The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker

eldavojohn writes "You might remember the tiny news that Half Life 2 source code was leaked in 2003 ... it is the 6th most visited Slashdot story with over one kilocomment. Well, did anything happen to the source of the leak, the German hacker Axel 'Ago' Gembe? Wired is reporting he was offered a job interview so that Valve could get him into the US and bag him for charges. It's not the first time the FBI tried this trick: 'The same Seattle FBI office had successfully used an identical gambit in 2001, when they created a fake startup company called Invita, and lured two known Russian hackers to the US for a job interview, where they were arrested.'"

Comments

shouldn't be legal

[nurb432]

I don't care what the guy has done, tricks like this should not be legal.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[SoapBox17]

From wikipedia: "Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent in inducing a person to commit an offence which the person would not have, or was unlikely to have, otherwise committed."

This is not a case of entrapment because the person was not induced to commit an offense. He was induced to come to the country after the offense was committed.

A good example of entrapment would be if the FBI tricked him in to coming in the country and then arrested him for coming in to the country illegally (invalid visa or some such).

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Threni]

Wasting money protecting source code after the event. I'm a taxpayer - I don't give a shit about it. If someone releases a game based on it, follow the money. Some guy with some source code - big deal.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[citylivin]

"We put away a lot of bad people for a long time. Brilliant. "

While an interesting story, I hope you don't believe that anyone put away for dealing illegal drugs is a "bad" person. Drugs are by and large a choice that effects no one except yourself. You can get into debates using crackheads (who are universally hated) if you'd like, but the point still remains. If all drugs were legal, these "bad people" would simply cease to exsist, or at worst become coca farmers.

Dont even get me started on the "evilness" of users, whom im sure you had no moral problems in also arresting.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[jcr]

If the perp is stupid enough to travel to a country where he's wanted, that's evolution in action.

-jcr

Re:shouldn't be legal

[hcgpragt]

Well Sir, I like my government to be trustworthy. They 'won' a few bad-guys but send out a very significant signal: don't trust us.

by the way: What is wrong with one county talking to the others to get their politics more into one line? democracy at work :)

Re:shouldn't be legal

[jcr]

if they were legal, they would do the same thing.

Why didn't this happen back when all drugs were available over-the-counter?

-jcr

Re:shouldn't be legal

[bunratty]

The damage has already been done? Huh? You are aware that in most cases arrests occur after the commission of a crime, right?

Re:shouldn't be legal

[mrchaotica]

It's not an issue of protecting the source code -- I think even the FBI is minimally competent enough to realize that cat's out of the bag -- it's an issue of punishing the guy for the computer tresspass etc..

Re:shouldn't be legal

[MadnessASAP]

I have a problem the same way I have a problem with someone stealing for booze. or getting drunk and driving over someone, or going on a murderous rampage while drunk. All of which happen far more often then the crackhead equivalents.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[qbzzt]

Wasting money protecting source code after the event.

Any time the police arrests a criminal, it is by definition after the event. Sometimes the damage can be undone, as in theft. Sometimes it cannot, as in murder. We still want criminals punished to deter others.

If you truly don't want source code leaks punished because it's a waste of your tax dollars, you're welcome to lobby to change the law. However, I'm sure other tax payers, such as corporations that own source code, would lobby to keep it.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[karlwilson]

I love how this was modded down. What a joke. The parent is exactly right. Drugs like cocaine, meth, etc. all distort the perception of whoever takes them to the point where they can and DO harm others around them with or without realizing they're doing so.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[mrchaotica]

I hope you don't believe that anyone put away for dealing illegal drugs is a "bad" person.

Dealing drugs is different from using them. Drug dealing is often associated with other crimes: robbery, assault, murder, etc. While I agree with you that choosing to sell drugs is not necessarily indicative of a bad person in itself, and I preemptively agree with you that a lot of that ancillary crime is caused by the very fact that drug dealing is illegal, the fact that the dealer is willing to accept the circumstances and participate in that crime in order to deal makes him a bad person.

If all drugs were legal, these "bad people" would simply cease to exsist, or at worst become coca farmers.

I disagree: if all drugs were legal, the people currently selling them would move onto some other lucrative, illegal activity. For example, the Mafia didn't cease to exist when Prohibition ended and they couldn't run their speakeasys anymore; they just stepped up their extortion, money laundering, etc. to compensate.

