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FBI Conducts Raids Over Half-Life 2 Source Theft
TheXerox writes "According to a recent weblog post, a San Francisco native had his house raided by the FBI last week, and 'lost upwards of 9 machines, and lots of misc equipment besides' in a seizure related to the theft of the Half-Life 2 source code from Valve Software." The scanned-in search warrant posted on the site indicates the FBI were looking for "...any IP addresses related to any of the Valve internal or external networks... Valve passwords and/or usernames... any and all items... related to Valve Software, Half-Life, Half-Life 2", and the Hungry Programmers page mentions that "...several Hungries were raided on January 14th by the FBI and Secret Service, and their computers seized."
full mirror inc. warrent here
Why is the secret service involved? Arent they only concerned with protecvting the president and fake currency?
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
It would really piss me off to lose my machines if I never did anything, I wonder how long it would be before you got them back and what kind of condition they would be in.
and its of the cs persuasion
January 15, 2004
The whole surreal story
So at 6:30am on January 14th, I woke up to the doorbell buzzing. Not a short lived buzz. Someone had their thumb pressing the button and holding it there. "Fucking drunkard" I thought, and rolled over, intent on ignoring it. It then started a rythmic *buzz* *buzz* *buzz* *buzz*, over and over again. After about 5 minutes battling to get back to sleep, I gave up and got up. Put my pants on, grabbed my sweatshirt, and stumbled off toward the door.
As I walked down the steps I heard them talking to the nextdoor neighbor, asking him where the landlord lived. I reach the door just as the neighbor's door closes. I compose myself to deal with whatever is behind the door, and open it.
Immediately there's a flashlight in my eyes. "Are you Chris Toshok?" "Uh, yes" "Mr. Toshok, we're with the FBI. We have a warrant to search the premises." I looked down out of the glare of the flashlight and saw the FBI badge of the long haired blonde woman standing in front of me. I also saw two people behind her, bodies turned sideways so as to present less of a target. Guns drawn? It was too hard to tell really with the glare of the flashlight, but I'm assuming yes.
I mumbled something about turning on the light so I could see the warrant (pages 1 2 3 4 5)they'd thrust into my hands and turned and groped on the wall for the switch. They all tensed. The light came on, and I looked over the warrant for a second.
"Please come out here Mr. Toshok," and a hand on my arm pulling me onto the porch. Once I was out on the porch several agents started up the stairs. I said that my roommate was still asleep in bed. They asked his name, I said "Peter". They continued up the steps, yelling his name. "Peter, this is the FBI." "PETER" "PETER, are you awake? this is the FBI"
I didn't watch it happen but apparently Peter awoke, naked, to a doorway full of FBI agents with guns out, yelling at him to get up. He asked if he could get some clothes on. They said yes. He asked if they could turn on the light so he could see. So Peter got to get dressed under the watchful gaze of government employees. Must have been fun.
They took Peter to the back of the house, and took me back upstairs to the front of the house, and proceeded to start going through everything in my room and the office.
I was questioned by the FBI agent in charge and a Secret Service agent at length about the Hungry Programmers, people I used to live with, whether particular people had the capacity/knowledge to do what they were investigating, etc. During the questioning she says "Now we're going to take all your computers." She sees the look on my face and says "Yeah, this is going to be hard for you." I said "uh, when will I get them back?" She said it depends, that they'd try to have them all back as soon as possible, but it depends on if they find anything suspicious on them. If they found contraband (kiddie porn, talk of drugs, or stuff they were actually looking for), that particular computer would never be coming home.
After the questioning I basically sat in the front room on a folded futon mattress, with at least one agent with me at all times. Sometimes two. At one point I said I really needed to brush my teeth and the SS agent assigned to me at the time walked with me back to the bathroom and stood behind me watching me in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. On my way back down the hall I looked into my room and saw 3 FBI agents rifling through my belongings. One looking at the condoms and stickers in my nightstand, one going through my underwear/sock drawer, and one looking through my books.
After a lot more sitting in silence in that room, interspersed with tidbits of conversation (an fbi agent asking me about the guitars, talking about the piano lessons in his youth, and how he was kicked in the chest by a horse.) I must say, the SS agents were a lot nicer than the FBI agents. One in particular was pretty cool - we joked a lot about just how absurd the whole thing was
a mirror has already been posted. -1 redundant
Just when I thought they would let it die down, due to it being a bit more personal and involved, it seems like they went in to full gear.
But I'm still a bit doubtful that ANY network admin wouldn't notice 11GB of traffic to an outside location on the network.
how else are they supposed to train their agents with the latest technology if it continues to be held past the release date!
This is like saying, "The murder victim's last name was Smith, and this guy has a reference to a Mr. Smith in his Rolodex. He must be guilty."
Sure, what the fuck ever. This is trivially defensible in court.
lost upwards of 9 machines
Um - how many machines did he lose? 1? 5? 8.5?
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
Does anyone remember the raid on Steve Jackson games? As far as I know those computers still haven't been returned.... even after it was obvious to everyone involved that the raid was a farce and there was nothing illegal going on.
Why don't they raid SCO or someone elso who deserves it AND has the lawyars to do something about it?
Is Available of his Weblog entry
FYI, Chris Toshok (toshok), the person who wrote up this experience is also one of the head programmers on Ximian's Evolution mail client.
...the raid on the Hungry Programmers was the result of a miscommunication between Valve and the FBI -- Valve had actually traced the breakin back to an ip address in Hungary.
(collective groan)
Thanks, thank you, I'll be here all week.
he's really regretting downloading all of that German shizer porn.
G.W. must really want to play some Half Life 2, because he sent out the secret service agents to nip it in the bud!
Boy.... I better delete that 207.173.176.142 off my caching DNS server quick.
*ding dong*
Oh no!!! TOOO LATE!!!!!
Seriously, that's about the dumbest warrent condition ever IMHO.
Rather than "FBI agents, acting under a warrant issued due to probable cause having been ascertained, ..."
welcome to slashdot.
If Valve tries to make the claim in court that HL2 was postponed until April because of the source code theft, that will become fraud on their part. Until now it was just harmless marketing lies. The delay had little if anything to do with the code theft -- that was only a convenient excuse.
Someday I would like to see a game company create a game in an open way. They should have all their engine code out in the open so anybody could follow the progress and even contribute if they felt like it. They would not need to make up stuff about release dates because the public could easily find out the status of completion themselves. And if their source code gets stolen by other companies, they can just go all SCO on their asses. On the other hand, they can also make clear that if a hobbiest uses the engine code that they own the copyright. Smart game companies do that last part already.
All it will take is one brave company to revolutionize the industry. Happens all the time.
...remind me to never do anything with Valve!
---
stupid 20 seconds.
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
The FBI came with a blonde woman agent carrying the warrent and trying to be as nice as they can to a suspect. Let's face it, that's what this guy, and his entire group, appears to be right now.
You don't need to be proven guilty by any standard to become a suspect. To get a warrant, they do need to present something to a judge, but what that something is usually remains sealed. That's how the system works, there was a due process for taking his property.
So, the good news for him is so far that the FBI's just fishing on his machines right now. If they find what they're looking for, or anything else very illegal to have, then they'll be back with the cuffs.
the lesstif team, what open source project will be next? the guys at freeciv? mysql?
Maybe its just Sierra in FBI jackets.
The evil has spread.
=)
Did he say he doesnt know anyone involved, or they didnt use his computers?
I read the mirror and I didnt see anything about it. If hes guilty, or did have anything to do with this then they should be able to take his computers and serve a search warrant. Try looking at this from law enforcements perspective. Im not some Nazi who supports gestapo like law enforcement either, I just didnt read anything that seemed wrong to me.
