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."
I forget exactly why it's technically under their jurisdiction, but 2600 has (had?) a large section on their website detailing the Secret Service's activities against suspected hackers, crackers, etc. such as busting up 2600 meetings and seizing any computer bits anybody had on them at the time.
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.
Rather than "FBI agents, acting under a warrant issued due to probable cause having been ascertained, ..."
welcome to slashdot.
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.
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!
How many times has Slashdot been approached by law enforcement agencies to obtain access to records or postings?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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
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 :-)
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.
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.
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?...:)