In other words, people are not inherently bad because they choose to deal drugs, but the illegality of dealing drugs attracts bad people to it.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[kingrooster]

Haha, you're funny. On the whole, drug users do commit more crimes than non-drug users. I'll give you that. On the other hand, poor people commit more crimes than rich people. Young people commit more crimes than old people. Punish the crime and treat the addict. Don't ignore illegal drug trafficking, regulate it. Drug use and sale in and of itself should not be a crime.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[LateArthurDent]

Why not?

Because it bypasses protections established by extradition treaties (or lack thereof). How would you like to be tricked into visiting Iran, and then be prosecuted for posting some offensive comment on slashdot?

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Ravon Rodriguez]

two words: personal responsibility. If they break into cars, they should go to jail. Not because they were on crack. If the drugs are impacting their life and other people's lives, then its their responsibility to get off drugs or face the consequences, not the state's responsibility to make them. People get arrested for drunk driving all the time; it doesn't mean drinking should be illegal, it just means that drunk drivers should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[AK Marc]

Because fraud is illegal. Con games in order to deprive someone of something are illegal. The government should never partake of otherwise illegal means in order to "catch" anyone. If you can't get them playing within the rules, let them go. If the government is willing to set up someone, what makes you think they won't set you up? They have proven they are willing to lie and cheat to get what they want. Are you ok with that if it is what you want, but not ok if it isn't what you want? I find that a inconsistent and hypocritical stance, and I take the one where they shouldn't lie ever. If I were emperor of the universe, I'd pass a law that any police officer that lies, any judge, prosecuter, or such that misleads a suspect, anyone that "tricks" anyone through deception to reveal something should be immediately sacked. If there is a proven history of it, they should be prosecuted for deceiving the public. Those in the positions of authority should not be allowed to abuse it. Cops have fought in court for the right to lie. As such, they are self-confirmed liars who will abuse the law in order to uphold the parts they think important (without ever making it official what is and isn't important, and that may change at any time). That's not a very good job of "protecting and serving."

Re:shouldn't be legal

[SpottedKuh]

Wasting money protecting source code after the event. I'm a taxpayer [...] If someone releases a game based on it, follow the money.

Yeah, as a taxpayer, I'm really upset too when the police waste money trying to arrest a murderer after the event. I mean, the victim's already dead, so they're wasting money trying to protect him. If someone releases a book about the murder, then follow the money. Otherwise, big deal.

In case the previous paragraph didn't drip enough sarcasm in your direction, let's try this another way. It's the job of the police to investigate crimes that have occurred and to arrest those that they have reasonable grounds to believe are guilty. In this case, police have reasonable grounds to arrest him on suspicion of having committed a crime (some variant of breaking into a computer). What does it matter how much or how little he profited from the crime? That's for the judge to take into account, not the police.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's not fraud, and it's not illegal. What the government did, arresting a foreign criminal who committed a crime in the USA, is perfectly legal. How they got him to enter into the USA, by setting up a fake job interview, is also perfectly legal. I can set up fake job interviews with as many people as I want. So can the feds. It's not against the law.

But what most people seem to be missing is the sheer stupidity of the criminal. If a company I had hacked into, stolen source code from, and embarrassed publicly suddenly invited me to their corporate HQ in a foreign country, I would be a weee bit suspcious.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[RiotingPacifist]

replace Iran with UK, because of that violent pornography you watch!

Re:shouldn't be legal

[totally bogus dude]

I can set up fake job interviews with as many people as I want. So can the feds. It's not against the law.

Are you sure? I can't find anything to confirm this but I always thought advertising or offering employment when you actually have no intention to employ anyone was at least a civil offence, if not actually criminal.

On the other hand, I think I've seen pranks and the like that involved fake job interviews, so it may well be perfectly legal. I don't think it should be though. At the very least advertising a non-existent job should be punishable under "false advertising" laws.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[hurfy]

"The drugs used by three perps affected nobody but themselves..."

Exactly right.

The bad driving/DUI, theft and robbery on the other hand did. Coincidentally they are illegal in their own right even if we don't punish people enough for them :(

Not to mention in 2 of the 3 you don't even say they were on drugs, only that they wanted money. Not sure how you figure they wouldn't do the same for cigarettes, booze, food, or a new leather coat. They work for those and rob people for drug money i suppose .....

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Toll_Free]

What is the difference?

If the computer storing the game bits of code is based in the US, and he attacks it (hacks it), then he committed a crime under US law.