"hmm...kiddie porn...kiddie porn...kiddie porn...dang, nothing here at all."
But the Secret Service should be raiding whoever came up with this color scheme!
Unless they no longer have the original, it is not theft. It is copying.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Hail the power of corporate America!
You think any open source projects could have gotten this done?
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
is about 10 floppies that are all identical, if I pop one in, I want a gov't level reformat (6 times low level) done in a linux-based distro. Anyone know of a utility like this (like a doomsday device one or somthing, so this guy could have been protected).
Sig: I stole this sig.
192.168.1.1 we have a warrant for your arrest. Come out with your bits up!
Poor bastard got Steve Jacksoned.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I can just imagine some clueless FBI agent rifling through the poor guy's Rolodex and demanding that he tell them where his IP addresses are. "Sir, where do you keep your IP addresses sir?! This isn't a joke, son! You think this is funny?! Keep it up punk! You can laugh at the judge when we tell him that you wouldn't tell us where your IP addresses were!"
This makes up for all the flamebait ratings I get for arguing copyright should be abolished. Moron.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Will Half-Life have a special "FBI Raid" level when it is released? =)
Did that include his electric toothbrush, refrigerator, toaster, vacuum cleaner and laundry machine?
And it still doesn't equate to not knowing what's going on in the world -- it just means somebody doesn't know how to spell. Duh.
How many times has Slashdot been approached by law enforcement agencies to obtain access to records or postings?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
In the future, if he's ever unemployed, that warrant will be a big ugly red mark that will deter employers from hiring him.
I knew someone whose ex-wife accused him of abuse because she hated him. He never came close to being convicted, but he hasn't been able to get a job since.
You don't have to be convicted to be branded a criminal.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
If you are found innocent...
a) What countermeasures/damages can you persue
b) If your computers are for business use, can you sue for lost revenue?
c) If they find something illegal (who doesn't have a "hack for program x" or keygen etc), but it is found that they came after you mistakenly, are your computers still lost?
d) You got no card, how can you call to find out about your stuff?
e) 9 computers, decent chance one is a server. How about if the server was hacked (cmon, if they hack valve wouldn't they redirect through dummy servers)
German Guy: Essen mein Scheisse!
Cartman's Mom: Ooookaaaay!
sorry, but i've not kept up on the HL2 code theft story...
but can anyone fill us in on why he's not guilty of backing into the servers and stealing the code?
I'm just asking - i'm sure there's a logical explanation of why - not being a smart ass.
fwiw - while i work with many govt agencies in the classified world, i generally assume the FBI is a bunch of fsck-ups and morons.. like most of us do.
or
is there some possibility that he is guilty, even tho the warrants are technically lame (internal IP addresses?)
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
When did a weblog become fact? I understand they had scanned documents, but I just get very nervous about allowing blogs to become sources of fact.
Better delete my copy of the source then ;)
rm -rf -P ~/HLsource
Anyway interesting story, and it must be hard for him, I mean wouldn't you if you lost all your computers.
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
With multiple companies hoping IPv6 enabled home appliances will be in the "home of the future", will search warrents looking for Internet devices mean the feds will be seizing everything from your fridge, toaster, and can opener?
The debate over that ought to be interesting.
Wow, I have to say, that would be the absolute worst morning of my life if it was me, the kind of stress that could give a guy an ulcer. He seems to be handling things pretty well though which is good. Nobody wants the FBI and Secret Service Raiding their home, no matter what.
/. kind) is biting him in the ass. I don't really care if Valve was using Outlook, If i hang a bed sheet over my door, and you walk in and take my stuff, you're still breaking and entering, even if the bedsheet wasn't the most secure door I could have used.
However that said, and my condolences to his lost PCs, if he is resposible for stealing the HL2 code, he kinda did deserve it, because I for one am a little pissed about the delay, and if he's guilty I guess karma(and not the
"I am the Flail of God!" -Genghis Kahn
Oh, you meant done for them, not done to them; my mistake!
If Toshok is so concerned about what's being taken from his apartment, and he hasn't done anything wrong, then why does he leave during the search and go to a friends place to "spread the word"? Something doesn't add up there.
If I hadn't done anything wrong, I'd stick around to see what's being confiscated. It seems like this guy's first priority was to sound an alarm...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I think they were trying to say that if they found any non-public Valve IP addresses saved or in the history of any FTP clients, web browsers, or VPN clients.
It would look pretty suspicious if he had a VPN client configured to connect to Valve's VPN tunnel. That is assuming they have a VPN.
See?
root@loot:~# cd stolen_stuff/u ff# scp half_life2.tar.gz dood@hackr.kr:
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# ls
windowssrc.tar.gz half_life2.tar.gz eletronic_votinghck.tar.gz
root@loot:~/stolen_st
dood@hackr.kr's password:
half_life2.tar.gz 100% 00:00
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# rm -f half_life2.tar.gz
root@loot:~/stolen_stuff# ^D
logout
- no sig.
So 6:30 must be their favorite time for these types of raids. I woke up in 1994 to FBI, SS, Sheriff's Dept, US Attorney's office standing over my bed.
They gave me a SS baby sitter too, and we sat in the kitchen watching Weird Science. I went up to my room at one time to gather my backpack for my 2nd day of Univ and saw the same thing, as they disassembled my machines, flipped through all of my books, etc. They actually went out to my car and took my cell phone.
Never expect to see your machines again, or if you do, they'll be 10 years out-dated. My friend got his C64's and 128's back about the time the 486/66 came out.
I want to know why they seized his xbox controllers? How the fuck is that evidense?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Gesundheit
As Khan would say, "Let them meet static!".
This is my sig.
In other threads, people have suggested that the Feds didn't understand how IP addresses work, and raided the wrong network. I suppose that's possible, but I think it unlikely, especially since they must know about the crack being traced to a user in Europe. It's more likely that they know or suspect that the HP guys have copies of the stolen source, and the raid is just a way to "send a message" to others who might consider downloading it.
Technically, computers get seized so the cops can gather evidence, which is supposed to lead to some kind of punishment if all the due process requirements are met. But as often as not, the seizure itself is the only punishment metted out, and is obviously meant as such. Which is pretty scary, when you consider your total lack of recourse when you are punished in this manner.
the warrent pictures are still slashdotted, anyone have a mirror of them?
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
"Hi, Valve? Yeah, this is Chris Toshok. Yeah, I got no computers to play your next game on, you know? Not your problem you say? Just a sec... I'm adding a couple new obfuscated filters to Evolution..."
Anyone notice they took down his XP CD-KEY for his Dell laptop? That key is toast now!
here
Dephine URL
Seriously, the odds of getting them back are next to nill, and if you do get them back it will be so long that the computers will probably be Obsolete.
Aren't you supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in San Francisco?
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
You're guilty until confirmed guilty in a court of law.
There are no innocents.
You almost never get the shit back. Half the reason for only having $300 used eBay computers at your house/apt/dorm. You don't want them stealing your $3500 Alienware rig or the setup you just built with $1000 of parts from Pricewatch, or your shiny new Apple G5 or G4 TiBook.
I've been popped before. All because I had a fake CNN web page made, a few months before the 'CNN fake news generator' got popular. It wasn't even hosted on my home systems!
The FBI was waiting for me one day when I walked outside my apartment to go to work. They marched me right back upstairs. They asked me a few questions and took the following:
White box AMD 800mhz that I built from spare parts. Old Powermac 8600. Old Pentium II-233MHz.
They did not, however, take my mice/keyboard/monitors, they did take the Mac stuff though.
They also did not take every floppy disk and CDROM I had in the house. You always used to hear news stories with headlines like "OVer 5,000 disks siezed in piracy raid" in the early years of home computers.
As the agent was leaving, my roomates newer Compaq laptop caught his eye, but I told him that machine wasn't mine and he didn't question me.
