# Forces intelligence operative pleads guilty to, jailed on child porn charges



## vonGarvin (23 Feb 2012)

From the Ottawa Citizen:


> OTTAWA — A Canadian Forces sergeant serving with overseas intelligence operations is facing six charges related to possession, production and distribution of child pornography.
> 
> Gregory Kusec, 42, was arrested following a police search of his suburban Ottawa home on Wednesday. Police seized a computer and other electronic devices containing images of child sexual abuse were seized.



More at link here.

_- mod edit to update status of case in subject line -_


----------



## the 48th regulator (23 Feb 2012)

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2012/02/23/breaking-ottawa-military-man-nabbed-in-child-porn-sting/



> KUSEC, the Canadian Forces Sgt., was arrested after an undercover online police sting.
> 
> Sadly, KUSEC is not the first Canadian military man to get arrested for child pornography.* He might, however, be the first military man charged with making it.*
> 
> ...




http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=517388906&sk=info


----------



## jollyjacktar (24 Feb 2012)

First a spy allegation, now a pedo allegation, that branch is not having a good winter.    :not-again:

(FIFY, just in case it was not clear enough that allegation covered both instances as originally posted)


----------



## The Bread Guy (24 Feb 2012)

Just a reminder:  as sickened and disgusted as I am (too) by the *charges* in question, let's remember The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada's constitution  guarantees the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

*Milnet.ca Staff*


----------



## George Wallace (24 Feb 2012)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> Just a reminder:  as sickened and disgusted as I am (too) by the acts in question, let's remember The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada's constitution  guarantees the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
> 
> *Milnet.ca Staff*



fraserdw, jollyjacktar and others

Just a reminder to all who wish to post here, the person in question has not been convicted.  He will still have his "day in court".  Your emotions have no place in this topic, nor does your speculation as to what this person has done or not; nor what may be in police evidence.

Many of you who are parents will no doubt have photos of your children in their younger years that may to some who are fanatically Politically Correct look upon as being child porn.   Are you a pervert as well?  Think about it.  This type of speculation only feeds the media to derive what may be false conclusions and an innocent person's life may be ruined.  It is not our place, nor intent, on this site to feed this frenzy.

It is up to the court to wade through the evidence and decide, not us.


----------



## Jarnhamar (24 Feb 2012)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Many of you who are parents will no doubt have photos of your children in their younger years that may to some who are fanatically Politically Correct look upon as being child porn.   Are you a pervert as well?



"possession, production and distribution of child pornography" sounds considerably more sinister than taking a picture of your daughter taking her first bath in the sink or in a cooler while camping.

Innocent until proven otherwise of course but for the cops to lay those charges is pretty significant.


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Many of you who are parents will no doubt have photos of your children in their younger years that may to some who are fanatically Politically Correct look upon as being child porn.   Are you a pervert as well?  Think about it.  This type of speculation only feeds the media to derive what may be false conclusions and an innocent person's life may be ruined.  It is not our place, nor intent, on this site to feed this frenzy.
> 
> It is up to the court to wade through the evidence and decide, not us.



This may be (and probably is) a topic best split off elsewhere, but it does beg the question:

Considering that a person's reputation is likely to suffer irreparable damage even in the event of a "not guilty" finding at trial, is there any merit in a publication ban on the accused's name/details until a finding of guilty is made?  

This is one of those crimes where there really is no putting the genie back in the bottle.  Our court system has no finding of "innocent", even in the case of serious blunders in the investigative and prosecution processes.  I've always been torn in my feelings about whether a person's name should be publicized for simply being accused of a crime.  There will always be those who will form an opinion based on what they've read in the newspaper, and will maintain those beliefs despite a finding of not guilty, perhaps based on the assumption that the accused "got lucky", "got off on a technicality", or the like.


----------



## the 48th regulator (24 Feb 2012)

Why would we censure his name and details here, when it is out in the open.  We never did that for Williams, Hall and Deganis, or Delisle, so why would we do it for this guy?

I say we police ourselves, and trust the Moderation staff.  Let us keep posts to information that has been released, and leave the speculation out of this thread.

dileas

tess


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

the 48th regulator said:
			
		

> Why would we censure his name and details here, when it is out in the open.  We never did that for Williams, Hall and Deganis, or Delisle, so why would we do it for this guy?
> 
> I say we police ourselves, and trust the Moderation staff.  Let us keep posts to information that has been released, and leave the speculation out of this thread.
> 
> ...



