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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
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
The Secret Service charter gives them jurisdiction in many computer crime cases. They tend to work with the FBI, but not always.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Since 1984, our investigative responsibilities have expanded to include crimes that involve financial institution fraud, computer and telecommunications fraud, false identification documents, access device fraud, advance fee fraud, electronic funds transfers, and money laundering as it relates to our core violations.
Secret Service Website
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.
I believe the Secret Service provides Technical Forensic services for other agencies.
No,
the secret service has never been all about protecting the president. They started out primerily as treasury cops, however if I remember correctly, all cases of computer related fraud where damages pass the $10,000 mark and cross state lines fall into their jurisdiciton. That why they're always involved with all the big time hacker cases.
for more info, check out United States Code (USC) 1030
It had something to do with the fact that Steve Jackson was producing a Cyberpunk game.
c hno/jackson/
More info:
http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/express/te
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/SJG/
Steve Jackson Games had this happen back in the 80s...you know, before the invention of Half-Life and Everquest, and hence before computers were interesting. They were raided by the SS (for a totally bogus reason) and had their computers siezed. Came really, really close to shutting down the company for good because of this. Years later, when the computers were obsolete, and after the SS had been criticized by a federal judge for being abusive, SJG got its 286 computers returned. Hooray for justice!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
Such a beast already exists...
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
YMMV, enjoy
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/
Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN is appropriate for bulk or emergency data destruction.
the last couple fbi-power-expanding laws include being able to gag the raided company from answering just such questions.
Sounds like someone needs to use a cryptographic filesystem.
Umm..it's hungry not Hungary.
At least that's what I got out of it. I thnk it's just a group of programmers not necessarily of the same racial background.
Another mirror
Dephine URL
My friend had his computer seized by the FBI freshman year of college (including his speakers, oddly), they gave it back to him in 6 months.
The important lesson here is that you can be deprived of all that stuff, so long as there is due process. In other words, once the cops seize your stuff, they don't have to give it back, so long as the initial seizure was legal.
It's really bad in civil cases. They can take your stuff (house, car, boat, whatever), never charge you with anything, and you'll never see it again. Seizing assets in a civil action this way is a big part of the War on Drugs. All the cops have to do is make the assertion at the time of seizure that the property in question was being used in conjunction with a drug operation. But they never have to prove that in court. As I said they never have to charge you with anything. But they will file suit against your property; there are plenty of court cases like "US v. $17.254.38" and I'll let you guess who wins.
It sucks, but as the only people really directly affected are
(1) drug dealers
(2) black people carrying hundreds in cash when their cars are pulled over
(3) computer geeks
most people are ignorant of the problem and/or don't see it as a problem.
That was the main bit, yeah. But as it turns out, an employee there at the time was associated with the Legion of Doom hacker group - some of which were the folks who got a copy of Bellsouth's E911 document, which Bellsouth tried to claim was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (basically by adding up all of the man-hours logged, AND the cost of every computer used to type the thing up). Operation Sun Devil (which the SJG raid was a part of) was primarily focused on this issue, IIRC.
The funny bits I remember about that whole episode was SJG telling the SS guy "This is a game" and the guy insisting "No, this is real."
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
No one seems to remember what the secret service did to Steve Jackson Games.
Just for a short on topic refresher here is a quote from the EFF site:
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
In the US, people are assumed innocent until proven guilty, especially when they're really nice people who work for respected open-source software companies. Chris Toshok is fairly well-known in the open-source community (I'm amazed the summary didn't mention the he's an Evolution developer). If this happened to someone you knew, and you couldn't imagine them having done it, you'd probably use the same type of language.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Geeks are always presumed innocent on Slashdot. You think that's bad? I hear there's a place called "America" where EVERYONE is presumed innocent until proven guilty! Talk about insane! It must just be a legend.
Because you'd be ordered by a judge to turn over the key, and "I forgot what the key is" or "I lost it" would get you thrown in jail for contempt and obstruction.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Just so you know, they don't have to let you see your lawyer or speak to your lawyer during the search. The only rule about seeing a lawyer is during a custodial interrogation (ie, you're under arrest). If you then ask for a lawyer, then anything you tell the cops after that is inadmissible as direct evidence against you. Those statements, however, would be admissible in court as rebuttal evidence to contradict your own testimony in court later.
