More stories from the Bell jar...

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This story is from the Oregonian May 22, 1997 Page D3:

Arrest solves mystery of law office stink bomb

A federal investigation that led to the arrest of James Dalton Bell 
of Vancouver appears to have solved a longtime mystery regarding a 
stink bomb attack in a downtown Portland law office.

In late April 1984, someone broke into law offices at 1123 S. W. 
Yamhill St. and poured a liquid on a hallway run that was so 
odorous it made at least one of the lawyers who smelled it vomit 
twice.

At the time, Nick Albrecht, who still practices law there, said the
skunklike scent, called mercaptan, was so overpowering that he had 
to go home because he could not stop gagging.

The target of the stink bomb attack was lawyer C. Douglas Oliver, 
who now lives in Southern California and won't discuss the incident.

Bell was arrested Friday on a federal complaint charging him with 
obstructing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service and the use 
of false Social Security numbers.  The complaint said that documents 
found on Bell's computer boasted of the mercaptan attack on the office
of a Portland lawyer who had sued him.

The lawyer was Oliver. Albrecht said Oliver had suspected that Bell
might have been behind the mercaptan attack, but could never prove it.

The federal complaint also charged Bell with the March 16 mercaptan 
attack on the IRS offices in the federal office building in Vancouver.
On the following day, when employees returned to work after the 
weekend, several of them had to be placed on leave because the smell 
was so powerful, the complaint said.


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In <3.0.2.32.19970522204359.00b37cc0@mail.teleport.com>, on 05/22/97 
   at 08:43 PM, Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com> said:

>Bell was arrested Friday on a federal complaint charging him with 
>obstructing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service and the use  of
>false Social Security numbers.  The complaint said that documents  found
>on Bell's computer boasted of the mercaptan attack on the office of a
>Portland lawyer who had sued him.

<sigh> I would have thought that Jim would be smarter than leaving such
info on his computer unencrypted. I find it equally troubling that he
would put such info in "writting" to begin with.

Ofcource since no inventory was done of the documents contained on his HD
the FEDS could plant anything that they wanted with little hope of proving
that they did.

I'm not quite sure how one could counter against such an attack. Even if
one stored all documents in an encrypted partition there are still
protions of the HD that the OS will require to be unencrypted. Perhaps
have a boot disk that would decrypt the OS section of the HD then boot the
OS off the HD which then would use a crypto IFS to accesses the remainder
of the drive. Even going to these lenghts they could just put what they
wanted on a floppy and claim that they "found" it.

I guess the only *real* solution is to get rid of the thugs.

- -- 
- -----------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
                          
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At 11:11 PM 5/22/97 -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
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>
>In <3.0.2.32.19970522204359.00b37cc0@mail.teleport.com>, on 05/22/97 
>   at 08:43 PM, Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com> said:
>
>>Bell was arrested Friday on a federal complaint charging him with 
>>obstructing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service and the use  of
>>false Social Security numbers.  The complaint said that documents  found
>>on Bell's computer boasted of the mercaptan attack on the office of a
>>Portland lawyer who had sued him.
>
><sigh> I would have thought that Jim would be smarter than leaving such
>info on his computer unencrypted. I find it equally troubling that he
>would put such info in "writting" to begin with.
>
>Ofcource since no inventory was done of the documents contained on his HD
>the FEDS could plant anything that they wanted with little hope of proving
>that they did.

This is one of the few stories out of the whole mess that I do believe.

I was told about the above incident over a year ago by a friend who has known 
Jim for many years.

>I'm not quite sure how one could counter against such an attack. Even if
>one stored all documents in an encrypted partition there are still
>protions of the HD that the OS will require to be unencrypted. Perhaps
>have a boot disk that would decrypt the OS section of the HD then boot the
>OS off the HD which then would use a crypto IFS to accesses the remainder
>of the drive. Even going to these lenghts they could just put what they
>wanted on a floppy and claim that they "found" it.

It is my understanding that Jim did not encrypt his hard drive at all.  (Jim 
was not all that experienced as a computer user.  (By his own admission.  At 
least what he said the time I met him.))

If the feds has stuck to the stink bomb story, it would have been alot more 
plausable.  But the "poisoning the bullrun" and "911" stuff is a bit far 
fetched for Jim.  It does not fit the way he thinks.

>I guess the only *real* solution is to get rid of the thugs.

Easier said than done...