Don't tell me you actually think that people doing malicious hacking shouldn't be appropriately dealt with by the country whose laws they fucked over by hacking.... I mean, all you'd have to do is go to international waters and you could do all you wanted, to any country you wanted, to any server you wanted, and there would be no retribution.

Unless you where going for the point of if he copied it by USB method, he is guilty of criminal trespass as well as computer trespass.

--Toll_Free

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Toll_Free]

That's for the judge to take into account, not the police.

And that's for the judge to take into account during sentencing, not during the guilt phase of a trial.

--Toll_Free

Re:shouldn't be legal

[ceoyoyo]

The UK doesn't have any laws against you watching violent porn outside the country.

Now, if you ripped off a major UK company you might want to think twice about going there.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Anonymous Coward]

It's never a good thing to compare theft to murder as a way to refute an argument against theft, sarcasm aside. Just make your argument and don't draw a parallel that's sure to provoke criticism and draw attention away from the problem presented. Theft is not murder and vice versa. Theft is still wrong, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Other than that, I agree.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Neoprofin]

If the crime would have been committed either way i don't see how their dishonesty makes even the slightest amount of difference to someone who isn't trying to play the system. It's not like moving the sign caused something to be illegal that wasn't already, all it did was make enforcement stronger.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[prisoner-of-enigma]

At the very least advertising a non-existent job should be punishable under "false advertising" laws.

False advertising laws are in place to protect consumers from abuse. Advertising a job interview is not the same as advertising a product. It's perfectly legal for me to invite as many people as I want to my office for an interview -- and no job need exist for me to do that. I can interview them all, get all their resumes, and never follow up with a single one of them. It's not illegal, nor should it be. After all, if it were illegal, why would it be illegal? Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property? I have not. If people came and wasted their time, they did so voluntarily.

You need to get out of this mindset that something "ought to be illegal" just because you don't like it.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I'm sure other tax payers, such as corporations that own source code, would lobby to keep it.

Waitaminute. It's not being a taxpayer that gives someone a stake in the government - it's being a citizen, and having a vote. That means that a lifelong welfare recipient and a survivalist hermit, neither of whom pay a dollar of tax in their lives, have a representative in Washington who is supposed to look out for their interests and listen to their concerns. A corporation, regardless of how much tax it pays, is not supposed to have such representation.

Sorry for jumping on you here, but I think that the way your post is expressed - implying that a corporate taxpayer deserves representation - is a dangerous subversion of democracy.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[ceoyoyo]

I suggest you read the article, a little more carefully. He broke into Valve's network, but he claims he didn't actually steal the source, he just bragged about what he did, including details, on IRC and happened to be overheard.

Since you like analogies, try this one:

I figure out that the lock on your back door is crappy so I break it and sneak in. I keep sneaking in for six months, because I like watching you and your wife have sex. I brag about the whole thing to a bunch of my friends, who also start sneaking into your house (I told them how) and they film you having sex with your wife and release it on the Internet.

Damage is done, I should get off, right?

(Note to young slashdotters - replace "having sex with your wife" to something suitably embarrassing that you wouldn't want plastered all over the Internet. Use your imagination.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[timeOday]

Because it bypasses protections established by extradition treaties (or lack thereof). How would you like to be tricked into visiting Iran, and then be prosecuted for posting some offensive comment on slashdot?

By the way, this does happen. 2/3rds of the time you hear about some American "kidnapped" by Iran, it turns out there's some legal basis for it - in Iran, of course. (e.g. "Not without my daughter" and Haleh Esfandiari. Does that mean Iran is right? Nah, it means be careful where you go.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[AK Marc]

So it shouldn't be legal for the gov't (city or state cop) to exceed the speed limit in order to catch a criminal flying down the highway at 100mph?

Personally, I think that's true. They should shoot out the tires, and if they can't do that, shoot out the driver. To go 120 mph to catch up to someone going 80 in a 70 to give them a ticket is absurd. If it's safe for them to go that fast, how can it be unsafe for the person only going 10 over the limit?

Or to setup a drug bust using real drugs that stupid criminals buy off them?

Which part should I object to, the entrapment or the using real drugs when they went and bothered to make it illegal to sell flour, or should I object to the fact that selling flour is illegal if the person believes it to be drugs?

As long as it isn't entrapment and they respect civil rights there is no harm done.

