csua.org/u/5mp -> games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/19/1752221&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=127&tid=186&tid=204&tid=95
Sections Main Apache 1 more Apple 1 more Askslashdot 10 more Books BSD 1 more Developers 2 more Games Interviews Science 7 more YRO 1 more Help FAQ Bugs Stories Old Stories Old Polls Topics Hall of Fame Submit Story About Supporters Code Awards Services Broadband Online Books PriceGrabber Product News Tech Jobs . FBI Conducts Raids Over Half-Life 2 Source Theft Posted by simoniker on Mon Jan 19, 04 02:39 PM from the take-em-down dept. TheXerox writes According to a recent weblog post , a San Francisco native had his house raided by the FBI last week, and lost upwards of 9 machines, and lots of misc equipment besides in a seizure related to the theft of the Half-Life 2 source code from Valve Software.
Advertisement Slashdot Login Nickname: Password: Public Terminal Create a new account Related Links Compare the best prices on: Video games recent weblog post theft of the Half-Life 2 source code Hungry Programmers page More Games stories Also by simoniker Games N-Gage QD - Nokias Answer To The Critics? Silicon Knights, Nintendo Cease Exclusivity Deal City Of Heroes Beta Evaluated As Game Goes Gold PSX Production Stops, Development Issues Rumored? MGS Creators on Masochistic PS2, United States Popularity Men Incapable Of Portraying Videogame Women Fairly? Nintendos GCNext Direction Outlined By Iwata Enter The AOL Matrix - Matrix Online Using AOL IM Free Tribes 1 and 2 Downloads, DVD Forthcoming < Mars Express 3D Image Released Mac OS X - The Missing Manual, Panther Edition > This discussion has been archived. FBI Conducts Raids Over Half-Life 2 Source Theft Log in/Create an Account Top 957 comments Spill at 50 !
Re:Secret Service by Steve Franklin Score:2 Monday January 19, 06:13PM Re:Secret Service by LilGuy Score:1 Monday January 19, 06:32PM 1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Secret Service by Scyber Score:3 Monday January 19, 02:48PM Re:Secret Service Score:5, Informative by menn0nite 699138 on Monday January 19, 02:49PM 8023041 No, the secret service has never been all about protecting the president. They started out primerily as treasury cops, however if I remember correctly, all cases of computer related fraud where damages pass the $10,000 mark and cross state lines fall into their jurisdiciton. That why theyre always involved with all the big time hacker cases.
Judging from every story Ive ever read, the Feds always hang onto evidence machines for years upon years. In other threads, people have suggested that the Feds didnt understand how IP addresses work, and raided the wrong network. I suppose thats possible, but I think it unlikely, especially since they must know about the crack being traced to a user in Europe. Its more likely that they know or suspect that the HP guys have copies of the stolen source, and the raid is just a way to send a message to others who might consider downloading it. Technically, computers get seized so the cops can gather evidence, which is supposed to lead to some kind of punishment if all the due process requirements are met. But as often as not, the seizure itself is the only punishment metted out, and is obviously meant as such. Which is pretty scary, when you consider your total lack of recourse when you are punished in this manner.
In other words, once the cops seize your stuff, they dont have to give it back, so long as the initial seizure was legal. They can take your stuff house, car, boat, whatever, never charge you with anything, and youll never see it again. Seizing assets in a civil action this way is a big part of the War on Drugs. All the cops have to do is make the assertion at the time of seizure that the property in question was being used in conjunction with a drug operation.
Of course, being lazy and actually somewhat bad at covering my tracks, I got caught about a month later. Anyway, the police came to my school and arrested me although I think it was all a setup, because I was never read my rights, and I was never handcuffs - I think it was a scare tactic, and I was never officially arrested. They allowed me to drive my own car back to my house, so they could collect evidence. He seemed impressed with my skill level, and he actually smiled and talked with me in a conversational tone, like he was interested in how Id pulled it off. They took my machine into evidence, and I didnt see it for 7 months. Later that year, after serving my community service, I got a call from the evidence room saying my computer was ready to be picked up. I drove over as fast as possible, fearing the drive had been wiped and all my source code lost. Imagine my surprise when I picked up the machine and it had a Post-It note on it saying I took the liberty to upgrade your computer. Sure enough, the detective had installed a 33 MHz 486, and also an additional 4 meg of RAM. To this day, I am thankful for the detective making the effort to prevent me from going to jail for what I did. I learned my lesson the moment the reality dawned on me that I had police officers searching my mothers house. I havent hacked since, and I hold that detective in the highest regard for seeing that I was just a stupid kid who didnt mean any harm.
Hah Score:5, Interesting by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, 03:16PM 8023322 You almost never get the shit back. Half the reason for only having $300 used eBay computers at your house/apt/dorm. You dont want them stealing your $3500 Alienware rig or the setup you just built with $1000 of parts from Pricewatch, or your shiny new Apple G5 or G4 TiBook. All because I had a fake CNN web page made, a few months before the CNN fake news generator got popular. The FBI was waiting for me one day when I walked outside my apartment to go to work. They asked me a few questions and took the following: White box AMD 800mhz that I built from spare parts. They did not, however, take my mice/keyboard/monitors, they did take the Mac stuff though. They also did not take every floppy disk and CDROM I had in the house. You always used to hear news stories with headlines like OVer 5,000 disks siezed in piracy raid in the early years of home computers. As the agent was leaving, my roomates newer Compaq laptop caught his eye, but I told him that machine wasnt mine and he didnt question me.
They would never return my calls, and always were telling me things were transfered to another office, etc. Originally I was told that they would be done with my stuff in 6-8 weeks. After a while, I figured no news was good news, and didnt want to even deal with them any more over $500 worth of computers. Ironically, I had to help the FBI/Customs on a case they were working on, someone in our office was looking at kiddie porn from a work computer. Figure theyd be looking out for me but thats the government for you. Now, on the other hand, your police departments are a little better. My friend had his computer missing for nearly 6 months, and when he got it back it was covered in identifcation stickers but it was pretty much the way it was when they took it.
If they ever do bother to return it, its likely to be many years from now. And thats assuming that they cant find, or appear to find, anything that could plausibly be interpreted as illegal on it. I suspect that if you are lucky, theyll just forget about it, and some office of the law will give it to his kid. If you arent lucky, they may come back for all of your property and cash. I might, with some plausibility, be asserted to be involved in something that might be related to gangsterism under some argument. So we must remove anything that you could use to practice your profession, hire a lawyer, or otherwise do something besides live on welfare. Its looking like he may eventually win, since they have essentially no evidence. But hes already served time in jail, had all his medical records and computer equipment confiscated. He prescribed a few more pain killers to cancer patients than the feds decided the patients needed. The other charges got dropped after the first hearing, when the prosecutor refused to defend the charges. He hasnt been found guilty of anything, but his professional live has been destroyed.
Looks like the riaa has a competitor by O...
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