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---
|     "Bill Clinton - Bringing back the sixties one Nixon at a time."    |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/       |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

On Thu, May 22, 1997 at 11:11:56PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
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>
>In <3.0.2.32.19970522204359.00b37cc0@mail.teleport.com>, on 05/22/97 
>   at 08:43 PM, Alan Olsen <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com> said:
>
>>Bell was arrested Friday on a federal complaint charging him with 
>>obstructing and impeding the Internal Revenue Service and the use  of
>>false Social Security numbers.  The complaint said that documents  found
>>on Bell's computer boasted of the mercaptan attack on the office of a
>>Portland lawyer who had sued him.
>
><sigh> I would have thought that Jim would be smarter than leaving such
>info on his computer unencrypted. I find it equally troubling that he
>would put such info in "writting" to begin with.

[...]

>I guess the only *real* solution is to get rid of the thugs.

Possibly the real solution is not to do stupid things.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

Alan Olsen wrote:
> 
> In late April 1984, someone broke into law offices at 1123 S. W.
> Yamhill St. and poured a liquid on a hallway run that was so
> odorous it made at least one of the lawyers who smelled it vomit
> twice.

What's the statute of limitations on stink bombs?  Surely, it's too
late to prosecute him for this?

-- 
What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate| Tom Weinstein
for the novice.  You must understand Tao before      | tomw@netscape.com
transcending structure.  -- The Tao of Programming   |

On Thu, 22 May 1997, Tom Weinstein wrote:

> Alan Olsen wrote:
> > 
> > In late April 1984, someone broke into law offices at 1123 S. W.
> > Yamhill St. and poured a liquid on a hallway run that was so
> > odorous it made at least one of the lawyers who smelled it vomit
> > twice.
> 
> What's the statute of limitations on stink bombs?  Surely, it's too
> late to prosecute him for this?

I think they are using it to link him to a similar attack on an IRS office
in Vancouver in the much more recient past.

At 11:44 PM -0700 5/22/97, Tom Weinstein wrote:
>Alan Olsen wrote:
>>
>> In late April 1984, someone broke into law offices at 1123 S. W.
>> Yamhill St. and poured a liquid on a hallway run that was so
>> odorous it made at least one of the lawyers who smelled it vomit
>> twice.
>
>What's the statute of limitations on stink bombs?  Surely, it's too
>late to prosecute him for this?
>

Good point! This didn't even occur to me (nor apparently to the writer of
the article, nor maybe even to the cops).

It sure looks like they're trying to throw a bunch of charges against the
wall and hope that some of them stick...or scare Bell into pleading to a
lesser charge, etc.

Seems to me a good attorney could carefully dissect the "innuendo charges"
(e.g., undermining the government, stink bombs long in the past, manifestos
calling for AP, etc.) and separate them from each other, leaving very
little of substance to get a conviction on.

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

>>I guess the only *real* solution is to get rid of the thugs.
>
>Possibly the real solution is not to do stupid things.


The "Rodney King" effect here is amazing.  Jim Bell was not quite a model
citizen.  I don't think most of us would consider stinkbombing office
buildings normal behavior.  But that was 13 years ago, and compared to
what the feds did to him, Jim Bell comes out looking like an angel.  All
things are relative.


PS  For the benefit of our non-technical readers, a bell jar is a glass
dome used in vacuum experiments.  AFAIK, you can't make a stink bomb in
one. :)

At 7:43 PM +0200 5/23/97, Anonymous wrote:
>>>I guess the only *real* solution is to get rid of the thugs.
>>
>>Possibly the real solution is not to do stupid things.
>
>
>The "Rodney King" effect here is amazing.  Jim Bell was not quite a model
>citizen.  I don't think most of us would consider stinkbombing office
>buildings normal behavior.  But that was 13 years ago, and compared to
>what the feds did to him, Jim Bell comes out looking like an angel.  All
>things are relative.

The stink bomb charge that would stick would be the March 17th event, if
this is proven to be Bell's doing.

I would've thought this would be "malicious mischief," at most. People
who've done far, far, far worse are left unprosecuted in every major
jurisdiction in this country. The  meat thrown to the media--the usual AP
stuff, mixed in with "radical libertarian" descriptions--is just to make
the case more media-interesting.


>PS  For the benefit of our non-technical readers, a bell jar is a glass
>dome used in vacuum experiments.  AFAIK, you can't make a stink bomb in
>one. :)

Huh? Bell jars, to be pedantic, don't have to involve vacuums, obviously.
And a stink bomb could certain fill even a vacuum jar. (Maybe the stink
would not be smelled, a la Bishop Berkeley, though...)

In any case, more of an allusion. Perhaps even to Plath. Or to the Marines,
aka Jarheads. Or to Bell's Theorem. Or to....

--Tim May





There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."