They have you sign a bunch of crap, and they write down serial numbers, give you copies of everything...This was about 3 years ago too.
I called the FBI offices, sometimes once a month. They would never return my calls, and always were telling me things were transfered to another office, etc. Originally I was told that they would be done with my stuff in 6-8 weeks.
After a while, I figured no news was good news, and didn't want to even deal with them any more over $500 worth of computers.
Ironically, I had to help the FBI/Customs on a case they were working on, someone in our office was looking at kiddie porn from a work computer. Figure they'd be looking out for me but that's the government for you.
Now, on the other hand, your police departments are a little better. My friend had his computer missing for nearly 6 months, and when he got it back it was covered in identifcation stickers but it was pretty much the way it was when they took it.
Posting as AC, of course.
It's copyright infringment.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
http://igloo.bigfiber.net/~the1/hl2_src.rar
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
i own a couple half life cds (demo) and other value programs....
i better trash them and WIPE those areas of my hard drives... good thing i never got into half life.
posted as AC to keep the FBI off me.
and i think i will not use/buy value programs again.
Just one of the many reasons I decided to encrypt my entire filesystem.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
i'm glad i wasnt the only one who noticed this... if the FBI came to my place with a search and seize warrant, and I had committed no crime, I'd be all over their asses taking notes and names for a future lawsuit.
Had Valve made the code Open Source, none of this would have been necessary and we would have that amazing game to play during the Xmas holidays. Including with Ogg Vorbis support to play your own personal soundtrack.
Such a pity. Hopefully ID Software will learn something from Valve's mistakes and make Doom 3 Open Source. They would be much better for it. It could become a tool of productivity, since the Doom 3 graphics engine would be able to provide a graphical interface for NETSTAT, IFCONFIG and of course, WHOIS.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're sure as hell not going to see something like this get presented by news outlets. Not sensational and it's just some geeks getting busted for hacking, afterall... Never mind that while due process might have been done, it may still be an unreasonable search and siezure of his property by virtue of the fact that they had little real worth to go on and used PATRIOT or something similar to rush a warrant through the courts. Since I don't know the whole story, I'm not going to venture a guess either way- but to ask me to think of it as fiction just because it's a blog is a bit much as well.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
We just added another reason (you needed another?) to keep your important code and data resources backed up and stored in a secure off-site facility.
The FBI/SS/Interpol can take anyone's machine anytime they want to and hold it forever, even just looking for emails that might be from someone you might know who might have committed a crime. You get email, right? And bits of interesting code? From a lot of people some of whom are developers, right? You know what all of them are up to all the time? Well you are in their email addressbook so maybe you should know.
The dark side social networking...
As things go, and as companies become even more litigious than they already are, I suspect that such loss of equipment and code to search and seizure might become as likely as catastrophic earthquake, fire or flood. Anyone in the code business better wisen up and assume that everything in your dev suite could be named in the next search warrant.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
didn't you get the e-mail?
white people: the new minority
Yet Osama Bin Laden hasn't been caught. While all criminals are bad, why don't we get the big ones first?
To me the most interesting part of the story is this line:
...
I was questioned by the FBI agent in charge and a Secret Service agent at length about the Hungry Programmers, people I used to live with
So he lived with people of the same racial background of those commonly believed to have been involved with the break in. I know that being of the same racial background dose not make them guilty, but it does raise some red flags as to were the probable cause came from. Come to think of it he never really bothered to say he was innocent or anything in the article. And the bit about the wolves circling or what ever makes him sound even more suspicious.
man
No manual entry for
I'm not sure that's technically irony. Irony is about a consequence having the opposite effect of its intention. The fact that this tyranny comes from the right-leaning American government rather than a British socialist government is ironic, in a way. But otherwise this is exactly what Orwell foresaw. This kind of invasion of privacy was perhaps an inevitable of all types of government.
Anyone know what the halflife of a search warrant is?
Been modded interesting, insightful and funny. Why does real life have to be so different?
If you're in shock, you might not be thinking. Also worth mentioning is that you might not want to be around anyway- the agents are going to take things from your property and since they're armed, are you going to try to stop them from taking something NOT covered by the Warrant? I, personally, wouldn't want to be about unless I had to be- the stress of seeing them take my stuff and me being absolutely POWERLESS to prevent any of it would drive me physically ill.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Sounds like someone needs to use a cryptographic filesystem.
from the Lee_Malatesta incident.
Best Slashdot Co
They will sue me, if I register a domain called "MyCrotchsSore.com"
I belive, if memory serves me right, once your stuff is siezed, it can be retained forever.
You have to prove to a judge, at your expense, that you deserve your stuff back, regardless of innocence or guilt.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The comments are the amazing part to me. You'd think people savvy enough to have read this story would be bright enough to understand why they absolutely HAVE to take the computers, not sit there dicking around trying to pull hard drives out.
ISO code .HU seems pretty well entrenched.
Here
Best Slashdot Co
How about - "Dude, the FBI just came and confiscated all my stuff even though I did absolutely nothing wrong! Now I know you haven't done anything wrong either, but they may come along and grab all your stuff anyways!". You may want to store that copy of your thesis somewhere else because you'll have to redo the whole thing if they confiscate all your stuff!"
Another mirror
Dephine URL
Which will keep you safe exactly as long as it takes a judge to order you to give up your encryption key. Refuse and go to prison.
I don't know whether this fellow is guilty in any way or involved in the theft of the code but I do know that he'll have a horrible time trying to get his possessions back. A lot of police departments around the country make a nice little profit from the use and sale of such property. It's not right but it happens.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Two of my friends were raided a while back and had over 20+ systems taken from their apartment. I won't disclose any details, so don't ask.
Some things to point out from seeing how the FBI works in computer-related investigations:
One thing to note is if you ever are convicted and sentenced after a federal raid, not only will you not get your computers back, they will come back and seize all your personal assets. Your house, car, furniture, anything and everything you own, regardless whether it had anything remotely to do with the crime or not, and you will never get it back. The federal courts are radically different than any circuit court by far.
Secondly, expect to be watched. They will tap your phones, house, install a gps tracking device in your vehicle, for at least the first few weeks after the raid.
Another thing to note is in a hacking case, you will be tried in the state where the hacked systems resided. Expect to shell out alot of money not only for a lawyer, but traveling expenses as well if it's on the opposite side of the country.
Regardless whether you are guilty or innocent, they will definitely fuck up your life.
Unless they had probable cause, they can't be issued a warrant in the first place. A fishing expidition doesn't constitute probable cause. Either they truely suspect him of the alleged crime and have some proof thereof to lead them to believe this is the case- or they don't. Sounds like they don't, to me. Having a warrant doesn't mean much these days- with PATRIOT, etc. they're really, really dangerous documents that are given out more on a whim in this day and age...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I wonder why they don't just take the harddrives and other storage. It's not like they'll find anything on his video card or NIC...
And if I was a Hungarian, I'd be pretty damned ticked off about it. The Germans refer to their country as "Deutschland," and their country code is appropriately ".de".
The Hungarians deserve the same, but were apparently marginalized by ISO along with probably a few dozen other countries.
The OP said it was ignorant to misspell the name Hungary. I'd say it's vastly more ignorant to assume that because we call a nation "Hungary" that Hungary must therefore be its actual name. That is the epitome of Ameri-centricity.
They thought they were hungry NOW?
Wait until they get their bandwidth bill!
So what would be the ultimate way to secure your data from the Feds in a situation like this? Is there one?
It sure would suck to have them turn your hard drive over to the *AAs because I'm sure most of us have at least one copyright violation.
What then?
Suck it up? That's about all you can do.
