand, in hacking or especially CP investigations, Phase Three is often critical to secure a conviction, unless Phase Two field agents utilize techniques such as hardware keyloggers (overall rare but not unheard of and more common in bigger cases), hidden cameras (also rare), TEMPEST surveillance (I have only heard of this being used in espionage and terrorism related cases), etc, prior to a raid. In these cases I would say Phase Two has Part A and Part B, with Part A consisting of surveillance and Part B consisting of a raid. In most cases there is not a Part A, even if it would be beneficial to the investigation and to securing a conviction.

Anyway, the forensics technicians will look for incriminating evidence (perhaps look for the ONLY incriminating evidence, in the case of CP investigations), they will try to build a timeline of criminal events, they will try to tie the illegal activity to a single user of the physical computer, etc. In most cases, forensics technicians are nearly completely incapable of doing analysis on a machine that has its entire persistent storage drive encrypted. They may be able to tie the MAC address of a networking card to a session used for illegal activity on a open access point, or things like this, but 99% of what they do requires an unencrypted drive to analyze. FDE almost completely removes the ability for Phase Three to be carried out, unless the encryption can be broken or the password guessed. Since many investigations entirely rely on Phase Three to secure a conviction, FDE is a major hinderance to the governments ability to prosecute certain crimes.


Not everybody protects themselves from all steps of a computer based criminal investigation. I would say actually that the majority of people do nothing to protect themselves from traffic analysis, surveillance raids or forensic analysis. Of the people who do protect themselves somewhat, not all of them protect themselves adequately or completely. Some people will use a single hop http proxy as their only defensive technique, others will use FDE but they will not make any attempt to protect themselves from traffic analysis (likely the case in the investigation mentioned in the OP). The most secure people protect themselves from all phases of an investigation, often redundantly (Tor + Open WiFi, Tresor + Memory Wipe Hotkey, FDE + Truecrypt Containers).

Since each phase relies on the success of the previous phase in order for it to even be initiated, it is obvious that the most important thing to protect yourself from is traffic analysis. If the attacker can not identify who you are, they can not place you under surveillance, they cannot seize your computer and they can not have forensic technicians analyze your seized computer. If you put all of your eggs in one basket, it should definitely be the anonymity basket. On the other hand, some people put all of their eggs in the encryption basket, and this has generally worked out okay for them, depending on the country they are in. Some people in the USA have had CP charges dismissed because no CP could be recovered from their encrypted drives, on the other hand we have cases where they are held in contempt of court for refusing to reveal passwords. In countries like the UK the government has made laws saying that people must give up their passwords if ordered to do so by the police, and this is so that phase three can be completed in order to secure a conviction, but phase three is never reached in cases where phase one is never completed. Also, refusing to give up your password generally results in a much lesser sentence than you would receive if you do give up your password, most people would rather be held in contempt of court and jailed for a year than convicted of possession of CP and sent to prison for some decades and labeled as a sex offender for life.

Note that in more advanced investigations it might make more sense to break things apart into five distinct phases, or even to avoid a cookie cutter model like this, but in the majority of cases these are the phases that the investigation consists of.

drug prohibition, internet piracy, terrorism... problems that dont exists more or less... just excuses to take away personal liberties

First of all I agree with you about drug prohibition, it addresses a problem that doesn't really exist , but actually it causes a ton of problems to exist in doing so. Drug prohibition is evil and those who support it are no better than Nazis, and the most powerful supporters should be tried as war criminals and executed. Internet piracy is definitely a problem depending on your perspective. It probably costs companies billions of dollars a year, all together. Now I am not really anti piracy because I pirate shit all the time, and there are some good arguments both for and against intellectual property, and the people making digital content can fight piracy by changing their models but they are just ultra slow to adapt to change.....but internet piracy definitely has a massive economic impact. I have never once paid for music, movies, porn or games in my entire life. I have also pirated a large number of books as well as very expensive software that sometimes costs in the thousands of dollars for a single license. I imagine there are a lot of people like me, and I also imagine that we would all pay for at least music, movies, porn and games if we were not able to download them for free. I also disagree with you about terrorism. Now, terrorism doesn't seem to pose a very huge threat to us, but indeed many thousands of people are killed on a yearly basis by terrorists. The threat posed by terrorists is generally greatly exaggerated, but certainly there are terrorists (although I would prefer to call them violent non-state actors) and they do kill many people a year, although then again so do automobiles.

Libertarian positions on military:

Military should defend against aggression; not world police
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression. The United States should both abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world and avoid entangling alliances. We oppose any form of compulsory national service.
Source: National platform adopted at Denver L.P. convention , May 30, 2008

Reduce defense spending by half; just defend the US
Certainly America’s defense capability should be strong enough to defend the United States. However, the US now accounts for 37% of all the world’s military spending. Another 30% of world military spending is by countries in Western Europe along with Japan, South Korea, and Israel -- nations which pose no conceivable threat to the US.

