So much misinformation in this thread and through the media. It all started with the horribly-written CBC story. The reporter had no clue what she was talking about and tried to string together two completely unrelated events.
First, Ed Richardson and I were friends for 25+ years. Hes' not a criminal. He's not a thief. He's not a software pirate. He's an engineer. He's a ham. He's a normal human. He's kind of a jerk for trash-talking me in professional circles behind my back over the years, but that's not a crime. It was just his insecurities getting the better of him.
In 2010-2011 or thereabouts, I was provided a handful of iButtons that were going to be thrown into the garbage. They were originally programmed as "refresh keys" and sold to a certain entity by Motorola. Motorola shouldn't have been selling firmware updates in the first place, as that action (selling "updates" to fix problems that didn't exist beforehand, which they later created to stimulate the sales) is indicative of racketeering. I have filed a formal criminal complaint with the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois alleging RICO Act violations.
Read more about that, here.
Back to the issue. Ed and I are long-time ham nerds. We both own Motorola P25 radios. In his case, it was XTS2500s for VHF and UHF. We are hobbyists -- nothing more. I told him he could use these iButtons to update his ham gear, and I would do the same. There was no personal financial gain or commercial third-party advantage here. Zero crime. One must also realize the iButton DOES NOT contain any software. It is an electronic counter. It serves no other purpose. Modifying the counter (especially on an expired/zero device) is not a crime. The process involved a simple math trick, to subtract 1 from 0, which reset the counter to FFFF (65,535). That's why that number is what it is. It's not some random thing. Further, no where on these devices did it say "PROPERTY OF MOTOROLA" or "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, RETURN OR FACE DESTRUCTION". I'll let the Motorola gurus chime in about how common these things are.
There's even one for sale, right now, on eBay.
The news article suggested Ed "pirated software" worth more than $2,000,000.00. Seriously? That's an outright lie. Whomever came to that conclusion is clearly mentally challenged. Anyone who has performed a firmware refresh also knows it can take anywhere from 5-20 minutes to complete, depending on the type of radio or hardware (oldschool MTS/MCS/ASTRO SRIB vs. USB on newer stuff) being flashed. So if we average say 10 minutes per device (setup+flash+manual interventions) that's 655,350 minutes of time that would be required to expend the iButton and rack up "$2,000,000.00" in piracy. For a stupid people, here's some more math:
655,350 /60 (minutes) = 10,922.5 (hours) / 8 (working hours/day) = 1,365 days. That's how long someone would have to sit there, wearing a diaper, flashing radios, to rack up that kind of profit. You couldn't pay me $2,000,000 to flash 65,535 radios. I'd go (more) insane.
The
alleged behavior (keep in mind he hasn't even been charged at this point) involved taking those PERSONAL iButtons to work and asking others to use them, to perform firmware updates to agency radios. Not feature additions. FIRMWARE UPDATES.
Even if the alleged conduct is true, there are still some major issues which need to be addressed here:
- Why did the whistle-blower (rat) take six years to come forward? Surely it was personal.
- Why did the complaint come forward around the time the Harris system went live? (Motorola lost out on the bid)
- Why did the whistle-blower have no problem committing an alleged crime until six years after-the-fact?
Then there are these questions, which are even more relevant:
- How was this alleged activity of benefit to Mr. Richardson? It wasn't.
- Did Mr. Richardson incur any financial gain as a result of these alleged actions? NO.
- Why did Mr. Richardson participate in any alleged crime? Was it to save the taxpayers money, or because he was concerned about the safety and well-being of the emergency services workers whose lives were being put at-risk by Motorola? Motorola was puts profit before safety. Don't believe me? Motorola stopped charging for firmware updates. The APX, TRBO and all other tiers do not require money for firmware. Only a paid software subscription.
- Who did Mr. Richardson victimize? NO ONE.
- Did Mr. Richardson's actions endanger anyone?
- Is Mr. Richardson a danger to society? NO.
