Slashdot Mirror
Data Center Raid About Unpaid Telco Fees
craig writes "CBS11 News reports that the raid on Core IP networks is in the result of an investigation into unpaid telco access fees paid by CLECs and VoIP carriers to terminate calls on their networks. They also report that this raid is linked to the March 12th raid on Crydon Technology's datacenter, which also hosted VOIP providers. Anyone in the telco business will tell you access fees to other carriers are a total mess and lots of carriers have unpaid balances out there. It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon."
Incidentally, isnt it sort of in the FBI's realm to investigate large-scale fraud?
Yes. We won't have any idea what the truth is until someone gets a copy of the federal warrants used in the raid, or until we get information that charges are being filed.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
In that case, the NSA is probably on the way as well.
Or long gone without a trace!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon."
Wouldn't that be a civil matter rather than criminal? I call unlikely.
Deleted
Incidentally, isnt it sort of in the FBI's realm to investigate large-scale fraud?
Yes. But Slashdot users have a propensity for Libertarian anarchism.
If it's the FBI doing its job in enforcing copywrite law then they're henchmen for the recording industry Mafiaa.
If it's the FBI doing its job in enforcing fraud then they're henchmen for the telecommunications industry.
Remember the government should be small to non-existant. And instead of changing legislation we should just be ignoring the laws that are on the books.
Is it reasonable that a kid downloading a song is a felony? No. But that's a legislative and judicial issue. The FBI is in the executive branch and its job is to respect and uphold the law. That means if someone is believed to be breaking the law then they're obligated to enforce it.
What's the alternative? Police officers deciding to selectively enforce laws on a case by case basis (which unfortunately does happen). I would much prefer the executive branch was consistent in enforcement instead of cherry picking cases than them attempting to make decisions of guilt and innocence before there being a fair and open trial. Obviously there has to be some exceptions to this rule (otherwise everyone would get arrested and have a day in court every time a crime is commited) but by and large I support the FBI actually doing its job when fraud is reported.
TFA mentions Verizon going to the FBI months ago, believing it had discovered a plan to defraud the telcos out of fees (i.e. illegal access to and use of the telephone network, hence the FBI involvement).
Seriously, it's days like this I hate Slashdot.
> It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
- Maj.Gen.Smedley Butler, 1935, awarded 2xCMOH
Discuss the use of Federal agencies in protecting commercial intersts of large corporations. 2000-3000 words. Citations in Harvard style.
Yes. But Slashdot users have a propensity for Libertarian anarchism.
Libertarians don't believe in anarchy.
However, I think most of us would agree that instead of convincing the FBI to raid these businesses, AT&T and Verizon could have filed a lawsuit against the alleged offenders, and handled this matter through normal channels. But when you have connections, I guess you can skip a few steps.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Yeah, I'm not sure what this particular site requires. I do know from prior professional experience that the 'second site' was always a very tough sell (and actually, of the places I've worked, only Yahoo was good about that sort of thing).
It's more than just the hardware too, it's the processes in place to ensure that there are very seriously no dependencies on one site. For instance, maybe you deploy everything simultaneously to both sites, you buy equal hardware in both places, you do BCP failover tests regularly to ensure the second site works as expected, and so forth.
But where do you build new packages? Where is your source control repository? Not being able to use your normal workflow can be almost as bad as a public outage, and can lead to one as well.
In this case, maybe the guy could just slap something together, but even so the amount of effort to do what you're talking about would probably take a few days to iron out. You lose a lot of time right off the bat just figuring out what happened and whether or not you are going to be seeing your equipment again anytime soon. Plus some things are just out of your control; getting a DSL or cable hookup with a static IP, if you didn't already have one, can literally take weeks.
Selective enforcement is precisely a lot of the concern. If my damage deposit is not returned by my landlord in accordance with the contract, that's illegal; if my landlord deliberately fudged documents to do so, that's fraud. But you will not find the FBI doing much on these sorts of things; it's generally up to the wronged individuals to file civil suits themselves. On the other hand, the FBI does seem to frequently enter the battle on the side of large companies alleging what amounts to contract violations, sometimes with allegations of fraud involved as well. The worry is that this further unbalances the judicial system. Large corporations are already the best equipped to pursue redress themselves, via civil suits demanding damages and/or injunctions; individuals are the worst equipped to do so, due to lack of in-house legal expertise or money to fund extensive litigation. The government intervening disproportionately often to help the side that is already best equipped to defend its interests does not help.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The first article was spun into "FBI raids datacenter, believed to be because of MPAA requests on movie piracy." The entire piracy spin was added by slashdot (or the submitter, which should've been caught at the editor). There was no mention of it *anywhere* in the facts. Turns out it was false. They really seem to be trying to rile people against the FBI in this.