I assert that fraud in enforcement of the law is a violation of civil rights. Maybe not the protected civil rights observed in the US, but I believe it to be a right none the less.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Free the Cowards]

Funny how physical location doesn't matter on the internet right up until a "hacker" does something "heroic", and then suddenly it's all "nyah nyah, jurisdiction".

He committed a crime against a US entity. He was then foolish enough to put himself within US law enforcement. He's now suffering the consequences of his crime and his stupidity.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[rmdashrf]

So by your reasoning, you should be able to be imprisoned by the chinese government if you watch (by chinese government deemed) illegal content on a website that's hosted on a server in China. Even though the content of the website is perfectly legal in the country where you are browsing in? No? Didn't think so... This type of entrapment is a slippery slope.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So it shouldn't be legal for the gov't (city or state cop) to exceed the speed limit in order to catch a criminal flying down the highway at 100mph?

Personally, I think that's true. They should shoot out the tires, and if they can't do that, shoot out the driver. To go 120 mph to catch up to someone going 80 in a 70 to give them a ticket is absurd. If it's safe for them to go that fast, how can it be unsafe for the person only going 10 over the limit?

(a) The police car is running sirens and lights warning other drivers that they need to take special care because the vehicle is exceeding the normal limits. All too frequently that is NOT the case, which is despicable and people frequently are killed because of it.
(b) The driver of the vehicle is well trained (and current) in high speed defensive driving.

As long as those two requirements are satisfied, then I believe it is valid for police and others with legitimate reason to speed. Certainly shooting at the tires and the driver brings significant risks which can endanger other people present. Also, shooting the driver should almost never be an option - extra-judicial killings are a huge opportunity for civil rights violations.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[Achromatic1978]

Given that he's already been arrested and charged and faced a trial in Germany, if nothing else, I fail to see how this isn't double jeopardy.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[pclminion]

They should shoot out the tires, and if they can't do that, shoot out the driver. To go 120 mph to catch up to someone going 80 in a 70 to give them a ticket is absurd. If it's safe for them to go that fast, how can it be unsafe for the person only going 10 over the limit?

People (such as cops) can be trained to drive fast, as safely as possible. People can also be trained to perform open heart surgery. That doesn't mean we allow just any freak to do it. The road devolves to the lowest common denominator. As far shooting out tires/drivers, are you completely nuts? That's something from the movies. I personally don't want bullets flying around my city and bouncing into my house unless there is an obvious and immediate threat to life or limb. Nor do I want cars being driven by dead drivers careening across highway barriers at 80 miles per hour.

And anyway, the police give chase not for the speeding but because the individual is fleeing from the police. The moment you refuse to pull over you're already committing a completely different crime than speeding.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[badpazzword]

What is the difference?

If the computer storing the game bits of code is based in the US, and he attacks it (hacks it), then he committed a crime under US law.

Do you really mean that Chinese people do not commit a crime by talking about "taboo topics" as long as they do that on US-based Blogspot?

The guy has undergone a trial in Germany already, and has been condemned already. What makes it fair for him to be charged twice for the same crime?

Re:shouldn't be legal

[FireFury03]

People don't suddenly become evil the day they employ someone else.

However, a company with, say, 10,000 employees generally seems to have a *lot* more political power than 10,000 individual citizens. Whilst the company is being benevolent this isn't a big problem, but large organisations rarely stay that way - eventually they tend to use that political power to further their own interests at the expense of the larger population.

This isn't about "being evil", it's about the fact that most people and organisations value their own interests above those of others, so giving them a disproportionate amount of power is a really Bad Thing.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[RockDoctor]

FYI, if you dont know the crime was commited on Valve computers, meaning the original crime was performed in the USA.

There's a hidden assumption in there - actually several. They may be correct, but your point is only valid if they're all correct.

• You're assuming that "Valve" is an American company - in the corporate sense ; it's perfectly credible that (for example) tax reasons, it's not an American company, though they maintain a façade of being American for political reasons.
• Even if Valve are actually an American company, you're assuming that the servers in question are in America ; given the relative costs of bandwidth and administration, it's not incredible that a Valve programmer sitting in a home office in Much Hammering (why would they work in a centralised, expensive office?) is working on code stored on a server actually hosted in India.
• ("Much Hammering" is a fictional programmer's enclave in the Schwarzwald, or anywhere the programmer chooses to live ; the code jockey is hired for his skills, not his physical location. One of our staff programmers recently moved 500+km over the border into England, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to work for us.)
• You're also assuming that the command passed at some point through communications infrastructure located in the US. Even if Valve were an American company, if their data were in India and were hacked from Germany, the routing may well not have touched American-owned or -operated systems at all.