Tess, I made no suggestion that his name be censored here; it was more a global "should the Canadian legal system be changed so that the accused in crimes such as this not be named until they are found guilty" scenario.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (24 Feb 2012)

Occam said:
			
		

> This may be (and probably is) a topic best split off elsewhere, but it does beg the question:
> 
> Considering that a person's reputation is likely to suffer irreparable damage even in the event of a "not guilty" finding at trial, is there any merit in a publication ban on the accused's name/details until a finding of guilty is made?
> 
> This is one of those crimes where there really is no putting the genie back in the bottle.  Our court system has no finding of "innocent", even in the case of serious blunders in the investigative and prosecution processes.  I've always been torn in my feelings about whether a person's name should be publicized for simply being accused of a crime.  There will always be those who will form an opinion based on what they've read in the newspaper, and will maintain those beliefs despite a finding of not guilty, perhaps based on the assumption that the accused "got lucky", "got off on a technicality", or the like.



Tess, I think he meant in general, not just on this site.

It has merit but, just from what I have to read and talk about at work, I'm making a guess that more charges about " sex stuff" come after the media comes out with it.  Isolation is a key weapon predators use against victims and when they read that they are not the only one..............

Compare it to going back to where we discouraged those folks suffering to talk about PTSD.

EDIT: because I should proof read everything I do.


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> It has merit but, just from what I have to read and talk about at work, I'm making a guess that more charges about " sex stuff" come after the media comes out woth it.  Isolation is a key weopon predators use against victims and when they read that they are not the only one..............
> 
> Compare it to going back to where we discouraged those folks suffering to talk about PTSD.



I agree to an extent, however once one offence has resulted in a conviction, the name/details would be published and other victims would then be able to come forward.  Would it not make more sense that cases be determined on their own individual merits, rather than have people make the assumption "well, he's got 5 accusers, so he must be guilty"?

I know from a technological standpoint, once you've got malicious software (such as a trojan horse) on your PC, you're at the mercy of the person remotely operating your computer.  There would be very few ways of making a distinction between material you downloaded, and material downloaded by the person remotely operating your PC.  That's why I'm obsessive about scanning my PC for malware on a regular basis, as well as ensuring that my wireless router has every level of security enabled with frequent WPA2 key changes.  I don't think the average computer user realizes how easy it is to break into a wireless network with WEP or WPA (not WPA2) security, even if you're not broadcasting your SSID and using MAC address filtering.

It's a very tough situation...and I would hate to be the wrongfully accused in a situation like this.  You're damned no matter what the outcome.


----------



## the 48th regulator (24 Feb 2012)

Ack,

Roger that, and very good points in fact.

Thanks Bruce and Occam.


----------



## Remius (24 Feb 2012)

Would it not have something to do with the fact that we have an open judicial system with nothing to hide?

We have the court of justice and the court of public opinion.  I don't think it is a problem with the judicial system as it is with people's minds and the media that court to them.


----------



## jollyjacktar (24 Feb 2012)

Occam said:
			
		

> I know from a technological standpoint, once you've got malicious software (such as a trojan horse) on your PC, you're at the mercy of the person remotely operating your computer.  There would be very few ways of making a distinction between material you downloaded, and material downloaded by the person remotely operating your PC.



So, if I understand what you are saying correctly.  It would be tough for a forensic examination of your computer equipment to establish the key strokes that took you to site XXX did or did not come from your computer.  Or further, there is no electronic trace of your or the malware's passage in the ether?

I'm asking as I am rather Neanderthalish when it comes to computers and tech.  It just seems strange that you would not be able, forensically, to ascertain how and where the commands originated from.  I know the black hats have their geeks, but so do the white hats.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (24 Feb 2012)

Occam said:
			
		

> I agree to an extent, however once one offence has resulted in a conviction, the name/details would be published and other victims would then be able to come forward.  Would it not make more sense that cases be determined on their own individual merits, rather than have people make the assumption "well, he's got 5 accusers, so he must be guilty"?



