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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.'"
Really, quite old news. This was reported on right after it happened. If I remember right though, Gabe claimed that they had succeeded in tricking the hacker. They did speak with him on the phone
I don't care what the guy has done, tricks like this should not be legal.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So many people heard that the Half Life 2 engine source code was taken, that they started referring to the engine as the "source engine", and it's been known by that name ever since.
The article mentions that this trap failed. Apparently he suspected something.
Anyway, Gembe was sentenced to probation in Germany for the breach and leak. Interesting that the FBI apparently took this so much more seriously than the German courts.
The group named in the article is "myg0t" not "mygot." They developed some of the first hacks for Counter-Strike (the original). They became so well known in game as cheaters that a lot of servers are set to automatically kick any playing wearing their tag.
Do not go somewhere where I'm wanted. Stay in the countries where there are NO warrants for my arrests.
that's just cruel.
Work Safe Porn
depends ...
Is a kilocomment 1000 or 1024 comments ?!?
If i am supposed to slow down...about telling me how slow
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.
will you arrogant americans stomach your citizens being arrested in set traps worldwide ?
A friend of mine is set to be drafted immediately into their military if he ever sets foot in Turkey, since he was born in a Turkish hospital. That said, do you think he's dumb enough to accept a job interview for a Turkish company? It doesn't matter how delicious it sounds, he's not biting.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
1000, the story received 1003 comments.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
A kibicomment is 1024 comments.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I can use information theory to prove that the answer is infinity...
Information content of library of congress: I(lib) = 1 bazillion bits.
Information content of one kilocomment: I(1kc) = 0 bits.
kilocomments in a Library of Congress = I(lib)/I(1kc) = 1 bazillion / 0 = infinity.
QED
There's a difference between a Kilobyte(1000) and a Kibibyte. (1024)
The Kibibyte was coined to distinguish the former from the latter.
For more information, please refer to this chart: http://xkcd.com/394/
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
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.
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..
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I'm from the USA. What's the conversion between kilocomments and shit-tons? Google conversions doesn't seem to have it. I find it odd that they will happily do furlongs per fortnight but don't have this...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Coca tea is natural and healthful, containing a tiny, tiny amount of cocaine. The original Coca-Cola was coca tea, cola, sugar, and carbonation. (The modern version is decocainized - similar to decaffeinating.) It is only because people refine the cocaine into a pure form that it becomes dangerously addictive. And then some criminally selfish people sell the cocaine on the street to extract money from people now controlled by the chemical.
IMO, they should decriminalize all "natural" drugs, from peyote to green mulberries to marijuana to coca leaf to opium to frogs, and keep the synthetic and refined stuff (LSD, meth, heroine, cocaine, etc) by prescription only (and recreation is not a reason for a prescription).
I know two people who blew their brains on drugs. The "drug" was nutmeg (in large doses). Our street is littered with mulberries (unripe mulberries are hallucinogenic). Marijuana grows on the police station lawn as a weed (Fairfax, VA). Attempting to control everyday natural products is just insane - and just leads to police arresting whomever they please.
"You are under arrest for possession of marijuana."
"Huh?"
[click][click]"Thought you could grow it in your front lawn without us noticing, did you?"
Thinks, "Damn, forgot the broadleaf killer again..."
Wow. A bunch of e-mails and a 40 minute phone call... costing billions. I didn't realize it was so expensive to call Germany! They should have just flown there instead. Such fiscal irresponsibility!
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.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
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?
well, aywwts4 is clearly a hard drive manufacturer.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish hospital?"
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
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?
Because base-10 is soooo 1900s. Get with the program.
--
One-one was a race horse, One-two was one too.
One-one won one race, One-two won one two.
On the surface this is a story about somebody that did something he shouldn't have and is punished for it, but I think there are several more important issues here that have nothing to do with the crime itself as such.
When a person is physcially in one country and commits an offence on a system in another country, who has jurisdiction? I probably lean most to the view that is the country where the offended system is; but there is a trend towards more delocalised systems - as evidenced by the question of where eg. Amazon or Google should pay their taxes. If it isn't clear for your payment of taxes, I can't see that it is any clearer for criminal jurisdiction; after all the criteria for legal proofs are stricter in the criminal court.
There is also the question of "symmetry" (the right word escapes me at the moment) - when the US feels somebody has committed a crime within their jurisdiction based on the above principle, shouldn't the principle apply the other way? The US wants the world to deliver the people they say are criminals to the US penal system, but it is very hard to get it to work the other way. Even UK, the "special ally", finds it hard to get a US citizen extradited - and even their own citizens, sometimes.
And then there is the ethics of the situation - is it acceptable to commit a crime, even a very small one, to catch a criminal? The "small crime" in this case is the fraudulent advertising of a non-existent job, it seems. The law - and certainly criminal law - is supposed to be the practical expression of our fundamental, ethical principles; it is illegal to steal, kill, swindle etc because everybody agrees that it is morally wrong, in essence. And as they say, two wrongs don't make a right; if you commit crimes to fight crime, you have tainted yourself and the whole system of justice - and where does the dividing line go? Why is it OK to commit fraud to catch a fairly insignificant hacker, but it isn't OK to take bribes? To my view you are either a criminal or not; and if you commit crimes, you are a criminal.
As far as I know this kind of thing is not accepted in any other Western country; the are not allowed to use even "mild deception", like a knowingly letting a suspect believe something that isn't true, if it is likely to influence their defence. Which is why you read them their rights when they are arrested, BTW.
(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.
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.
The FBI is loosing its time and money to track video game crackers?? Is that a joke?? Have they no task more important on their priority list??
Is the position still open?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
So is that 1024 or 1000 gigaturds? And do we add this to the list along with "Libraries of Congress" and "rods to the hogshead"?
Hmm, some places I've worked, this analogy is perfectly fitting for the "data" being passed around.
So 8 dingles makes 1 turd, ...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."