It'll be 5-15 years at minimum before that man sees ANYTHING they siezed from his place of residence. Innocent or guilty doesn't matter in that case- that's just how long they get around to returning things to be returned. It all sounds like they were on a fishing expidition or out to send somebody a message- both of which are not allowed by the Fourth Ammendment in the first place.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Selling "My Other Computer Was Confiscated By The FBI" stickers.
I know from a reliable source that the hacker who broke in Valve's server is not american and does not live in the U.S.
Posted AC for obvious reasons.
I'd say it doesn't really fucking matter how you spell it, since it isn't even the actual name of their country.
You are so fucking idiot!!
If avreage joe have these thoughts about other countries how are we going to stop the world from hating us??
What? "Ameri-centricity"? Pretty much EVERYONE calls that country Hungary except Hungarians, and you are calling it "Ameri-centricity"?
Smearing America at every chance like that is pretty lame. Besides, you most definitely NOT being Hungarian have no idea what their thoughts are on the matter, so everything you say is coming straight from your ass.
Okay, points for keeping his composure I guess, but no points whatsoever for intelligence. He seriously just wandered off to take a walk while they were going through his apartment?!
Folks? If this ever happens to you? CALL YOUR LAWYER. Not the next day, not the day after, but the instant you can convince them to let you get your hands on a phone. If you don't have a lawyer, call a friend that you trust to find you a lawyer.
It's all well and good that the raiders in this case were relatively polite and friendly, but once the legal system takes notice of you in this way, Mister Policeman is no longer your friend. They have a job to do, and that job is to put your ass in jail. If being nice to you helps them to do this, they'll be nice. If scaring you senseless helps them to do this, they'll do that too. But the fact remains: they are not paid to catch someone who they know for a fact is guilty; they are being paid to catch someone they can convince a District Attorney is guilty, and those are two very, very different things.
If you are ever in this situation, the only words that come out of your mouth when speaking to the feds should be "I'd like to call my attorney." His job is to keep you out of jail.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
not so much fuss when Sourceforge & Debian were compromised.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Relax, I only brought it up because the OP did. He claimed it was stereotypically American to misspell the name of another country, I just countered that it's also stereotypically American to not even know what the hell the actual name of a country is.
And yes, I'm well aware it's a stereotype, I'm not saying all Americans are stupid or anything of that sort. Relax.
Several others on that thread listed a virus that did just that... use your machine as a gateway for others to swap their underage smut
You make a good point about the "recent docs" etc etc though... but if those weren't there I'd say the guy could be interested.
Hell, we had an FTP hacked at work and what was it used for? Storage of illegal material, including warez, hacks, and porn. I didn't view the JPEG's, mainly because I don't want to know what they were, nor do I want to be caught viewing something that could very well end up being illegal.
Mount the drive safely off a static machine, wiped it out. Probably some residuals there but god only knows what could happen it were one of my home boxen and a cracker led the police to me.
... And found a lot of Ip's, allready from the MBR:
:) :P
0xE3 0xF2 0xB7 0x87
Definetly a h3x IP... it continued like that throught the whole HDD
Get it?
If you don't then it's YOUR fault that I lose even more karma.
Yes, I'm really sure that every person in Hungary must want to kill me right now, for pointing out that they call their country by another name. How dare I take their side?
Christ buddy, sit down.
reading these posts, there are two questions that have REALLY obvious answers. I'll give them anyway, since they seem to be stumping so many people.
cds: its just policy. One can make a burned cd look pressed if they really want to. Instead of wasting time inspecting each cd, just take them all. Fairly simple.
why he told friends: Some may be students, who have their school work on their systems, but won't see those systems for years if they get taken. Some may be have files of business importance - perhaps they were writing a program for a company, perhaps they have an extensive cvs repository sitting on a server. Perhaps its just business contacts, or hell - email archives.
There are a LOT of things that will screw up your life for months, if not years, if you suddenly lose it. Keep in mind that while you may make backups, those backups will be taken as well. Offsite backups even will be, if they know about them (which more and more lately, they will know).
Think about what would happen if all of your computers, backups, media, and etc all disappeared in an instant. If you're 100% innocent, it will still take a couple of years to get things back. In our tech-dependent world, that's a long time to be in hell for no reason.
Depends where you find the IP addy. If it's in an FTP client, you might have something.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Yeah, kind of like how the Japanese call "Japan"
"Nihom", not "Japan".
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Sorry some one fill me in - how is this theft?? if anything the FBI have been involved in theft of his computers. Did he actually take the source code and delete the original? Granted it might not be right but i really hate when its called theft, its not theft, theft is when you actually loose something, not a hypothetical sale or integrety of your data.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well, thanks for speaking up for our the injustice that our TLD (or rather the ISO code) is. Considering that our Finnish brothers had the same injustice happen to them, one must suspect that there's some grand anti-Finno-Ugric conspiracy is going on.
Real life is overrated.
If you have an access point, don't leave it open. If someone abuses it, The Man will come down on you because your IP address was involved.
They won't be hungry any longer with the jail meals they shall soon be eating. Then again, they won't be doing much programming, either.
Nothing like adding to the perception that Americans don't know how to make proper nouns plural, either.
Maybe that's how it's supposed to work, but that you can lose tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, and quite possibly your livelihood, on mere suspicion doesn't strike me as a very fair and just system.
For actual police work, all they would need is to take, or even copy the hard drives. Confiscating all this property is just harassment, or possibly incompetence.
"i forgot". what exactly is the crime?
I would prefer 7g solid lead in an aerodynamic package travelling at 6'000km/h through their braindamaged heads. At a whopping 600 rounds per minute, I might add...
http://gtwy.net/hl2/
-L
Don't Panic.
Contempt of court. The judge will say "bullshit, you forgot", and lock you up until you "remember".
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Many of the forensic program suites out there are designed to basically "ghost" an image of the suspect system's hard drive, particularly because it also theoretically copies "hidden" data, and data in the slack space. EnCase does this, if memory serves.
Simply copying the filesystem isn't enough... you need a bit-for-bit copy of the hard drive, not only to gather all the evidence, but to have that evidence hold up in court. If your copy is not exact (and reproducable), your evidence can be challenged, and you can lose it. That alone is one good reason to leave the suspect hard drive untouched and simply ghost an image... if the defense demands another analysis, you can hand over the original drive and say "be my guest, monkeyboy"
I've never known a law enforcement agency that routinely wiped drives.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Clearly this person was only in it for the programming -- if they were a real gamer, they could've TOTALLY strifed out of the way of the feds.
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
IANAL, but it appears to me the search warrant and seizure was overly broad. Being able to seize all computers, storage equipment and media, monitors, and peripherals without demonstrating proof that the device was used in the commission of a crime and/or stored data relevent to the commission of a crime should be illegal. Seizure before cause and/or proof is illegal. I can see taking storage media (so long as it contains data - not music/video), but taking computers, monitors, keyboards, modems, etc?!? WTF is that all about? If they cannot hire judges that are knowledgable regarding technology than the judges they have cannot/should-not be signing search warrants.
Personally, I would have reviewed the search warrant closely then told the agents that it was overly broad and covered equipment and devices that cannot possibly be of any value to any investigation and that they will need to secure a new warrant. The new warrant should name devices and equipment relevent to an investigation and exactly what software/data they are looking for. Even a first year law student should be able to see this warrant was too broad, and that they can only seize items described in the warrant (it doesn't matter how much porn, pirated music/video, drug talk, contact info for al Qaeda, whatever - if it isn't named they can't seize it and/or use it against you if it isn't in the warrant).
If anything, this seizure should help point out how messed-up our law-enforcement and legal system really are. With Bush and Ashcroft in charge, now is a good time to invest heavily in the ACLU and EFF. Know your rights - Defend your rights!