So they can wait as long as Theo Fluery has had to wait??.......or have your pain pretty much ignored like Martin Kruze?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1011399/index.htm


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> So, if I understand what you are saying correctly.  It would be tough for a forensic examination of your computer equipment to establish the key strokes that took you to site XXX did or did not come from your computer.  Or further, there is no electronic trace of your or the malware's passage in the ether?
> 
> I'm asking as I am rather Neanderthalish when it comes to computers and tech.  It just seems strange that you would not be able, forensically, to ascertain how and where the commands originated from.  I know the black hats have their geeks, but so do the white hats.



Once someone got the malware onto your computer (and that's the difficult part), it would not be difficult for a remote user to use your computer for nefarious purposes, and when the mood strikes them, delete the program residing on your hard drive that is loaded whenever your computer starts.  That just leaves the memory-resident component of the trojan horse, which gets zapped from RAM on the next reboot with no traces remaining.  Sure, there would be a trace of the erased program on the hard disk, but you would be at the mercy of the competency of the law enforcement official doing the forensic investigation to retrieve the "ghost" deleted files without destroying them in the process.  It can be done, if you're being extremely careful.  Would I trust my freedom on someone else's ability to be able to do it successfully?  It wouldn't be my first choice.


----------



## jollyjacktar (24 Feb 2012)

Occam said:
			
		

> Once someone got the malware onto your computer (and that's the difficult part), it would not be difficult for a remote user to use your computer for nefarious purposes, and when the mood strikes them, delete the program residing on your hard drive that is loaded whenever your computer starts.  That just leaves the memory-resident component of the trojan horse, which gets zapped from RAM on the next reboot with no traces remaining.  Sure, there would be a trace of the erased program on the hard disk, but you would be at the mercy of the competency of the law enforcement official doing the forensic investigation to retrieve the "ghost" deleted files without destroying them in the process.  It can be done, if you're being extremely careful.  Would I trust my freedom on someone else's ability to be able to do it successfully?  It wouldn't be my first choice.


I follow you there.  The put it on, did their thing and FO'd.

But my question is more that is the not a signature of each and every key strike you make on your computer, which tells what time you made it, where you were (site wise) when you made it, and what you were doing (commands etc) when you made it.  When I think if forensic examination I tend to think of what I was taught which of course dealt with physical properties etc.  Everything leave a trace of some sort, it's not necessarily able to be understood or found all the time, but there is a record of your passage through life so to speak.  Even you speak of the "ghost" of deletion of the files.

I use a laptop at work and one for person use when away from home.  Which is why I ask the question is there not some sort of record of each key stroke I make on the machine somehow, and could that not be found and examined?


----------



## Robert0288 (24 Feb 2012)

There are key loggers that you can install on your own computer, but those logs are just text files and can easily be spoofed or deleted.


----------



## GAP (24 Feb 2012)

keyloggers


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

Keyloggers are relatively innocuous in the grand scheme of things in that all they'll do is report what you're doing, divulging passwords, sites visited, etc.  

The real problem comes from Trojan Horses such as Subseven or BackOrifice which not only have keyloggers built in, but offer the bad guys an entire suite of tools to remotely install software on your PC, run command line instructions, set up proxies...basically do anything on your PC as though they were actually sitting at it, including reboot it.  And you would be none the wiser, unless the bad guy were stupid enough to bog down the system with tasks so badly that you actually noticed the PC's performance go down the tubes, even though it appears to you that you're not doing very much with the PC.  When the bad guys set up a hidden torrent client on your PC, and then start downloading questionable content using it - it'll be your door that the police knock on, because it will actually be your computer visible to the internet - while the bad guy uses a FTP server built into the Trojan Horse to transfer the content from your PC to his own - with no record left of the transfer.  If the bad guy gets a chance to use your computer for a while, and then dump the malware from your PC to cover his tracks, it'll be you left holding the bag.  Even if you don't get malware on your PC, but leave your wireless network at anything lower than the highest security level you can manage, you can end up with scenarios like this happening.

When I said "ghost" of the software installed on the hard drive, I was referring to the fact that even if you overwrite the hard disk space used by a program after it's deleted, a forensic examiner could have a reasonably good chance at retrieving what was there previously.  The more it's overwritten, the less likely the chance that evidence can be recovered.

