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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.'"
Why not?
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
One of my favorite law stories ever:
The judges in the small county I used to work in (Charles County, MD) were notoriously tough on cocaine dealers. The neighboring jurisdiction was so overwhemled with drugs that drug dealers in that county were typically given much lighter sentences. The disparity was so great that smart dealers refused to deal in Charles County. Instead, they would arrange deals next to the border without actually ever crossing into Charles Co.
So when the Charles County Sheriff's Office wanted to mount a major drug sting, they moved the "Welcome to Charles County" sign back a hundred feet or so, and would arrange deals just across the border. We put away a lot of bad people for a long time. Brilliant.
Um... Yeah. I have no problem with this.
Well, just before 09/11, the FBI retasked most of their anti-terror team to work on copyright. Says something about their priorities. Or rather, the priorities of those in charge of their budget.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If you are wanted for a crime in some country, you should avoid:
1) Going to that country
2) Going to countries with extradition agreements with that country
If you are dumb enough to go to the country, you deserve to be arrested.
How would I feel if someone tricked dumb American criminals into getting arrested? Pretty good. We could use less criminals on the streets. Feel free.
This isn't exactly a civil rights issue.
It depends on where he committed the crime. He's a german citizen commiting a crime in germany (and he was punished for it under german law) then that FBI can GTFO as far as I'm concerned. If they were that bothered they could have applied for extradition rather that using underhand tricks.
No different from the Dimitri Skylarov case, except he was arrested for something that wasn't even a crime in his home country.
Americans get worse treatment in other countries then visitors to the US do when they come here.
I can say this because I hold citizenship in three countries. And have lived in all three would rather tangle with the american law enforcement then the other two.
When Michael Fay was caned in Singapore for vandalism, the majority of the USA cheered, because he acted like an ass in another country, and he deserved what he got.
I had the misfortune of meeting the prick years later, and he almost got caned again with a pool cue.
But in the US there is a saying. IF you can't do the time, do'nt do the crime.
Nothing arrogant about the way they were caught.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Where are the studies saying it didn't.
Pick up a history book sometime. You might learn something.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
It's a dangerous subversion of democracy, but it's also the real situation in the US(1). The CEO of Chrysler has as much voting power of a single welfare recipient. To whom do you think elected officials listen?
Besides, while corporations don't have votes, they do have employees. I'd be reluctant to vote for a candidate whose policies will hurt IBM. When your employer suffers, you usually suffer too.
(1) Arguably, it's also the system working as designed. Many of thhe founding fathers were scared of democracy, and much preferred an aristocratic republic on the Roman model.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
He DIDN'T commit the crime! RTFA!!!
He told others that he got into valve, said others figured out how he did it and stole the code.
OK, MDMA was given to people as a mood elevator in the 70s and 80s.
MDMA is a methamphetamine derived chemical. There is (if memory serves me well enough) either 2 or 3 differences in the chain.
They also DID prescribe methamphetamine as a mood elevator, as well as a brochiodilator.
Methamphetamine was given to our troops in Viet Nam. A good friend of mine actually has a bottle of it (the empty bottle, the contents where LONG ago consumed). His argument for having it is: I'm a methamphetamine addict. I had never touched it, nor heard of it, until Viet Nam. My government gave me pretty much all I wanted then. So, they gave me the FUCKING habit. Should I ever be arrested, this is a DAMNING piece of evidence. I don't think he would do very well, but it still serves as evidence of Methamphetamine ABuse from our government in the 60s / 70s.
Matter of fact, Methamphetamine is STILL legally prescribed in the United States. It's used for SEVERE obesity as well as narcolepsy. VERY few people get it for ADD/HD as well.
Cocaine? Yup, we have that as well. Most opthamology shops set up for surgery (not your basic eyeglasses plus type place, or julios lasic clinic, but REAL eye surgeons), they get Cocaine. It's one of, if not the only anesthetic used IN the eyeball.
Coca Cola ALSO STILL uses Coca in their drink. The Coca BASE (which is cocaine, after refining) is whisked away for no apparent reason (I'd say, more than likely, for the production of legal cocaine, for eye dox, but I'm sure they don't say for security reasons) is brought to the states. Matter of fact, Coca Cola Bottling is the BIGGEST single purchaser of Coca in the world.
Care to anonymously talk about this some more? I tend to know a bit more than the average idiot about drugs, drug use, pharmacology, and the such. Growing up in one of the largest methamphetamine production towns in the world during the 80s kinda does that for ya.
--Toll_Free
The point wasn't whether the act itself was illegal or legal, it was about the question if someone who committed a crime in country A which causes damages in country B, should be tried in country B.
I agree that if this guy broke the law he should be prosecuted. Only by the country where the crime is committed, otherwise you leave loopholes open like the example I gave.