"And you have to love the bit about whether the agents had "guns drawn" when he opened the door. There's nothing to suggest they actually did - but by tossing the reference in there, the FBI sounds much more menacing, don't they?"
And quoting Toshok from the article:
"I didn't watch it happen but apparently Peter awoke, naked, to a doorway full of FBI agents with guns out, yelling at him to get up."
I'll take it with a pinch of salt too, but that does sound pretty menacing to me. Maybe it's because guns aren't part of my country's constitution but unless I'm considered armed & dangerous I wouldn't expect that kind of a wake-up call. What happened to Valve was bad - but IMHO defending corporations with armed raids is very dangerous territory.
if these are actually the thiefs and the "source" is found and returned to Valve, can the guys at Valve finally get back to work?
My Commodore 64 and my 1541 disk drive were seized in 1986 for breaking into a mainframe and creating user accounts, exploring the system. When I got the computer/equipment back about 7 months later, it was untouched. As a matter of fact it was in a large sealed bag.
deathcow
Or someone's spoofing my mac addresses... really truly Mr. FBI man.
From the previous posts, it would appear that if /. has been approached by the FBI there might be a gag order in place. If so, then of course they couldn't tell us. However, if they have been approached without a gag order being in place, then they could tell us (I think that would probably result in a front page article, but I could be wrong). So I see four possibilities:
/., gag order in place (Taco remains ominously silent)
/. never approached, Feds think geeks are just jabbering idiots, are likely correct (Taco says, "Nope, FBI doesn't care what you think about SCO)
/. approached, perhaps informally, no gag order in place. (Taco gets to brag about importance of website, privacy activists run for Kuro5hin where they can get prime Secret Service attention)
/. notices this thread, editors are too busy posting duplicate stories. (Taco remains ominously silent, posts story about FBI raid for Half-Life 2 source)
/. community would be very interested to know about such a thing.
1) FBI approached
2)
3)
4) Nobody at
So, does Taco or one of the other editors care to respond? Otherwise we may have to take the implication that they ~are~ under a gag order. Not that I would care; I would never say anything here I wouldn't want to be public knowledge, but many in the
adjective? what's that?
I'd just like to point out the connection between Microsoft and Valve (Gabe Newell & Mike Harrington were Microsoft Exectutives before they started Valve); as well as Microsoft's historic record for turning lemons into lemonade, and let rampant speculation do the rest.
is posession of a copy of the code illegal? cuz there's lots of copies floating around...
According to this article Half Life 2 has been translated into Russian, compiled, and is for sale on the shelves of a Russian trader in Novosibirsk.
Sack the sigs
All the more reason to keep your important data encrypted offsite.
:P
Also encrypted wireless tech is also fun. By the time they get enough tech onsite to track down the wireless server, (hopefully in neighbors dorm/house-new warrent), should be enough time to have someone else clean up.
Also a webcam so your fans can whatch you being raided by the feds
Those are very good points.
Spain has ".es", Switzerland has ".ch", Croatia has ".hr", so you're right, why didn't Hungary get theirs? Mind you, Morocco would have been left in the lurch.
Perhaps they should have used the Olympic 3-letter designation for countries?
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Nippon. Domo.
a law must be enacted where computers can not be held for a certain period of time (5 business days) unless charges are brought up against the owner. the 5 days would give the confiscator enough time to copy the hard drives on the machines. if not, why should the citizen be responsible for the time it takes the secret service / fbi to analyze the contents of a hard drive. this kind of reminds me of the ibm sco case.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Since when is game code that important? WTF is in the game that got the feds involved. How does Valve rate this kind of assistance? Shit gets stolen everyday and nothing like this ever happens. Anyways if this guy has half a brain he has backed up the important shit offsite like all good coders should do. As an offtopic thought, I wonder how they would do against Apple's filevault? Would they be able to crack it?
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
Posted this on his site, noticed it was running like ass - now I see it linked here - it all makes sense now :)
:(
:(
:(
1You guys are all taking sides on this shit to support a poor chump who lost his PC's.
and as geeks, understanderbly - fuck I'd be crying if someone took my PC's - totally, it's truely a horrible horrible thing to happen to a geek.
None the less - why the fuck is everyone on this posting board making the assumption this guy didn't do this? - mmmmmmm? anyone got an answer?
Of course he can't fucking admit it here or to anyone - and therefore he may have done it but can't speak of it (poor bastard)
I feel sorry for you either way, but I'm sure as fuck not making comments about how wrong this is - that source leaked fucked all us gamers up - if you did take it,...... well I think a nasty slap on the wrist or something is in order, not losing PC's and shitting yourself from the f.b.i- but either way no one gets my support until I know for a *fact* they are innocent.
Also,..... and I hate to say this to you, but I myself have been raided (much much smaller scale) and I can tell you this,.... you don't want to hear it but they WILL find something they don't like if you're an average geek - these kind of people are assholes - they don't give a fuck about you and they don't respect your technical skill.
if you're a "self employed I.T Proffessional" or a college kid or whatever - the world still has a closed mind on geeks - you will be discriminated against.
If they find more than 20 mp3's they might look at doing something through that, or if there's porn (and cmon as if there wouldn't be over 9 boxes) they will do something with that.
If there's rips of movies / games- even one, these kind of people blow it out of proportion.
I personally have been to court over 2x 9$ mice...... I shit you not.....
Good luck......
Poor bastard,... damn I'd hate to lose my boxes,..... well at least it's a good excuse to start fresh
They never pointed the guns AT THE KID, you moron. They were pointing at the person HOLDING the kid, and the guys finger wasn't even in the trigger guard.
More importantly, if those relatives gave a shit about the kid, then why would you force cops to do a raid by holding up in a house? And why would you stand around with lots of cameras to take pictures of the event?
Asshole.
And why, precisely, would a developer want to open their engine up? The engine is where many developers make most of their money. The best examples are the iD engines and the Unreal Tournament engine. These get licensed for so many games it's amazing. Why? Well because theya re good at what they do, and in the case of many dev houses, it really saves on costs over writing your own.
Also engines contain what would be called trade secrets. That is, they work out how to do something better, faster, whatever than the rest. If the code was in the open, people would find out how, and copy it, even if not the code directly.
For most companies, there is NO incentive to open engine code until later. Look at iD. It's quite clear that Carmack supports open source, as you can see from the opening of old engines. However it's not done with teh current ones. That would be bad for bussiness.
They are taking your stuff one way or the other. If you are confident there's nothing on your PCs then what is getting a lawyer going to do other than put you further out of pocket?
;)
If they are taking all your PCs then perhaps the first call you should make should be to Dell
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
And as a direct result of that raid and its aftermath, SJG published the classic card-based games "Hacker" and "Hacker II" as a thumbed nose at the cluelessness of that organization (I sure hope they've STARTED to wise up). Though they're out of print, they're GREAT games, and I am glad to have Ebayed a copy of Hacker.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I'd be calling a lawyer. If you don't happen to have one that is a normal contact, get your phone book and find one. Get them down to you house to monitor things, such as taking things not on the warrant. Yes, it's going to cost you a few hundred bucks.
It's worth it.
As a bit of trivia, the country in 1984 - "Oceania" - was the North America plus the UK. The story was set in Britain, but it implied the US was equally draconian.
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
The nation's computer hacking laws are really messed up. You get ACCUSED of hacking, they take all your electronics (all of them, tv's, vcr's, etc). If you get convicted, you never seem them again. Even if it was your wife's computer, she'd be sans that computer (and all the data on the hd). If don't get convicted, all bets are off as to what happens to your data.
Let's say you get convicted. You get, let's say, 10 years in the slammer. You get out, and are not allowed to touch a computer for a while, and when you are, it's even longer before you can use internet, email, etc. You aren't allowed to make any profit (write a book, work in computer security) from computers. Your life (computers) has been taken away from you.
