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Comment by brownbat | Hacker News Reader

Contact a lawyer immediately.

There are many actions you could take to mess with the investigation that might seem like fair game, but you should discuss each one with an attorney so you don't provide some arcane justification for them to arrest you (by hacking back, or even maybe "interfering with an investigation").

Once you get past that stage, the attorney can help you petition to stop the behavior or demand more information about it.

Legal advice is what you need now, not tech advice.

(Because the server is crushed, I'm only getting the basic gist - forgive me if you've already done this.)

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The only relevant piece of advice here. This is, after all, Canada: if it is indeed CSIS who setup backdoor the OP's computer, there is a paper trail. Lawyers know how to obtain this paper trail. I don't know Canadian law, but the worst I could possibly think of in any of US/UK/AU jurisdiction is that the paper trail says "confidential, pending investigation".

I should add that while the malware in question may indeed talking to CSIS servers, this could be the case the CSIS servers themselves are hacked -- more likely by an automated worm in service of spammers (and honestly this is what the 'PG' person sounds like to me -- a scammer/spammer) than any scary entity.

Regardless, this is a legal, not technical matter at this point. Get recommendations for a lawyer in your area (you could also try contacting the university staff for this -- they may well be required to help you find an attorney), talk to them. Avoid posting anything else to a public forum.

If anyone knows a good lawyer in Montreal, please let me know!

nadim@nadim.cc

Get in touch with the EFF:

https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance

Don't. They take forever as they have only so few lawyers and they're all backlogged for months. They're also not equipped for this kind of thing. Their lawyers focus more on civil suits, not criminal..

> EFF maintains a list of attorneys, called the Cooperating Attorneys list, who have told us that they are passionate about the same things we're passionate about, and who have indicated that they have some of the same areas of expertise. If we can't help you, but feel that your case is something our cooperating attorneys may be able to assist with, we'll offer to refer you to one of them.

Take that with a grain of salt. They want to sound more helpful than they actually are on their website so people will donate.

I am an attorney on the Cooperating Attorneys list. EFF regularly sends emails asking for people interested in assisting.

says you.

Do you have something to back your statements?

Your claim is based on the knowledge of what actual facts?

(That said, I can see another problem in cases such as this: what if some of the "volunteering lawyers" are set by the government?).

> (That said, I can see another problem in cases such as this: what if some of the "volunteering lawyers" are set by the government?).

My IANAL guess is that they would still be bound by client/attorney privilege, and they'd be committing a crime if they violated that.

More to the point the EFF's lawyers are US lawyers. Canada is an entirely different beast from the US in terms of legal system. Their separate mailing list may have Canadian lawyers, but I'd suspect that the vast majority are US lawyers.

So what you are saying is that there is a chance they might be of assistance? My thoughts exactly

Don't rely solely on EFF, but also don't avoid contacting them. I have a friend of a friend who contacted the EFF and was given immense help on short notice. Their lawyers do work they find interesting. Explain your situation and see what comes of it.

I would also contact someone familiar with forensic analysis of malware, so you have lots of data about the monitoring that was conducted.

I'm not a lawyer nor do I know any who can deal with this kind of thing. However I do know that in Canada CSIS will not spy on citizens unless they have a warrant for it. So getting a lawyer is a great idea at this point. If the government is spying on you they have reasons to believe you are tied to someone who might pull you indadvertedly into something illegal.

Re: "Hacking Back"

I heard that Canadian sysops are the ones that apologise when you hack them. ;-)

How about he contact CSIS directly, and clarify...?

"Hello, I'm sure this is all a big misunderstanding, but did you happen to root my computer?"

Not trying to be sarcastic, but I'm really curious what such an email could possibly achieve. If they tell you they haven't done anything, they're either lying or not - you wouldn't know. And really, what are the chances they would tell you that they have rooted your PC if they had?

It'd likely only achieve something if someone else is trying to pull a prank either on him or CSIS, in which case drawing their attention to it might not be so bad (and of course if it's them, they already likely knows he knows, so who cares).

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