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FBI Conducts Raids Over Half-Life 2 Source Theft
Posted by
simoniker
on Mon Jan 19, 2004 01:39 PM
from the take-em-down dept.
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." The scanned-in search warrant posted on the site indicates the FBI were looking for "...any IP addresses related to any of the Valve internal or external networks... Valve passwords and/or usernames... any and all items... related to Valve Software, Half-Life, Half-Life 2", and the Hungry Programmers page mentions that "...several Hungries were raided on January 14th by the FBI and Secret Service, and their computers seized."
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slow already (Score:5, Informative)
it would ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it would ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Seizure seizures (Score:5, Insightful)
In other threads, people have suggested that the Feds didn't understand how IP addresses work, and raided the wrong network. I suppose that's possible, but I think it unlikely, especially since they must know about the crack being traced to a user in Europe. It's 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.
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Re:it would ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:it would ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:it would ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:it would ... (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1997 I cracked a machine in a nearby school district. Not for any particular purpose, but because it was running SunOS. Of course, being lazy and actually somewhat bad at covering my tracks, I got caught about a month later. I just wasn't cut out to be a badass hacker, I guess.
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.
They played "good cop, bad cop" with me. But the good cop really was good. 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 I'd pulled it off. He promised to try and convince his boss to let me off easy. They took my machine into evidence, and I didn't 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. A real hacker needs a 33-MHz, not a 20."
I raced home and popped the case. Sure enough, the detective had installed a 33 MHz 486, and also an additional 4 meg of RAM. I was blown away.
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 mother's house. I haven't hacked since, and I hold that detective in the highest regard for seeing that I was just a stupid kid who didn't mean any harm.
I count myself truly lucky to have been arrested by such a man :-)
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Hah (Score:5, Interesting)
You almost never get the shit back. Half the reason for only having $300 used eBay computers at your house/apt/dorm. You don't 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.
I've been popped before. All because I had a fake CNN web page made, a few months before the 'CNN fake news generator' got popular. It wasn't even hosted on my home systems!
The FBI was waiting for me one day when I walked outside my apartment to go to work. They marched me right back upstairs. They asked me a few questions and took the following:
White box AMD 800mhz that I built from spare parts. Old Powermac 8600. Old Pentium II-233MHz.
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 wasn't mine and he didn't question me.
They have you sign a bunch of crap, and they write down serial numbers, give you copies of everything...This was about 3 years ago too.
I called the FBI offices, sometimes once a month. 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 didn't 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 they'd be looking out for me but that's 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.
Posting as AC, of course.
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Re:it would ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's really bad in civil cases. They can take your stuff (house, car, boat, whatever), never charge you with anything, and you'll 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. But they never have to prove that in court. As I said they never have to charge you with anything. But they will file suit against your property; there are plenty of court cases like "US v. $17.254.38" and I'll let you guess who wins.
It sucks, but as the only people really directly affected are
(1) drug dealers
(2) black people carrying hundreds in cash when their cars are pulled over
(3) computer geeks
most people are ignorant of the problem and/or don't see it as a problem.
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Article text (Score:5, Informative)
The whole surreal story
So at 6:30am on January 14th, I woke up to the doorbell buzzing. Not a short lived buzz. Someone had their thumb pressing the button and holding it there. "Fucking drunkard" I thought, and rolled over, intent on ignoring it. It then started a rythmic *buzz* *buzz* *buzz* *buzz*, over and over again. After about 5 minutes battling to get back to sleep, I gave up and got up. Put my pants on, grabbed my sweatshirt, and stumbled off toward the door.
As I walked down the steps I heard them talking to the nextdoor neighbor, asking him where the landlord lived. I reach the door just as the neighbor's door closes. I compose myself to deal with whatever is behind the door, and open it.
Immediately there's a flashlight in my eyes. "Are you Chris Toshok?" "Uh, yes" "Mr. Toshok, we're with the FBI. We have a warrant to search the premises." I looked down out of the glare of the flashlight and saw the FBI badge of the long haired blonde woman standing in front of me. I also saw two people behind her, bodies turned sideways so as to present less of a target. Guns drawn? It was too hard to tell really with the glare of the flashlight, but I'm assuming yes.