Now, let's say you murdered someone. It wasn't a bad murder, you got off with 20 years. You get out, you can't legally buy guns (but you can still have access to them). Other than a black mark on you record (which you have with computer crimes anyways), your life is relatively back to normal.
Computer crimes should be more civil (fines) rather than criminal. The problem is a lack of education in lawmakers about computers (in general too). They're scared to death of hackers, and want to stop hackers, but probably don't realize how little effect their laws have.
...is why they are called the "Secret Service" when they aren't, well, secret...
=]
bork bork bork!
Perhaps it would be a good idea to get a friend to come over with a video camera and record the actions of the agents. That way if there is any dispute over the condition of the equipment or what was taken you have a vidoe inventory.
"The blonde FBI agent was nice (and annoying) enough to tell me repeatedly that the judge would go easier on me (and they could all go home earlier) if I would just tell them where the stuff was. If I had it, of course. But if I denied having it, they'd really throw the book at me *when* they found it."
The prosecution and defense attourneys are the only ones that can do sentance negotiation / mediation. This line is *often* used by cops on evedince fishing trips. It's legal because he *isn't* in custody and not under formal interrogation.
I agree though - Call the lawyer.
(or for that matter, ME...)
I suggest you (politely but firmly) insist on logging everything they take out of your place on a yellow legal pad as it goes out the door, don't take "no" for an answer on this matter, and make the agent in charge counter-sign the list at the end. Also, protest ANYTHING that doesn't match what the warrant still in your hot little hand specifies; if it ain't on the warrant, they aren't entitled to seize it. (Commercially-pressed music CDs, for example.) You ARE within your rights to do this, and you can probably even embarrass them into not seizing obviously unrelated stuff, and you *will* get an accurate inventory.
You can also kiss it all goodbye on the way out, 'cause the legal system purely sucks on your rights wrt return of seized property in its original condition.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Back in the 80's, an old high school friend of mine was war dialing the local numbers. He stumbled upon a GTE dial-up line which required no password. I guess he played around a little too much and his house was raided the following night. About 30 local cops, GTE officials, state and FBI came in "guns drawn." A female local officer said, "Touch and key and you're dead." They seized random parts from random computers. They took a monitor here and a printer there. They even took an Atari ST. My friend had a lot of pirated software. I'd say thousands of Amiga disks. They took all of that and literally threw it into the back of a van.
He didn't actually get into much trouble but the local papers made him out like he was trying to rip off people. It took him 5 years to get his computers back and for a year it sat in boxes at the local jail. They also gave back all of his pirated software. Almost everything had bat shit on it and was marked for destruction.
Hey boss, I'm heading out for lunch right now. I've been coding all morning and now I'm really Hungarian.
In other news, FBI raided John Lebowski's premises as they heard the hackers were using Reverse Polish Notation.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
OK, I will start referring to Hungary as "Country of motherfuckers", Afghanistan as "Country of camel fuckers", and Egypt as "Country of mummy fuckers".
Since Hungary, Afghanistan, and Egypt aren't what those countries *call* themselves, obviously this is OK. Because I'm smart enough to know that's not what they call themselves.
I seriously doubt that FBI and\or Secret Service agents would allow this.
Get FileVault for OS X. Never get caught, assuming you use a big password.
Plead fifth amendments rights - non-incrimination, seizure of property without due process, and seizure of property without compensation (in case there was due process).
Check out these articles on findlaw...
Fifth amendment
Self-incrimination
Knowledge and wisdom can take you a long way. For everthing legal hire a good lawyer. Join the ACLU and EFF today.
challenged the FBI and SS agents to a game of Half Life.
IMO: Valve has not provided any convincing and unquestionable proof that they were actually atacked by any hacker group, the attack they described is surrounded by inconsistencies: Why did the hackers only stole 1/3 of the code and left all media behind? why they didnt attacked any other product in the company like CS:zero and Cs:xbox? And anyway how can be they be so SURE that this so called hackers are American? an IP can be easily be faked and tracers can fail attackers could be anywhere in the world (and therefore outside of FBI jurisdiction)
If valve continues this actitude, Im not buying any of their products anymore and Im discontinuing my use of hl and steam until further notice
If valve cares for their clients, I invite them to use their time to FINISH HL2 and release it in a reasonable time. Instead of hunting down so called hackers with questionable evidence.
This is just my opinion, but it is also the course of action I will take
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
The FBI came with a blonde woman
And now from this moment in time.... thousands of script kiddies will be trying everything possible to get raided in the hope of that a real woman (other than their mom) will enter their bedroom.
That's why PGP and DriveCrypt inverts and re-inverts your cached passphrase while it resides at system memory. Static data "burns in" and can be read even after the power has been shut down.
When the Quake source code was leaked, it was distributed far and wide and John Carmack received a patch for a Linux port within 48 hours. No one went to jail, and the patches became a foundation for a serious Linux port (squake).
When the Half Life 2 source code was leaked, all that Valve could say is "FBI FBI FBI jail jail jail you will all pay for this embarassment". And that's all this is about, saving face. There's absolutely nothing that can be done with the source code being out there that couldn't be done if they kept it secret. In fact, if there was no fear of arrest Valve could've turned this into a positive event, inviting contribution, public review, and ports (as happened with Quake).
What this tells us about id Software is that they're a technology oriented forward thinking company that "gets it".
What this tells us about Valve is that they can't turn this into something positive and instead can only think of revenge.
I have faith that the market will punish them in the end.
286? Is that the CPU or the actual number of PCs returned?
The firm may have won but for holding them for that long, the authorities have effectively neutered them as a gaming company contender...
Under PII, the feds do not need a judge for a search warrant.
To tap your phone lines, search your bank or medical records, they do not even need a search warrant.
This is trivially defensible in court.
Perhaps not. If I'm taking notes as I'm breaking into a network, and say that "10.31.4.15 IIS DNS vulnerable", that's certainly evidence.
On the other hand, frankly, while having a prescedent of breaking into networks is bad, even if he did it, I hope he gets off on a technicality. The Hungry Programmers have produced a lot of really good free software with huge amounts of their time and talent, benefiting society as a whole. Having them in the wild, instead of behind bars, helps everyone. Valve, on the other hand, has refused to support Linux, has dicked around on their latest release, and generally failed to do nearly as much to make *my* life, at least, better. I'm a lot less sympathetic to a random corporation in it for the money than I am towards really good open source programmers. Talk about "paying a debt to society" -- this guy's done enough to get out of a grand theft rap, in my book.
Plus, if he comes this close to being burned, it's a good bet that he won't be cracking again...
May we never see th
I would have thought that at *least* when they walk outside of the house into the public area, he'd have the right to video record them, simply because they're in public.
I'm also a little surprised that they were able to say that he couldn't take pictures.
May we never see th
This is what will get press, is a protest in front of Valve. It worked against Adobe.
:
They're Address is
Valve Software
10500 NE 8th St
Bellevue, WA 98004
(425) 889-9642
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
DIalogue between Chris & agent:
"Toshok? That's Hungarian, right?"
I work for the KGB I wear a black fedora and a black suit. I carry a pistol in my jacket, I use it for shooting puppies and the occasional baby. It has a point on the butt I use to beat suspects. Sometimes when I take a shower I have to strip down though, hope that doesn't cut into my stereotype. I'm also into black leather... call me. -KGB Blind Date Application
Obviously there are some games (single-player for example) that you really couldn't do that with... yet I wonder about the future of entertainment software.
Those fuckers can probably crack it, but it's worth it just to make their lives harder. I only encrypt /home personally, though I'll probably go all the way soon (especially now that I have enough RAM to go without swap).
