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Destruction of Intellectual Property

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(@lafcaa)
Posts: 3
New Member
Topic starter
 

Please don't trivialize this
because it has now led to me losing my job.

It is not a very pretty story:
My boyfriend deleted everything off my computer during the process of
evicting me. There was absolutely no reason for him to be on my
computer at all. He has several of his own. I did a lot of work from
home and had years of work on this computer hard drive. I had been
working on an ongoing marketing project for work and I also had
numerous databases as well as personal data that was very important
to me. Yes, I had backups and he made those disappear as well. I have since found out that he applied for a restraining order
the same day he did this to my computer. It seems anyone can make
something up and obtain one of these. He has had drug, alchol and financial problems and is mad at the world and taking it out on me. He also
took me off the internet account the same day as well.

The forensics examiner for the Attorney General's office unofficially
looked at my hard drive data (mirror image) to see if my work data
could be restored. My ACT datases do not look like they can be
regenerated. He also looked at it long enough to determine when my
data was destroyed and how it was done. It was done by taking the Gateway restoration disk and formatting my hard drive and overwriting it with Windows. My boyfriend has taken several college courses in computers and I guess he knew this could be done this way.
I have spoken with the local district attorney's office and he came
up with several charges that could possibly apply:
destruction of intellectual property (felony)
criminal mischief
computer tampering
computer trespass
destruction of property

I asked him if I got him to admit this on tape if it could be
evidence and he said yes, it could. I have since been able to to get this on
tape with him saying that he put the gateway disk in claiming he was
trying to "get me on the internet". Since the gateway disk has
nothing to do with getting on the internet I wonder how this can be
explained.
Especially since he got a restraining order and was taking me off the
internet account that same day. Also, by deleting all the files, he
took everyhing off my computer that would have enabled me to get on
the internet in the first place! After telling me this he then tried to
claim it was an "accident". how can you accidently put a system
restore disk and "accidently" format a hard drive? Gateway and the
forensics examiner tell me that the system restore tells you repeatedly that it will delete all your files if you go any further.

Anyway, I need your help:
I have to go to the local police before the DA's office can help me.
They do not seem to understand the concept of computer crime and what
to charge him with and how to investigate it and don't seem to
concerned about finding out how. So far I have oly talked to the
local police by phone while trying to prepare all my evidence. I plan on
trying to press charges this week. Can anyone help me that is an
expert witness write a letter or post here or even email me on how to
proceed with the police? I am afraid that they will believe him when
he says it is an "accident" even though someone with any computer since
would know this is no the case. I will probably proceed at some point
with civil action, but I want to concentrate on the criminal charges
at this point. Can anyone help me?

 
Posted : 08/05/2005 9:04 pm
(@gmarshall139)
Posts: 378
Reputable Member
 

I think you are taking all the right steps to this point. Particularly in getting the Attorney General's office involved. I'm not sure what you mean by unofficially, but in Virginia they often act quite officially in lending assistance to localities in prosecuting these types of crimes. If your prosecutors office is telling you the elements of those crimes have been met then I would think they would have no trouble going about prosecuting them. I think you are well underway with this part of the problem.

The other issue is getting your data back. If you are able to I don't think it hurts the criminal case at all. The bad thing about formatting then reinstalling an OS is that it overwrites a fair amount of data (a couple of gigabytes). The good thing is that most of what's overwritten will be the old OS files. I would have someone look for the old MFT entry for the files that you are interested in. If these can be found, and I bet most of them can, the old files can be parsed out and rebuilt. These entries contain, among other things, the location for all the file extents (the location or locations that the file was stored on the disk). It will be helpful if you can remember the file names. I would suggest you get someone to make a copy first, then try some of the commercial data recovery software on it. Most of them will just be automating the process I have described above. Of course, make the hard drive available to the investigating agency before you do anything. Good luck.

 
Posted : 09/05/2005 3:35 am
(@lafcaa)
Posts: 3
New Member
Topic starter
 

The problem is that it is too small a case for the Attorney General's office to handle and they insist that I go to the local police. He took pity on me and just wanted to look quickly and see if he could save my job. The local police don't understand that it is destruction of my property since my computer is not a big pile of rubble! I am trying to get help to show them that it would be impossible to be an "accident." and that he was not trying to get me on the internet. I am looking for things like below to be presented in a professional way. I'm not sure how to lay it out professionally to the police. AM I missing anything?

1. He shouldn't have been on MY computer in the first place.

2. Computer was fine when I left it.

3.. He was in the process of evicting me. What good would the internet have done if he was making me move?

4.. He had to physically put the gateway system disks in the cd drive and then boot the computer with the cd in the drive.

5.. Gateway cd has nothing to do with getting on the internet.

6.. Was taking me off the internet access account.

7. Took everything off that would have enabled me to access the internet.

8. Got a bogus restraining order the same day. How was I going to use the computer or the internet if I couldn't go back in the house?

9. Had to follow steps with gasteway disk to format drive, delet files and reinstall windows. (Does anyone know what the steps are?) I am sure it clearly tells you that you are deleting your files–maybe more than once? I would like to know how this process works–I'm sure it would be impossible to be an accident from what gatewy has told me.

 
Posted : 09/05/2005 1:17 pm
(@gmarshall139)
Posts: 378
Reputable Member
 

The problem is that it is too small a case for the Attorney General's office to handle and they insist that I go to the local police. He took pity on me and just wanted to look quickly and see if he could save my job. The local police don't understand that it is destruction of my property since my computer is not a big pile of rubble! I am trying to get help to show them that it would be impossible to be an "accident." and that he was not trying to get me on the internet. I am looking for things like below to be presented in a professional way. I'm not sure how to lay it out professionally to the police. AM I missing anything?

Continue to work through the prosecutor's office. They've already told you they think it was a destruction of intellectual property. It's their responsibility to prove it in court. I wouldn't go to any personal expense for something that the state will provide. Even if your jurisdiction doesn't have computer forensic examiners there are other resources. The state police, attorney general's office (may still provide an examiner even if they are not prosecuting it), state lab, etc. I don't suggest you contact any of these agencies yourself, let the prosecutor or the local police do this. I understand it's difficult to be patient when you are a victim, but that's what it is going to take. These wheels turn slowly at times, but they do work.

 
Posted : 09/05/2005 1:37 pm
taylormade
(@taylormade)
Posts: 12
Active Member
 

Have the local police call the AG for guidance on how to handle the case and what the specific laws are. If the DA says you have a case, then it is worth chasing down. You are absolutely right - cops that aren't trained in digital stuff just don't understand destruction of intellectual property unless they see a dented case and cracked monitor screen, but the AG should be able to explain it to them.

Starting with the computer trespass (§1030) as an example: all you'll need to show is that he did $5000 in damage. This is easy as soon as you add up the amount to hire someone to do a data recovery attempt, the amount of time you will spend at work recreating the data lost, the cost of the local LE and DA's time spent on the case, and so on - you'll easily exceed $5000. That is a jailable felony.

((I'm not a lawyer - this is not legal advice))

 
Posted : 09/06/2005 7:09 am
(@lafcaa)
Posts: 3
New Member
Topic starter
 

The investigator is about to take a statement and hopedully charge him. He brought up the scenario that he may say he was trying to "fix" my computer which is a load of croc. There was nothing wrong with my computer when I left it. Any forensic evidence that coould determine this?

 
Posted : 26/07/2005 4:26 am
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