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Paperwork Wednesday 4 – Flickr
*Though the following paperwork was submitted by a person who would like to remain anonymous, it is authentic and comes from a fairly well-known case. We also would like to note that all black marks in the specific paperwork (below) were added digitally by the individual who submitted it, to protect their personal information as well as information that has no need to be public.
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Over the past few years many writers have used Flickr photosharing accounts as a platform to network within the graffiti community. This has allowed writers to gain more exposure for their work, by having pieces done locally viewed by a worldwide audience. On the flipside, this has made it easier than ever for authorities to find out more information about the culture and the individuals that they are interested in prosecuting. So when posting photos of your trains, spots, and god knows what else, you can rest assured that these photos, comments, and messages can (and very possibly will) be used against you.
WARRANTS
A warrant for your Flickr account can be supoenaed a few different ways. Police are known for lurking on internet forums and social networking platforms. When they come across a flickr account that posts photos of the same tag repeatedly, it is not too difficult for them to convince a judge to issue a warrant for that account (as seen in the paperwork above). Also, a surprising amount of well established writers have public Flickr accounts under their tag name, and have back and forth conversations about personal matters with others in the comments section, making it even easier to tie the account to a specific writer. When your Flickr account is subpoenaed, it allows law enforcement to view any email accounts tied to the Flickr account, and also the IP address you login from (which then leads them having access to any other emails/personal accounts that log in from the same IP address). Another way authorities can get a warrant for a flickr account is if they already have one for your Emails/IP address. Even if you put your Flickr in a fake name and email, chances are you are still logging into it from the same IP address as you log into your personal email, thus making it available to authorities.
YAHOO’S OFFICIAL INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE:
“We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.
We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Yahoo!’s terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.” -Yahoo!
The above is Yahoo!’s policy regarding warrants and subpoenas. As Flickr is owned by Yahoo!, this policy applies to it as well. It’s a pretty straight forward policy that says they will give law enforcement agencies any and all information that they request (including password information, email information, access to your private photos/messages, etc).
YOUR DATA
Yahoo! automatically receives and records information from your computer and browser, including your IP address, Yahoo! cookie information, software and hardware attributes, and the page you request. Whenever you upload something to Flickr, it is stored by Yahoo!. Whether you delete or suspend the account Yahoo! will always have your files stored. Much like how if you try and delete a Facebook account, it is not actually deleted it is only “deactivated”. All of your information is stored indefinitely on their servers, and it can be accessed at any time. That is why if you have a free account you can only view the last 200 photos, but as soon as you upgrade to Pro, all of you photos automatically show up, without you having to re-upload them (and why if you have a Pro account and forget to pay for it, all of your photos automatically come back as soon as you do). This is a good time to point out that we notice a surprising amount of people leaving the EXIF data on their photos (which Flickr stores, and will give to authorities, allowing more evidence to be tied to you).
Summary: When you post photos on Flickr, assume they are being seen by law enforcement. Know that your Flickr account can and will be used to tie you to your email accounts/residence/IP address (and vice versa). In a perfect world, everyone would keep the photos off the internet, but a perfect world this is not. So if you must share via the www, be very conscious of how you do so.
Tags: court documents, flickr, graffiti, new jersey, paperwork wednesday, week 4
KEEP THIS UP. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
thanks again friends. good post
Would you happen to know anyone who can get screen shots of how the police view email, flickr, etc.?
I’m sure it’s some kind of back door entrance (pause) into these accounts/sites. Because if they were just logging into your email account you could just change the password, delete emails, etc. You would also be able to see mails that were read even though you didn’t read them. I was always curious about how it looked on their end. For example Flickr, do they just have your login/pw or is there some kind of access to all real time activity past/present?
also, once they have a warrant to email accounts. Can they only use what is obtained from that day forward or can they look backwards into sent email, etc.?
[...] Paperwork Wednesday 4 – Flickr [...]
Great post here I never knew what yahoo’s response would be when asked for data.
its freightening the amount of writers that have their accounts public and not keeping any high risk photos private.
http://realnastystuff.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/paperwork-wednesday-with-utah-ether/
They can view all past data, as well as the present. They will often get search warrants for a period of “X” amount of days (some may be for 60 days or more). After that they have to get a court’s order to renew a warrant once the “X” amount of days expires. Which they will do with out any problem in a on-going investigation.
As far as how the court gave us our information in regards with our personal case (in reference to alleged email accounts, because we never had a flickr account). We received .txt documents, contact lists, images separated into multiple folders according to what account / date / attachments etc. (basically the raw information sender and receiver/date/time/ip information), all on multiple disks given to us by the District Attorney’s Office (complete with their seal on the disk).
As far as how they actually view that data we are not sure if they have a program or if they login, or how the data is sent to them. We would assume they do not just login to your account, warrants allow them to receive all the information from the company specifically. At no point do you log into your account and someone has already read your messages, there is some way all of this is viewable to them without your knowledge. We know from our experience with pen registers (here: http://www.utahether.com/2011/02/16/paperwork-wednesday-week-2/) everything was available to them in live time. As far as in what fashion or dynamic this is viewable we do not know specifically. We have known people to have contact with Chicago Police, and witness the officers browsing flickr just like anyone else would. Typing in “tag(X) graffiti” and trying to gain information and the understanding of certain individuals activities. And to further use this information in attempts to question/interrogate them while in custody.
Hope this helps.
[...] Shouts to Naste Mag for this one. Anyone with Flickr should read it. HERE. [...]
100% true. That’s exactly what happened to me for all my clean trains.
Flcikr have deleted my account(2,000+ contacts) after posting this. Can’t wait untill yahoo! is gone.
Admin, how do you feel about the use of proxy’s?
Police searchs also graffiti related Fotolog and Facebook accounts… This is and advice to all real graffiti writers out there who are painting trains and illegal shit:
Don´t spread your flicks all over the net cause if you get caught police can use AGAINTS you!
We must get back to the days of really underground B/W graffiti fanzines…
KILLCOPS
All you need to know:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=web+proxy
Web proxies; use a different one each time or use an open wifi network to post. It isn’t that hard.
Web proxy doesnt cover you for a warrent on your pc or laptop. Even when you delete a file it is stored in cache. It is eventually overwritten with newere garbage, but until its been overwritten (10x or more …. (which takes a long time)) everything can be dug back up fairly easily. There are sites that offer free software that will legitly delete files and their address and space in memory….So you would have to do something like take out exif data of every picture, hopping on a web proxy before you go to any site or check you’re mail….then registering an account with a fake user name and password to a fake email. Then you have to hope you didn’t simply drag and drop a file or two into you’re trash bin instead of wiping it out the long way.