Russia, our former Cold War adversary, certainly represents no military threat. Our military budget is $260 billion; Russia’s is less than $80 billion. China spends less than $7 billion on defense. The most commonly cited rogue states -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba spend a combined $15 billion. Nowhere are American vital interests under attack or even seriously threatened.

If the US were to pursue a policy of defending its own borders while avoiding foreign intervention, we could realistically reduce our defense budget to as little as $125 billion over the next five years.
Source: Libertarian Solutions; Michael Tanner on LP Web site , Nov 7, 2000

Build missile defense privately, with federal “reward”
The Defense Department has spent $100 billion and 17 years trying to create one, with very little progress. We must realize that the Defense Department is just another bureaucratic government agency-the Post Office in fatigues. It is the least efficient place to turn for a missile defense. [A Libertarian president would] post a reward of, say, $25 billion-to go to the first private company that actually produces a missile defense and proves that it works. I think we could have one within 3 or 4 years.
Source: LP 2000 campaign on-line, by Harry Browne , Nov 7, 2000

Oppose any form of national service
We call for the abolition of the Selective Service. We oppose any form of national service. We oppose adding women to the pool of those eligible for the draft because we believe that this step enlarges the number of people subjected to government tyranny. We support the immediate exoneration of all who have been accused or convicted of draft evasion or desertion. We call for the end of the Defense Department practice of discharging armed forces personnel for homosexual conduct.
Source: National Platform of the Libertarian Party , Jul 2, 2000

Eliminate nuclear weapons & bring all U.S. troops home
The potential use of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat to America. We call on the U.S. government to continue negotiations to the end that all such weapons will ultimately be eliminated. If Europeans want nuclear weapons on their soil, they should take full responsibility for them and pay the cost. We call for the withdrawal of American military personnel stationed abroad, including the countries of NATO Europe, Japan, the Philippines, Central America and South Korea.
Source: National Platform of the Libertarian Party , Jul 2, 2000

Support resistance to the draft

    BE IT RESOLVED:
    That the Libertarian Party National Committee unconditionally supports his right to resist, and will continue to support his struggle against the state in whatever form it takes consistent with libertarian values; and
    That the Libertarian Party National Committee supports the right of all draft eligible youth to resist registration and the draft.

Actually I think that the ideal situation would be if the military and intelligence agencies and politicians were dominated by libertarians. My primary issue with government surveillance is that the government has powerful sections of it that are essentially modern day Nazis (DEA, ATF, IRS, ICE, etc). I think that the government has extreme potential to combat victim causing crime, if the NSA actually targeted criminals we would be seeing child molesters sent to prison faster, we would be seeing cyber thieves sent to prison faster, etc. It is kind of a double edged sword, on one hand it is good that the police agencies are incompetent because it allows The Jews to escape from their gas chambers, but on the other hand it is bad that they are incompetent because it allows truly bad people to do bad things. I rather like the idea of a Libertarian Pseudo-Orwellian Utopia, where everything is legal that doesn't cause victims, even things that are extremely unpopular (like viewing and possessing CP), but where the police agencies are so powerful and skilled that they can bring victim causing crime (rape, theft, molestation, etc) to its knees.

Legalize everything that does not cause victims to directly be created, be extremely liberal and leaning towards freedom with all things like age of consent, privatize the shit out of everything, eliminate taxation (hell, I would voluntarily help to fund a libertarian policing agency), and have an extremely powerful defense agency (or network of defense agencies) that can blow True Crime away and protect us from those who wish to cause us harm. Sounds good to me!

Essentially, those who do not restrict the freedom of others should be left free themselves, and those who wish to restrict the freedom of others should be ruthlessly incapacitated or if need be eliminated. In an ideal libertarian world nobody would care very much about an agency doing large scale intelligence operations with the goal of combating crime, because the only criminal things would be things that all rational people recognize as bad and in need of being stopped. This is actually why I am very much in favor of militant libertarianism, the only people who can complain about totalitarian libertarianism are those who wish to oppress others. Being forced into freedom is hardly being forced at all.

Of course I do not think that the NSA is a defender of libertarian ideals. I merely think that the NSA doesn't give a fuck about criminals in 99.9999999% of cases, nor do I think they share intelligence with people who do. Terrorism / Espionage != regular crime.

Seems like a good technique is using a remote server in a country like Russia, with SSHFS over Tor, and a virtual machine. All of the files are stored remotely but you have access to them as if they were on your actual machine, plus they are encrypted on the remote server, plus you cannot be linked to the remote server. Persistence and nothing for the piggies to demand you decrypt, unless of course they trace your connection to the remote server and get the Russians to demand that you cooperate (which in this case they wouldn't do, since CP is totally legal to possess in Russia anyway). I wonder if the pigs in the UK think that they can demand you to decrypt a filesystem in Russia.

USPS alone handles billions of pieces a mail a year.

If they are international that isn't particularly concerning. International packages can take several weeks to arrive.