But sure, calling your lawyer at that point in time is a pretty good idea. But how many people have criminal defense lawyers on call, anyway? Besides former Enron executives?
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
yes, there's plenty of proof.
http://www.google.com/search?q=civil+forfeiture
no so hilarious when you're driving down the street with a thousand bucks to buy a big screen tv, you get pulled over, and the cops take your money because they aribtrarily determine you were going to buy drugs with it.
I just wonder why he didn't start calling lawyers first, even before brushing his teeth. It's not like they would be offended by his geeky halitosis over the phone. "The system", as a whole, is not out to get you, but when something like this occurs, you can be sure that certain people within the system definitely ARE. You need somebody else in that system on YOUR side. That's the way it works.
As to having a criminal lawyer "on call", not necessary. Just call the first one you find and ask for a referral if your case is not his cup of tea. You can change lawyers if you need to, but it's like changing majors in college. Do it early, if at all.
Aptal soru yoktur; sadece merakli aptallar vardir.
"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.
The bullets don't fly here nearly as much as some might expect. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
"Just so you know, they don't have to let you see your lawyer or speak to your lawyer during the search"
I think your statement is a bit misleading. True, there is nothing that says they have to let you speak with an attorney; but if you aren't being detained, they have no right to stop you, either.
Oh, forgot to add, SJG got $250,000 in damages from the government for its ill-treatment. $50,000 compensation (subject to taxation as income) and $200,000 for the lawyers. Who really won in this case?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation. They were the lawyers in said case, which was their first. Hardly a bad result.
To the contrary, you clearly have a recourse. It is called the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which plainly prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. You have the right to hire a lawyer, go to court, and force them to either demonstrate that they have good cause to retain the machines or else to turn them over. You have a claim for damages should it turn out that they didn't have a good basis for retaining the machines. You have a recourse. Most people won't exercise it however, because they have to pay a lawyer for assistance, although if you are in fact entitled to recover for the malfeasance of officialdom, you can recover your attorney's fees.
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
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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.
Eliot Ness wasn't an agent of the FBI. He was an agent of the US Treasury Department Prohibition Bureau, performing duties that would later be taken over by the Bureau of ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms).
I have some experience in this. The answer is that the 'talk of drugs' has to be evidence of drug posession or trafficking. The general rule, if they find something on your machine that could be used as material (key word) evidence in court they can keep the machine for as long as there is a case in which it could be used (otherwise they have 180 days I beleive).
Contrary to what most of the ill-informed Slashdotters are posting here, there are a variety of property rights that you have in cases like these. While I've never had machines siezed, I have two very good friends that are District Attorneys. I've worked with them as technical consult on a few computer crime cases. In 3 of the 5 cases (2 of which involved the feds) the machines where back in their owners hands in less than 4 weeks. These where all pretty clear cut cases that involved those machines being hacked and used for illegal purposes.
One thing to note, the warrants generally apply to searches involving very specific goals. They actually can't wantonly search every file on your computer (in theory anyways) looking to turn up evidence of some other crime. This is actually a pretty entertaining legal fight...
For those keeping score, the other 2 cases where clear (and I mean CRYSTAL clear) violations of law. 1 resulted in a plea bargain, and the other is awaiting trial. So from MY experience (take it for what it's worth), the experience is not nearly as draconian as your seeing here. While it does suck to have your equipment taken (i'm assuming), these people really don't want to sit on it for years. They want to do there job, gather evidence, and move on with life.
***beginning rant****
As with most things, the government is neither as onerous or interested in you as popular culture wants us to beleive. it's really a far to disparate collection of little agencies to effectively do that. It CAN really screw people, but for the most part people really do get treated fairly. My perception of government has really changed as I've become more and more involved with various portions of it. But I guess fear mongering is really more entertaining at the end of the day. *sighs*
****/end rant*****
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
See http://www.rubberhose.org/. It's out there for, say, human-rights investigators to help keep them alive if they're captured by the nasty people they investigate.