- Is Mr. Richardson likely to re-offend (if convicted of any alleged crime)? Highly unlikely.
- Does Mr. Richardson have a history of the alleged behavior or any other criminal activity? NO.
- Has Mr. Richardson lost his reputation, career, mental health, and experienced distress as a result of this matter? Stupid question.
The action of dropping the "cartel" and "homeland security" garbage into the story was only to sensationalize it. It also puts Mr. Richardson and myself at-risk to exploitation or potential retaliation, if anyone in criminal circles were to assume these allegations are true. The conduct of DHS and the WPS is HIGHLY RECKLESS and DANGEROUS.
For anyone not familiar with what happened to me three years ago, I am the person referenced in the story. There have been no charges. I did not supply encryption to any drug cartels. The DHS is butt-hurt they wasted huge money investigating me for crimes I did not commit. They alleged criminal copyright infringement. I provided email exchanges from MSI dating back to 2015, indicating otherwise (consent). They weren't prepared for that. Further, they screwed up the following:
- They claimed I was in the US in June 2016. Impossible. I returned from Dayton, OH. in May 2016 and never went back.
- They documented the wrong serial number of the laptop they seized. (evidence continuity issues)
- In written correspondence I received from them, they addressed me as someone else. Idiots.
- They sent me a letter, advising they'd be keeping my "iPhone 6s". I wasn't traveling with one. I had a iPhone 6 Plus.
Peter Wilt, the agent mentioned in some of the stories, works for Homeland Security. He's an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). In Sept. 2016, he traveled to Winnipeg, Canada, to meet with the Winnipeg Police Service. His goal was to dig up dirt on me and advise the WPS "of the dangerous person" living in their community. The WPS is relatively small, and was very impressed with Wilt's shiny DHS badge. The basically got on their knees for him. He told the WPS I had sent an "innocuous email' (the exact phrase quoted in the story) to Mr. Richardson, pertaining to amateur radio. This is true. Richardson and I constantly talked about ham stuff. Wilt was implying Richardson was somehow "compromised" because he was in contact with me. DHS had obtained search warrants for my Gmail, Microsoft and other accounts, to try and establish I was a "cartel encryption salesman".
In early 2017, the WPS filed an "Information to Obtain" (ITO) to a Canadian judge, in order to seek a search warrant for Richardson's email. In the ITO, they made the comments about Wilt coming to Winnipeg and telling them about this "homeland security threat" who had been in contact with their radio engineer. They wanted access to his email to confirm these details. Around the same time, another City of Winnipeg employee (we'll just call him Dennis for now) went to the police and made allegations against Mr. Richardson, regarding the iButton stuff.
And that's how it happened. A man's life-long career of managing the emergency services radios was ruined. DHS got their name dropped. The DHS and the WPS took a cheap shot at me by implying I'm associated with cartels, and the clueless media sensationalized the story to try and make it sound like a massive bust. The DHS/cartel crap they quoted was THREE YEARS OLD and was hearsay. At the time DHS made those comments to the WPS (which made it into a search warrant application the media quoted) I hadn't even been spoken to by DHS yet.
Naturally, after 25 years, there's more to the story than what I've relayed. But it's not relevant to the criminal allegations made against Richardson, which are completely without merit. It's no different than anything else that goes on at batboard, communications.support or Austech. No one is a criminal. No selling of depot. No backdoor flashport feature upgrades.
Every reporter who has written about this matter so far is completely aloof and parroting what they've been told. Too lazy to understand the laws, the complexity or what's wrong with the big picture. They fail to realize what's written on the internet stays there for the rest of time. Way to go, [expletives].
The reporter who attempted to contact me before writing the slam-story on Ed, actually implied: "WHY WOULD YOU BE INVOLVED WITH ENCRYPTION!?!??" As if it's illegal or something strange. What a dummy. I wrote this article on the public use of encryption a few days ago, just to educate the stupid people out there:
The public use of ENCRYPTION
Enjoy the read.