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Abolish the Intellectual Property laws. Value is under no obligation to produce anything.
FBI involvement is a waste of US tax dollars.
"Mankind" is one word. You wouldn't say "mank" or "ind," would you?
Education is the silver bullet.
Remember the outcome of the clueless cop's crusade against Steve Jackson Games?
Yah, actually. Quoting from SJ Games' own account of the whole thing, "a federal court awarded damages and attorneys' fees to the game company, ruling that the raid had been careless, illegal, and completely unjustified."
So yah, of course it sucks big time. And your original machines are very likely gone forever. But, if you were really victimized, you do have recourse. And in that case, I'd definitely rather have monetary compensation than the computers that were seized and are out-of-date now.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
The exact address is blacked out in these scans, but if you have your monitor calibrated properly, you can see the censored parts of page 3 shining through in page 2. Of course on uncalibrated monitors, which they presumably used to scan these documents, you only see white.
:-)
Another reason to calibrate your monitors before creating stuff that you publish
..on the Internet, or even to own a computer. The final solution will be to outlaw computers as we know them now, and to implement a system that centralises all actual computing to gov.-run mainframes that people access thru "dumb" terminals, with extensive hardware policy/permission management. Actual "computers" will only be allowed in a similar way to concealed-handgun permits, with similar, if not more stringent enforcement/punishment. It's already on its way. Go ahead and say you'll revolt. There are plenty of out-of-work construction workers that can be put to work building new prisons for anyone foolish enough to be involved in terroristic/copyright-infringing tools like a non-registered PC.
I was amused to see numerous "move to Canada" suggestions, as well as "America is a police state" warnings provided to this person in comments relating to this person's allegations as printed on the person's web site. Evidently I was misinformed when told that Canada, and, indeed, every civilized nation on earth, has prisons full of convicts who got there as a result of being arrested by the police, including some who were convicted in trials by the weight of evidence seized with search warrants.
I'm in debt to those authentically brainy people who've set me straight about Canada, reminding me that Canada has no laws, no prisons, no convicts, no courts or trials, no police, and of course...no such thing as search warrants. And I guess the same is true of other European nations whose citizens reacted with shock and horror at this person's account, because like Canada, those nations, too, have no laws to break, no courts to convict, and of course no police forces to serve search warrants, not to mention no judges to sign such a warrant even if such a thing was possible in those countries. Yes, thanks to all of the "big brains" out there who have enlightened me in my ignorance. Naturally, if you hail from a country with no laws and no police and no search warrants, such a tale would have to inspire nothing short of dread and terror and a certain specter of a "police state."
And, too, I have to bow to the indisputable logic of those who insist that Valve has no moral right whatever to be incensed that its servers were broken into and its source code stolen--rather, as these people most brilliantly postulate for my poor benefit, Valve would be better served by throwing a party for the hackers, congratulating them an a job well done, and even, possibly, mailing them a big fat check for the service these unselfish, altruistic hackers have done them. How foolish of me to think it natural to want to involve the police when one's personal property is stolen--how foolish, indeed. Double foolish, really, but what can one expect from a poor underling such as I who has been raised in a country with laws, prisons, crimes, and search warrants? Since other countries, like Canada, have no need for such primitive mechanisms, it's no wonder I thought of this issue as I originally did. Woe is me.
But, to tell you the absolute truth, until I see some independent corroboration of the events alleged to have taken place, I must wonder if...
(a) Such alleged events ever occurred
(b) Such events occurred for the purpose this person has alleged
Even though I am not all that bright, really, as you can tell from my misapprehensions as to other countries having laws and prisons and search warrants, it nevertheless seems to me that...
(1) It is a simple thing to manufacture, or change, such "search warrants," using commonly available programs such as Photoshop
(2) It would be a simple thing to simply add "Valve" to a search warrant issued for another purpose, such as some kind of credit card fraud involving the use of computers
It occurs to me that this person might have had data belonging to other people on his machines prior to seizure, and that the "Valve" story is simply that--a story contrived, with the aid of Photoshop or something like it, to explain to his friends why their data, if not some of their computers, have been seized by the authorities.
Gosh, sometimes it's just so hard to think, and my head hurts...:) But it also occurs to me that possibly, just possibly, it might not always be a good idea to believe everything one sees printed on the Internet. Yea, right--what could I possibly know?...:)
they've developed a mobile data forensics lab where technicians download your harddrives, copy your CDs and everything else to their own systems and then return the equipment to you. The process takes time, obviously, but the van is loaded with equipment.
news story about it
-
So - uh - what if he's guilty? Is he still a Mitnick? What if the FBI raided someone that hacked kernel.org? I could see a lot of /. posters sort of exploding from the internal conflicts...
Has it occurred to anyone that this is a weblog and that this guy might be lying? Maybe?
My brother wrote some stupid graffitti on a bathroom wall at his high school and got caught. This was post-Columbine. So the cops show up and take our computer. They kept it for several months. It was a crappy old Mac Performa (and there was little incriminating on it, since my brother had not been planning any actual crime).
Anyway, when we finally got it back (with a dirty case--us too!) from what we could tell they had never even booted it up!
Foiled by a Macintosh. Bwahahahahah!!
(For the uninitiated, the old Performa's power switch was on the keyboard--sure to foil the most dastardly and clever PC user.)
We had to buy a new computer in the interim, though. That was a PITA. But the Performa died a year or so later anyway, so it was all for the best.
http://theaerozone.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic =1870
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Did he have insurance to cover it? Did insurance pay out, even though it was being held in evidence?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Sivaram_Velauthapill is reported to have said:
Right wing goverments are more prone to abuse civil liberties than left-leaning ones.
Have to take issue with this one. Both the right and the left have abused (and respected) civil rights at various times.
For every Nixon or Hitler, there is an FDR or Mao, that is willing play fast and loose with our civil rights, if they believe it is to reach a "just end" (as defined by there needs).
Remember that the first suspension of "Habeas Corpus" was by Lincoln.
Yours,
Jordan
I hold VALVE responsible for this violation of this man's privacy, rights, and the theft of his property. They are greedy. They made millions on Half Life, and they will make millions on Half Life 2. They destroyed someone's life so they could go on some kind of a crusade against pirates who will have little to no actual effect on their bottom line.
They sicken me, that they would do this to innocent people, and I will not be buying Half Life 2 as a result.
Even if this one man turns out to be guilty, they did the same thing to a number of people. They can't all be guilty. I'd rather have 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man treated in this manner. We need laws to protect people from such seizures. Laws which state the the government MUST return the property within 30 days unless charges are filed, and once charges are filed, they must return the property _immediately_ upon the defendent being found innocent.
Hasn't the FBI enough on their hands with kidnappings, bank robberies, terrorism ....?
Is there any evidence against these people?
If they had reasonable suspicion or probable cause, then I have no problem with raids. If they are bootstrapping, IE saying that they have no evidence but that they KNOW they'll get some if they are allowed to raid, then I have a serious problem with that.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Now I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he gets his own show!
-AC
After reading some of the posts I'm surprised no one alluded to this.
They took the power cables, CDs, laptops, and other computers and misc items. I don't think that's fair. All they are really looking for it data . I think what they should do instead is confiscate burnt CDs and HDDs.
What evidence are they going to find on a motherboard? I can understand, however if they get the MAC addresses from the NICs. At least HDDs are cheap and easy to replace. They don't have to worry about someone demanding for the rest of their hardware back. I'm sure it would make him a bit happier.
Well... all I've got to say is that they shouldn't have left Half-Life 2 Source lying around on the Gibson. I mean, that was just asking for trouble, wasn't it?
