Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
People always seem to think that if the feds take your computers they'll trash them and wipe them and then give them back to you. Though I don't have any personal experience, if you think about forensic techniques and chain-of-evidence type stuff, most likely they'll copy your drives and not even touch your original equipment (this is the standard technique anyways). Really the question is if you ever get your machines back. They might wipe them out, but that would probably seriously screw up their case if there was any evidence on them.
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums...
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.
Took me 18 months, and I was innocent. Got my equipment back and it was covered in grime and obviously had not been taken care of, had masking tape and residue all over it.
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.
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?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Poor bastard got Steve Jacksoned.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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
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
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
Hmm, there's a conspiracy against our gnomies going on. First we lose three dedicated GNOME members, and now this?
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.
In 1997 I cracked a machine in a nearby school district. Not for any particular purpose, but because it was running SunOS. Of course, being lazy and actually somewhat bad at covering my tracks, I got caught about a month later. I just wasn't cut out to be a badass hacker, I guess.
Anyway, the police came to my school and "arrested" me (although I think it was all a setup, because I was never read my rights, and I was never handcuffs -- I think it was a scare tactic, and I was never officially "arrested"). They allowed me to drive my own car back to my house, so they could collect evidence.
They played "good cop, bad cop" with me. But the good cop really was good. He seemed impressed with my skill level, and he actually smiled and talked with me in a conversational tone, like he was interested in how I'd pulled it off. He promised to try and convince his boss to let me off easy. They took my machine into evidence, and I didn't see it for 7 months.
Later that year, after serving my community service, I got a call from the evidence room saying my computer was ready to be picked up. I drove over as fast as possible, fearing the drive had been wiped and all my source code lost. Imagine my surprise when I picked up the machine and it had a Post-It note on it saying "I took the liberty to upgrade your computer. A real hacker needs a 33-MHz, not a 20."
I raced home and popped the case. Sure enough, the detective had installed a 33 MHz 486, and also an additional 4 meg of RAM. I was blown away.
To this day, I am thankful for the detective making the effort to prevent me from going to jail for what I did. I learned my "lesson" the moment the reality dawned on me that I had police officers searching my mother's house. I haven't hacked since, and I hold that detective in the highest regard for seeing that I was just a stupid kid who didn't mean any harm.
I count myself truly lucky to have been arrested by such a man :-)
Your post touched on a very important topic: If they find what they're looking for, or anything else very illegal to have, then they'll be back with the cuffs.
What is the legal scope of their search?
For example, let's pretend this Toshok fellow is completely innocent, and the FBI search of his computers establishes zero link to their original investigation. However, on one computer they find thousands of dollars of unlicensed software and thousands of pirated MP3s and divx vids. Can they confiscate his computer for such an unrelated offense? Can they charge him with a crime? What if during the search of his apartment they found some drugs and an unregistered weapon?
Exactly where is the line?
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.
> If they find something illegal (who doesn't have a "hack for program x" or keygen etc),
Don't the rules limit them to using what was specified on the warrant? Otherwise it's too easy to use a warrant for something trivial as the justification for a fishing expedition.
Of couse, in these days of the all-important War on Blacks^wDrugs and War on Arabs^wTerror, the rules don't seem to matter very much.
> but it is found that they came after you mistakenly, are your computers still lost?
AFAICT, you might as well kiss your stuff goodbye even if you're innocent. Remember the outcome of the clueless cop's crusade against Steve Jackson Games?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A friend of mine caught a person stealling his VCR out of a college dorm. The VCR was taken and held for evidence for nearly two years. It was totally trashed when he got it back. This was in the early days of the VCR when a good machine when for many hundreds of dollars.
It's not just if you get your machine back; it also could be broken beyond all recovery. Oh yeah, the cops claimed that the damage all occurred during the crime, even though we are pretty sure that was not the case.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
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
The scanned documents list an FBI (or is it SS?) agent's name, and a judge's name. You can look them up online -- I understand that the judge really does exist and lives/works somewhere in Bay Area.
I doubt that they'd be happy seeing their name on a fake search warrant. That's the type of stuff that gets you thrown in jail.
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
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
Here
Best Slashdot Co
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.