In answer to your question, no, unless there's a keylogger installed, individual keystrokes aren't recorded anywhere - unless you're talking about things like internet search history, form entries, etc. - as the Shafia father, mother and son found out during the recent trial in Kingston.

In summation, you're a lot better off spending an hour of your week ensuring your computer/network are as secure as can be (by running virus/malware scans, changing WAP passwords, etc.), than to have to rely on a herculean effort to prove that someone else gained access to your PC/network for nefarious purposes.


----------



## jollyjacktar (24 Feb 2012)

Thanks, I "gulp" think for the extended explanation.    :Tin-Foil-Hat:


----------



## Occam (24 Feb 2012)

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> Thanks, I "gulp" think for the extended explanation.    :Tin-Foil-Hat:



I'm not sure how to take that!   ;D

As you see from the link I posted, this type of stuff does happen.  I just like to take a little extra effort to make sure it happens to someone else, and not me.  

If you're particularly bored one night - go to YouTube and do a search for "crack WEP WPA" and watch some of these kids do it in mere minutes.  If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.


----------



## The_Falcon (25 Feb 2012)

They (the "bad guys") don't even need to hack your computer, as Occam noted early, if you have a wireless network, and someone knows what they are doing, you could wind up on the wrong side of the law at least for a little while, as there have been some cases reported in media (given the prevelance of WiFi routers, and ease of setup, general laziness of people with tech stuff, and no shortage of people looking for way to do bad shit on the net and not get caught, there are probably many more instances that haven't been reported, or police haven't acted upon yet.), of people have the police come in and arrest them, because someone unknown to them was using their WiFi to download childporn.   The police were able to eventually track down the actual perp, but it took awhile and life for the initial accussd probably wasn't to pleasant until that happened.  

As for publication bans,  Alan Shanoff of the Toronto Sun (he's a lawyer) has written a few articles discussing the subject.

http://www.lfpress.com/comment/columnists/alan_shanoff/2010/06/11/14355726.html
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/11/when-justice-cant-be-seen-2  There are a couple of others


----------



## The Bread Guy (17 Oct 2013)

Bumped with the latest ....


> A Canadian Forces sergeant pleaded guilty Wednesday to hosting a website that featured gruesome images of children being sexually abused.
> 
> Gregory Kusec was an intelligence operator with the Canadian Expeditionary Command when he was arrested in February 2012.
> 
> ...


----------



## vonGarvin (17 Oct 2013)

Now that he's been convicted...sorry...admitted guilt..
Feuer frei!


----------



## The_Falcon (17 Oct 2013)

Well then, I guess that puts to bed the notion of him having a hijacked computer/net connection.  But in the vein of how all that needs to happen is to be merely accused when it comes to these sorts of crime, I watched an interesting movie starring Mads Mikkelsen (Bad Guy from Casino Royale) called "The Hunt" on my plane ride back to the sandbox.  It's fictional but I think it pretty fairly represents what would happen to a person based solely on an accusation (and in the movies case, it was a totally unfounded), and how much that can totally mess up your life.


----------



## PanaEng (23 Oct 2013)

As someone who works in the field of digital forensics, I can verify most of what Ocamm said. It is possible but difficult to find exculpatory evidence in cases of hijacked computers nowadays.
Some of the bot networks are so extensive - and has included gov computers - that it is pretty daunting to consider what you need to do to keep your devices safe. 
First thing a user should do is enable a firewall and disable all ports, install a good virus scanner, then add them as required. A lot of the nice new media features and "client experience improvement features" won't work but you can enable them when required. Keep regular backups and a baseline image of your installation - after you have added all the applications you regularly use; as soon as you suspect something wipe the drive and re-image it with your baseline, scan your backup and restore. This process can take a day or two but that's what I do (paranoia is good).

cheers,
Frank


----------



## The Bread Guy (10 Feb 2014)

*HEAD'S UP:  GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF MATERIAL IN REST OF STORY ONLINE - don't click on the story link if you don't want to read/know ...*


> A married and decorated military man was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for his vast and violent collection of child porn images that date back more than a decade.
> 
> Military Sgt. Gregory Kusec, 44, told court he would continue to get treatment for what a doctor diagnosed as pedophilia and sexual sadism.
> 
> ...


QMI/Sun Media, 10 Feb 14


----------

