Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
...at least give every incoming laptop to a nearby school. I mean, spying on students happens already anyway.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
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?
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."
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.
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.
As a resident of West Virginia, I assure you it wasn't a trust issue. Rather, the laptops did not have 28.8 modems to connect to the local bbs rendering them useless in the Mountain State.
West Virginia - keeping Hughes Net in business since 2005.
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.
Are you kidding?
If I wanted to guarantee that a found USB key would be plugged in somewhere, I'd label it "porn".
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.
Really? They why state governors? They really don't have a lot of access to secret stuff. My guess is a little more amusing. Someone has figured out how to hack into HPs GSA ordering system and is pranking them. They are basically ordering laptops on the states dime from HP just to see if anyone notices. Sort of like ordering Pizzicati to be set to buddy's house as a joke. The difference is this is going to be a federal offense.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I work in West Virginia state government and this came up at yesterdays staff meeting. According to the boss (not PHB) they've found that laptops had been purchased with stolen credit cards and came loaded with malware. Also some of the laptops received in other states had actually been used.
I just got off the phone with HP customers service, and boy, am I pissed. I ordered 5 new laptops a week ago, and no one can tell me where the hell they are.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.