I have recent experience with this (sorry can't give any more details) and typically everything that can be duplicated is duplicated and a copy is given with whoever is pressing charges (I don't believe they give a copy to the defendant but don't quote me on that). The holders of the duplicated data must keep it in a secured and locked place so that during testimony they can honestly swear that they know that noone has changed the data. The Feds can keep their own copies and originals as long as they want/need, and from talking to agents, it seems they make quite a few. But as far as having your data backed up, there is nothing quite like having it taken by the FBI in a raid, and Linus thought FTP was good:)
Regards,
Steve
P.S. He probably will get his stuff back, they are only hesitant to give things back if there was stuff found on any one of the machines. This guy says he's clear so I wouldn't be too worried about it.
People unwilling to identify themselves significantly are not, in my opinion, being "nice". As far as these guys know, they were invaded by a bunch of extremely well-organized burglars. The badges mean nothing if you cannot compare them to something else.
As for the "fishing"...if he's got anything deeply encrypted on those machines, he'll never get them back. Period.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
Why not just use an encrypted file system?
Huh ? I've yet to see a single computer that is completely "clear". Not to mentionm nine of these, probably together with backups going back several years.
Think about it: did you never ever copy some piece of software ? did you always pay that Microsft tax ? is all your pr0n lily white and safe in every conceivable community ? What about your email archive - what did you discuss ? You sure the feds will "understand" every joke you sent out ? Did you stay clear of all those forbidden topics ? Growing hemp, copying dvds, red or left wing direct action politics, guns or anti guns, computer securtity, encryption, viruses, islam, your hollidays in afghanistan or cuba, or whatever else gets people into jail over there these days ?
If they want, they can and will keep these machines forever.
In any case, a normal-length passphrase (8 chars or less) could get brute forced fairly easily. If it was a longer key stored in hardware (and they didn't have the hardware), they would ask you where it was, and refusing to tell them would not be a good idea.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
The company I worked for got their computers "taken". This happend in 97, the suit has been settled out of court in 99 and they still haven't received any equipment back. And at this point it would cost more in lawyer fees then it's worth it (including all their data)
If reports of past activities by other "law enforcement" agencies are anything to go on...don't hold your breath. Instead start saving for new equipment. If they ever do bother to return it, it's likely to be many years from now. (And that's assuming that they can't find, or appear to find, anything that could plausibly be interpreted as illegal on it.)
I suspect that if you are lucky, they'll just forget about it, and some "office of the law" will give it to his kid. If you aren't lucky, they may come back for all of your property and cash. (I might, with some plausibility, be asserted to be involved in something that might be related to gangsterism under some argument. So we must remove anything that you could use to practice your profession, hire a lawyer, or otherwise do something besides live on welfare.)
I know an MD who's been fighting the DEA for over five years now. It's looking like he may eventually win, since they have essentially no evidence. (I hear his side.) But he's already served time in jail, had all his medical records and computer equipment confiscated. Had his license lifted. Etc. The charge? He prescribed a few more pain killers to cancer patients than the feds decided the patients needed. (The other charges got dropped after the first hearing, when the prosecutor refused to defend the charges.)
So. He hasn't been found guilty of anything, but his professional live has been destroyed. His license has been lifted. All his possessions have been confiscated. He's served time in jail (without being found guilty!) Etc.
So. Well, trust them to nicely hand back your computer if you want. But consider yourself lucky if they just forget you. And DON'T expect THEM to consider themselves bound by any laws. Laws are for others.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
not to mention that even if you're in the clear if you get caught up in something like this the computers are instantly effectively lost which itself can be quite a financial burden.
I had my computer taken by into custody once, saw it over 2 years later(no charges raised, no compensation paid, and this wasn't in usa).
What one should do in this kind of situation is that don't admit to anything before you know what you're admitting to, they can easily try to get you to admit something that was effectively impossible to do! REVIEW THOSE STATEMENT PAPERS CAREFULLY(questionnaire logs? anyways the paper that has all the things you're signing as the ones that you said while being questioned) BEFORE SIGNING!
though personally I happen to think in this case that valve is just full of shit. Can't ship a product, being horrible behind schedule? well let's blame the hackers! (having seen the leaked thing - the engine was not fit for the release dates that were in effect when this was published, the engine must have been behind the schedule for months already so that it should have been very fucking obvious that they were not going to be able to ship it when stated)
anon for some reason or another..
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
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?...:)
I can't help feeling that it would be even cooler to hide a bluetooth memory stick somewhere (Maybe the lining of a curtain or something) and use that for all your dodgyness. Sure, you'd need to pull it out to change the batteries now and again but it's still quite a neat little trick.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
Now I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he gets his own show!
-AC