PC remote control incident

PC remote control incident (パソコン遠隔操作事件, Pasokon enkaku sousa jiken), also called as “Remote controlling virus incident (遠隔操作ウイルス事件, Enkaku Sousa uirus jiken)”, happened in 2012 in Japan. Someone sent a Trojan horse named “iesys.exe” to other people’s computers through bulletin board system(BBS), and controlled them. Controlled computers noticed crimes such as a [...], so their users were arrested mistakenly. On January 1st, 2013, after these incidents were known widely, a person who called himself the true criminal sent an e-mail to the press with files. These files had 5 quizzes, and people who solved all of them could get his message. Police tried to find the message, but could not because the USB flash drive, which was hidden on the summit of Mount Kumotori by him, was lost. January 5th, he sent new e-mail and asked 3 quizzes. The third question was looking for an cat in Enoshima, and police obtained a SD (Secure Digital) card from the cat’s collar. Survelliance cameras in Enoshima took some videos of a suspicious man. Judging from them, police arrested him.

A picture of the summit of Mt.Kumotori covered with snow ( from Wikimedia Commons Reference: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kunotoriyama20100106.JPG )

Some people arrested mistakenly

In 2012, four people were arrested because they preannounced on the Internet that they were going to commit crimes. However, after a while, it turned out that their computers were attacked by a virus and manipulated by another person. It was the manipulator who preannounced. Therefore the police released the four people and apologized to them for arresting mistakenly. The investigations of police were based mainly on IP address, which might have resulted in arresting mistakenly. Jiji.com points out that IP address is insufficient evidence because it can be changed intentionally with the software and it was modified in this series of cases. However, at present, this is the only efficient way in investigating Internet crimes Computer crime. When interviewed, an executive of police stated these facts show that the police should investigate more carefully, but arrest is the only way to prevent preannounced crimes. This series of cases showed police investigation skill does not catch up with criminals’ skill when it comes to Internet crimes, and the police have to tackle on Internet crimes hardly cooperating with specialists.

In addition, the police are said to have forced suspects to make false confessions in spite of suspects’ denial. This way of police investigation also might have led to arresting mistakenly.

Arrest

February 10, 2013, a 30 year-old man was arrested for forcible obstruction of business. The charge was that in August, 2012, he threatened to [...] at a manga event on an Internet discussion board. The man was Katayama Yusuke. He lived in Tokyo and worked for a web company. A criminal declaration e-mail was sent to a news broadcaster by a person expected to be the real one responsible. And January 5, 2013 a digital memory card was found attached to the collar of a cat on the Enoshima island, in Kanagawa Prefecture. The card had a remote control virus in it. A suspicious man was tracked by a security camera and it showed him approaching the cat. And a motorbike was found from another camera. Then police realized he was Katayama. In addition, the remote control virus program coincided with the one used for the threatening. Police arrested Katayama for the growing doubt that he wrote the threatening.

Release

March 5, 2014, Katayama Yusuke was released from the detention center in Tokyo. Tokyo high court allowed it because there is little probability of his destroying any proofs of these crimes. When he was released, he paid 10 million yen as security money. He became free at the first time since he was arrested on Aplil 11th, 2013. In the interview after his release, he pointed out the contradiction of the prosecution. First, he climbed Mt. Kumotori December 1, 2012, when there were some other climber on the summit. In addition, he didn’t have any scoop. So he couldn’t hide the USB flash dribe in the ground of the summit. Second, according to prosecution’s proof, he accessed news sites about the remote controlling incident ten-thousands times from the office he worked, which is impossible with manual operation. This proves that his PC was under control.

Bail revocation and confession

After Katayama defendant was arrested, he and his defense pleaded his innocence because he was made like a criminal by “the real culprit of this accident”. May 16, 2014, when Katayama Yusuke was in Tokyo District Court and he was on trial, a person who says “the real culprit of this accident” sent e-mail to information media and said that Katayama was innocent. But the day before, Katayama was seen to bury his smartphone in a riverside of Arakawa River. When the police examine it, they found the mail which “the real culprit of this accident” sent in the smartphone. After this appeared, he was missing. May 19, he got in touch with the defense team and He admitted that the perpetrator of a series of incidents is himself. He was arrested again, his bail was canceled and he was imprisoned in the detention center again. May 20, Katayama defendant admitted his guilt at last in the trial and apologized to all people who have to do with the case. But some of the cases became non-prosecution because it has passed the statute of limitations.

Related Pages

Computer crime

Computer virus

Trojan horse