If a party in country B has damages, they can go through the legal system of country A to claim damages. This just feels like some nationalistic 'We are americans and don't fuck with us' kneejerk reaction. I had hoped that attitude had gone with G.W.
Nihil in publicum sputa.
(A) It was a joke for the geeks,since we do actually know the difference. I also added the crotchety bit and "Get off my lawn" for emphasis. (B) I don't really care WHAT the HDD manufacturers want to measure in,hell they can measure in ramen noodles for all I care, although I do find it odd that until the "race for 1 gigabyte" they actually reported in base 2.
The problem isn't that,the problem is their damned box labeling! Have you looked for the "its base 10,not base 2" label on a HDD box lately? It has gotten so damned tiny I'm going to have to buy one of those big ass magnifying glasses like they used in WW2 to spot German defense positions from aerial photos just to show that damned label to my customers! If they weren't trying to be sneaky or hide it from the customer,then why not simply put in on the front,right below the main label? Because the last two I bought had it in print that even with my 20/20 eyesight I had trouble reading and one you had to actually pull a sticker off the box to even read it at all!
And as one of the earlier posters pointed out it makes NO damned sense! Because we all know that a BYTE is 8 bits,yes? So anything with BYTE in it should be on orders of 8,NOT ten. So the word simply doesn't work. And as another poster pointed out with the Tb range becoming common the difference is really becoming staggering. And now the size has gotten so huge lying to make it sound bigger is kind of pointless. So why not simply label them back into a form that nearly every OS on the planet uses? After all anything over 1Tb is pretty much a shitload of data,whether that shitload be in base 2 or 10.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If you don't have the guts to do it regardless of the law, then you probably don't have the inner strength to actually make it through the trip without freaking. It's not like riding a roller coaster, where after 30 seconds it's all over. Some trips can keep you going for 12 hours and more. Once you have started freaking, you are stuck with it. You need a very particular kind of attitude to be able to deal with that and not come out a shambling monkey. How much primal animal fear can you handle ? (hint if you're worried about breaking a law, then I'd guess not much) Imagine the very worst thing you can dream up - now amplify it and live through it. The mind is a very powerful thing, and not enough people know their own mind well enough when they're straight let alone when it has assumed the power that LSD can give.
I've seen big hard men reduced to quivering crying babies after thinking they could handle LSD.
I'm not saying that if you have the right attitude you won't freak, but when you freak (and everybody does sooner or later) you can handle it. I had to get someone to turn the stereo off once before the song reached a certain line, because I was so immersed that I felt that hearing the line in question was going to kill me. (Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb).
Remember in the Matrix, Neo asked "if you die inside the Matrix, you die in real life too ?", Morpheus said "The body cannot live without the mind". This is quite possible. If I had been taking acid when the Matrix came out, I would probably never had taken as much as I did. As it happened, I stopped doing LSD a good decade before that film.
Pro-tip : never trip by yourself, always share the experience with a friend (who is in the same state). Know when to say no. If you have even the slightest fear about doing it - don't do it. That fear is the seed of a Bad Trip. It IS pitch black, and you ARE likely to be eaten by a Grue.
Beginners tip : just don't. But if you do, get as far away from civilisation as you can before you do it, and enjoy the stars or something. Avoid natural hazards (cliffs, ravines, rivers) and keep your clothes on ! Also, read the pro-tip.
My final word here is just to stress that hard drug taking is not like a funfair ride. You can't just get off the ride when you feel like it, and it will change you and your life, immediately and for ever more, even after just one trip. You will never be the same person ever again. None of what I just said is related to addiction, just the fallout from the experience. So, ask yourself - Do I feel lucky ?
Disclaimer : I am not a doctor, I am not your doctor. I post here to redress the imbalance of information between people who think drugs are cool and spout off bullshit, and those who have actually been down that road and survived (just). I will never and have never encouraged anybody to take drugs.
This is what extradition treaties are for, to work out details like this (and BTW, if you represent a nation and are working on an extradition treaty with the US, make sure you specifically forbid the US from engaging in "extraordinary rendition", and specify that any violations shall be remedied by, in the least, repatriating the "rendered" suspect. It should go without saying but it doesn't)
However, there's no issue like that in this case. If someone in the US who has committed a crime in the UK travels there, the UK can arrest and try him and it's all perfectly legal regardless of whether the crime was extraditable or not.
Eh? There's a country where the cops can't lie, at all, to suspects? Do you have any references to that?
In the US they can and do lie about almost anything; there's a few exceptions, like they can't have a prosecutor pretend to be a public defender (which has shown up on TV police procedurals, but I don't know if they've tried it in real life), and they can't threaten extrajudicial punishment to obtain a confession (which alas happens all the time, and the cops just deny it).