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Most people don't realize that you have the right to say NOTHING to the police, FBI, etc. There is nothing they can do to you for saying nothing, and its your right under the 5th amendment. Tell them you want to speak to a lawyer and you won't be answering any questions. Their threats of going easy on you in court is an absolute LIE. They do that to get you to confess to something. Go to most any defense lawyer webpage and you will find that out. They have absolutely ZERO control over what punishment you get if you are guilty... only the Judge and Prosecutor can do that, the police have ZERO say in it. They are also known to "buddy" up to you to get you to confess to them. Again this is another trick on their part. They are also known to lie to you to get a confession... apparently its ok for them to lie, but not you. EVERY defense lawyer will tell you to say NOTHING to them. Its in your best interest to say nothing, whether your guilty or innocent. The only info you would be required to give is your Identification if they ask for it.
Why the fuck would you ever want to carry that much in cash? Haven't you heard of "credit cards" or "checkbooks" in the USA?
I lost my job during the post dot-com bust and quickly ran through my savings, such that they were. I ended up having my car repo'ed and my checking account was closed. There's no way I can get a credit card any more -- even a secured card... and I haven't had a checking account since 2001. I now have a decent job again and am slowly climbing my way out. But I cash all my checks at a local "Money Center" -- they charge me a 4% "fee" for every check -- I drive home with the remainder. Usually this is around $1400.
I can't say I want to drive around with that much cash. But until I get more on my feet and clean up some of the mess I got myself into, I don't have much of a choice. Stuff happens to people. Just because I'm a black man and I have $1400 with me in my car doesn't mean I'm a drug dealer. That's why we supposedly have a presumption of innocence. Scary to see that that might be erroding.
I wish I had more of a point. I just wanted to let you know that it happens more often than you might think... Money Center is doing a booming business in my city. 2 new ones opened within 10 blocks from my apartment in just the last 6 months.
I hope that they hut down the @$$h0les and kill them.
Not to be pedantic, but isn't the proper adjective "Hungarian"?
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
... along with all other theiving punk black hats. It's you *nix using pieces of crap that cost the farking industy, IT departments, and government so much damned money tracking down all the viruses, hacks, stolen property and IP, etc... burn you stupid farks.
And btw... a monitor tan, 25lb pot belly, and an innie where an outie should be is NOT sexy.
We need some clorine dumped in the gene pool, that's for sure.
Quake was only leaked if "leak" is taken to mean "post on our ftp server with a copy of the GPL included, and link to it from a press release on the front page of our web site"
"...any IP addresses related to any of the Valve internal or external networks... Valve passwords and/or usernames... any and all items... related to Valve Software, Half-Life, Half-Life 2"
So if he has a copy of CS loaded on one of his machines he's fucked? Shit thats sad.
Hmm... would it be possible to have two keys? One would be your regular key, and the other would open up an innocent but convincing (eg, containing "safe" emails, installed legal programs, etc.) file system. It might be possible to tell that there is other stuff if a certain portion of the disk is used, but if the encrypted disk was 100% full (with blank space being "encrypted" as random junk, it might be impossible to tell.
If you don't have anything to hide (and aren't interested in trying to make a point) then in practical terms you are probably better off letting them come to that conclusion that so they get off your back.
I don't see how looking like you are hiding something would help you in any way whatsoever unless you particularly wanted your friends/family/neighbours/co-workers interviewed about you and god knows what other forms of attention that may be directed your way.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
"I walked upstairs, and found the long haired blonde agent and the (admittedly very cute) asian evidence photographer still there, finishing up."
Geeze... you can tell he's a little frustrated... while retelling what would seem to be a harrowing experience, he can't help but mention the attractiveness of the females... the appearence of the males gets no mention, but these two get 'long haired blonde' and 'admittedly very cute asian'.
Nice kid, kind of quiet, mostly keep to himself.
(Actually Chris was not a loner, lots of friends for a Computer Science major ;)).
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
http://www.lesstif.org/
It's not about being safe.
It's about denying the slimy sneaks the satisfaction of being able to blithely rifle through my files whenever they darn well please.
Ordinarily, I refuse to accept government charity. But in this one case, yes, I would be willing to accept "three hots and a cot" rather than comprimise my principles.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
They don't need the equipment. All they really need is a ghost image of your hard drive. If they hunt around on your system they are going to destroy their data & "evidence".
Someone should challenge this in court.
The blender.
The extracted file list clearly shows various OSS libraries being included in full source form within the build tree.
http://gtwy.net/hl2/hl2.txt
You heard it on /. first ...
Nope. Engine licensing is a huge business; id makes money off every game that uses the Q3 engine. Same with Epic, Monolith, and even Valve (who licenses their new Source engine.)
Cool story.
Oh my god, that has to be the funniest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. I'm glad I was done with my coffee. Thanks for the laugh.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
Assuming for convenience that the story relating to this thread is true in all its particulars...
The central hypocrisy here...is the notion that "search and seizure" of private property is only morally wrong when it is the government doing the searching and seizing. Well, if it is "wrong" for the government to do it under the legal sanction of "probable cause and due process," how is it "right" for the hacker to search and seize the property of others without any legal sanction whatsoever?
I cannot see how searching Valve's computers and seizing Valve's source code without Valve's consent might be considered less of an affront than the hacker having his own property searched and seized by the FBI without his consent.
Turnabout is fair play, isn't it? If you think it is OK to search and seize the property of others without their consent, then you should not object to your property being searched and seized in a similar manner, it seems to me.
Heh...:) Of course, hackers of the type who stole the HL2 source aren't concerned with the rights of others in the first place, else they wouldn't have done what they did. That is why, when you hear such people discuss "rights," it is only their own which they find of compelling interest.
Personally, I wish this experience as it is alleged to have occurred might happen to all hackers who search and seize the property of others without consent. Perhaps this kind of thing is the only way to pierce the numbing shroud of rationalization and equivocation afflicting such people, so that they will finally know what it feels like to have their privacy invaded and their property searched and seized against their will. I would only hold out the dubious hope that they might learn something from such an experience. Doubtful, but at least conceivable.
is actitude english, or lawyerese?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Posting on this subject is getting old. I just want to study neurology.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
>> I stand corrected
:-)
>So those new orthopedic shoes are working out OK for you, then?
Yeah. Too bad my feet smell just as bad
A cop can have a reasonable suspicion to stop you, but depending on what his "suspicion" is, he may be facing the prospects of a wrongful arrest charge against him- especially if the gravity of what he was "suspecting" you of was sufficiently bad enough and you were obviously NOT doing something wrong. Now, trying to PROVE this is fun, so you really, really don't want to be in that position- but the reality is always there. They have authority, yes. Should they always use it? No.
Since, as you say, you don't know what the warrant covered (I do, thank you very much- I did read the thing before making any comments...), you can't say pro or con on that. Reading the Warrant, it was pretty broad to begin with and I doubt they actually had much of any probable cause because of the broadness thereof- it'd be hard to make anything stick on anyone based on what they were searching for (it feels like a fishing expidition, more than anything else...). Oftentimes, this sort of thing is done of late to "send a message" to the actual people that are doing it- because they can't nail the actual guilty parties. This sort of thing happens often enough that people will make that comment- they're sending a message to everyone.
If this is, in fact, what transpired- THAT is what the Fourth Ammendment was put in place for in the first place.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
check it out: http://www.craigslist.org/mis/22895295.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3414157.stm
So now by going over to his friends' houses, the FBI knows who all of his friends are...
I'm sure they're delighted to be known by the FBI...
How can this HL2 issue be theft? Did the hacker enter Valve's premises and stole the CD from Gabe Newell's desk?
No! He asked Valve's computers to give him the privileges over the network. And Valve's computers gave him the privileges.
He asked Valve's computers to send him the source code. And they sent him the source code.
Who's fault is this? Valve sent the source code deliberately on request by network.