While poignant, I hardly think a quote from damn near a century ago is particularly relevant. You might as well be quoting Shakespeare.
Because the world is so different now?
Let's update it a little then:
"I helped make Iraq a decent place for the Haliburton boys to collect revenues in....I tried to bring light to Afghanistan for the Unocal Central Asian oil pipeline in 2002."
The first step in repeating history is failing to see the relevance of past lessons. Whenever someone says "but things are SO different now" my bullshit detector goes off. Human beings aren't any different now than they were a thousand years ago.
Perhaps we should all quit contributing to the spin until the exact reasons for this raid are resolved.
The causes still seems pretty speculative, at this point. What's not speculation is that the FBI disrupted a whole lot of businesses in pursuit of what was apparently something that didn't involve all of them - which is wrong.
Seriously, it's days like this I hate Slashdot.
It's times like this that make me despise media journalists who don't bother to wait until the facts come out to get a story out, because they have to get "the scoop".
Why, yes, I just finished re-reading Varley's "Steel Beach". Why do you ask?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
There are stupid people everywhere, it's good that you're one of few to check sources and actually think about what you read. Keep it up, keep complaining - we need more of you.
Yeah, sure. All these businesses that were being hosted there can just go and set up this themselves, or find someone on extremely short notice to do it for a price they can afford - on their local cable providers network (nevermind that the business owners cable provider probably doesn't allow servers, WHICH IS LIKELY WHY THEY HAD A OUTSIDE PROVIDER IN THE FIRST PLACE)
Right.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
As long as power is wielded at the discretion of human beings who can be influenced by wealth, capitalism will always tend toward fascism.
The main sign that a company is about to go under is when they get the law involved. For some examples see the record labels, film studios and patent trolls. Even Apple is infamous for being excessively litigious prior to their current windfall.
Normally business arrangements are reciprocal and it's in the best interests of a company to avoid publicizing that their partners are in breach of a contract. There are plenty of collections agencies in the private sector that they could have consulted instead, but instead it's being treated as a criminal matter. This is the sort of behavior you see when a company realizes that their business model is flawed.
Oh COME ON. I know the feds have a bad rap on slashdot, but now you're accusing them of being back-scratching goons on behalf of AT&T?
"Court documents show it's all part of an alleged massive fraud scheme against AT&T and Verizon."
It's right there in the frikkin article. Large scale fraud is indeed the purview of the FBI, no conspiracy required.
Though now I'll get modded down for this won't I. I better come up with some ludicrous conspiracy scheme instead.
Verizon and AT&T did what they were told by our government overlords, and were protected. These companies didn't hand over their VOIP logs to the NSA like good little citizens, and now they have to pay. No doubt those records are on their way to the NSA right now! I bet they're looking for records of terrorist activies, and will just end up poring over the comm logs of honest upstanding americans, and sticking something on them when they don't find anything. And of course none of the mainstream media are covering it, they're in on it!
There, that should do it.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
So if that's true for an ILEC, why isn't it true for a voip provider? Telephone delivered via voip is still an essential service. It's the best way to request emergency services (911).
As someone who has been employed in the telephony industry, I'd like to point out that all the VoIP 'carriers' have gone to great lengths to be not considered an ILEC, or any kind of 'phone company' in the eyes of the law. It's the rules that govern the operation of an 'essential service' that has kept the traditional telephone systems limited in some of their features. It's also limited the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs) to certain types of phone switch technology etc. VoIP providers were very happy to ignore the features that are hard (911 access) and run with the features that are easy, if you're ignoring all the regulations. They deserve this treatment, especially since they go out of their way to advertise how 911 does not work. In fact, some VoIP carriers recommend you keep an analog phone plugged in to the ILEC's wall jack, leveraging the fact that the ILEC is required to keep 911 dial tone running at a residence even after you stop paying. So, no, I don't accept the 'essential service' excuse from these jokers.
And the FBI really should have some people on staff that understand what kind of server goes where.
That is true, one of the reasons for the 2nd amendment is to put down an out of control government.
However, one of the responsibilities that we have as possessors of the right to bear arms is to not start shooting with out good reason and clear heads. You, I, and everybody else on Slashdot don't know yet what the purpose of the fed's action was. Maybe the CEO is a criminal, and a number of the businesses are fronts. Maybe there was some clear and eminent danger that required a (legally warranted) search of the CEO's house and servers. We just don't know, the coverage of this event has been lousy. Don't run off half-cocked.