Some (if not all) of those points need to have been checked before spending American TaxPayer's money on this (via the FBI). It's quite plausible that no crime, by American rules, has been committed. It's equally plausible that an alleged crime is not supported by sufficient evidence to succeed with an extradition request under German law.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[mi]

So by your reasoning, you should be able to be imprisoned by the chinese government if you watch (by chinese government deemed) illegal content on a website that's hosted on a server in China.

Yes, as a matter of fact, that's true. I wish, more people realized that, and stopped doing business with China...

Not that your analogy is valid, really, because prosecutions in China aren't determined by the Law, but mostly by political and/or economic expediency.

Re:shouldn't be legal

[ultranova]

The ONLY thing preventing this are various treaties, and other political niceties; but at the end of the day, if China wants you bad enough, and is willing to take the political fallout over the issue, the moment you step into China, you are finished.

So the lesson here is to never, ever, under any circumstances or for any reason whatsoever, go to either China or the United States. Got it.

Apart from the HL2 Source Code

[Psychotria]

Apart from the HL2 source code being realease into the wild (which I agree was a big thing), the stuff this guy did to get the source code is probably a bigger deal. He compromised Valve's machines. He broke into their network. He installed keyloggers. He hijacked email accounts. He (maybe) initiated DoS attacks on their servers. Even if he did not steal and release the HL2 source code (trade secrets) what he did was pretty damn wrong... and illegal in most places of the world. The FBI, in my opinion, has every right to chase this guy (no, I do not live in the US). Chase the guy, catch him and let him rot in jail. Summary: the HL2 source code release, at this point in time, is not the big deal; it's all the other laws he broke.

Re:Apart from the HL2 Source Code

[Psychotria]

Repeat after me, virtual crime is virtual not real.

The guy did not commit a fscking "virtual crime". The crime was real. No matter what way you choose to spin it, the result is the same: the crime was a crime, a REAL crime, and that is that. The guy's crimes are not limited to the Valve/HL2 source episode either, but I do not want to get offtopic.

If you think that what he did was a "virtual crime", then please explain to me how it was virtual and not real. The only slippery slope, in my mind, is your distorted view of reality. How is stealing someone elses data just a "virtual" crime and not a real crime (ignoring all the other criminal activities he engaged in)?

Your stupid mantra that you suggest I repeat is the voice of an idiot. I choose not to follow the advice of the insane, immature or the ill-informed. Thanks for the suggestion though.

By the way, if you feel so strongly about your beliefs then I suggest you register an account and don't post anonomously. Anonymous posts are for those who are not confident at all in their ideas (or, I concede, there are legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous... but your post was not one of them... and I can only assume you're a troll or someone who is not confident enough to assert their beliefs and accept the consequences [either positive or negative]). Thanks

Valve should give him a medal

[imsabbel]

I mean, seriously.
Anybody remember that incident? Gave valve a golden excuse for delaying HL2.

It happened 6 weeks or so for the announced release data. And magically, after the leak they needed time to fix "security issues". For more than a fucking year. Because we all believe that the game really was finished at that point..

So if Valve doesn't care if your TV is stolen

[unassimilatible]

Should the FBI not pursue the thief? Valve pays taxes, too.

I love how so many Slashdotters are absolutists about following the law - until someone they disagree with is protected by it.

Don't let your dogma run over your karma.

Re:Kilocomment?

[EvanED]

What I don't understand is why we allowed some asshole RAM and HDD manufacturers to steal our word?

Speaking as someone who grew up learning that "kilo-" means 1000, what I don't understand why we allowed some asshole CS people to steal our prefix?

Re:Kilocomment?

[jonbryce]

Just HDD manufacturers. When you buy an 8GB RAM stick you get 8,589,934,592 bytes of RAM, just like you should. When you buy an 8GB hard drive, you only get 8,000,000,000 bytes of HDD space.

Re:myg0t

[strikethree]

They are not cheaters per se. Cheating is their modus operandi. They are griefers. Their goal is to get you as mad as possible. If they can empty out a server, they are happy. If they can make you angry, they have succeeded in their goals.

strike