I mumbled something about turning on the light so I could see the warrant (pages 1 2 3 4 5)they'd thrust into my hands and turned and groped on the wall for the switch. They all tensed. The light came on, and I looked over the warrant for a second.
"Please come out here Mr. Toshok," and a hand on my arm pulling me onto the porch. Once I was out on the porch several agents started up the stairs. I said that my roommate was still asleep in bed. They asked his name, I said "Peter". They continued up the steps, yelling his name. "Peter, this is the FBI." "PETER" "PETER, are you awake? this is the FBI"
I didn't watch it happen but apparently Peter awoke, naked, to a doorway full of FBI agents with guns out, yelling at him to get up. He asked if he could get some clothes on. They said yes. He asked if they could turn on the light so he could see. So Peter got to get dressed under the watchful gaze of government employees. Must have been fun.
They took Peter to the back of the house, and took me back upstairs to the front of the house, and proceeded to start going through everything in my room and the office.
I was questioned by the FBI agent in charge and a Secret Service agent at length about the Hungry Programmers, people I used to live with, whether particular people had the capacity/knowledge to do what they were investigating, etc. During the questioning she says "Now we're going to take all your computers." She sees the look on my face and says "Yeah, this is going to be hard for you." I said "uh, when will I get them back?" She said it depends, that they'd try to have them all back as soon as possible, but it depends on if they find anything suspicious on them. If they found contraband (kiddie porn, talk of drugs, or stuff they were actually looking for), that particular computer would never be coming home.
After the questioning I basically sat in the front room on a folded futon mattress, with at least one agent with me at all times. Sometimes two. At one point I said I really needed to brush my teeth and the SS agent assigned to me at the time walked with me back to the bathroom and stood behind me watching me in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. On my way back down the hall I looked into my room and saw 3 FBI agents rifling through my belongings. One looking at the condoms and stickers in my nightstand, one going through my underwear/sock drawer, and one looking through my books.
After a lot more sitting in silence in that room, interspersed with tidbits of conversation (an fbi agent asking me about the guitars, talking about the piano lessons in his youth, and how he was kicked in the chest by a horse.) I must say, the SS agents were a lot nicer than the FBI agents. One in particular was pretty cool - we joked a lot about just how absurd the whole thing was
This man was an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks? If this ever happens to you? CALL YOUR LAWYER. Not the next day, not the day after, but the instant you can convince them to let you get your hands on a phone. If you don't have a lawyer, call a friend that you trust to find you a lawyer.
It's all well and good that the raiders in this case were relatively polite and friendly, but once the legal system takes notice of you in this way, Mister Policeman is no longer your friend. They have a job to do, and that job is to put your ass in jail. If being nice to you helps them to do this, they'll be nice. If scaring you senseless helps them to do this, they'll do that too. But the fact remains: they are not paid to catch someone who they know for a fact is guilty; they are being paid to catch someone they can convince a District Attorney is guilty, and those are two very, very different things.
If you are ever in this situation, the only words that come out of your mouth when speaking to the feds should be "I'd like to call my attorney." His job is to keep you out of jail.
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WOw (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm still a bit doubtful that ANY network admin wouldn't notice 11GB of traffic to an outside location on the network.
they were pissed! (Score:5, Funny)
Looking for "Internal IP Addresses?" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is like saying, "The murder victim's last name was Smith, and this guy has a reference to a Mr. Smith in his Rolodex. He must be guilty."
Sure, what the fuck ever. This is trivially defensible in court.
Re:Looking for "Internal IP Addresses?" (Score:5, Funny)
Agent 2: Looks like we have our man!
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Re:Looking for "Internal IP Addresses?" (Score:5, Funny)
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FYI... (Score:5, Informative)
Little do they know... (Score:5, Funny)
(collective groan)
Thanks, thank you, I'll be here all week.
Wording and tense.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather than "FBI agents, acting under a warrant issued due to probable cause having been ascertained, ..."
welcome to slashdot.
Re:Wording and tense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wording and tense.. (Score:5, Funny)
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System working.... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't need to be proven guilty by any standard to become a suspect. To get a warrant, they do need to present something to a judge, but what that something is usually remains sealed. That's how the system works, there was a due process for taking his property.
So, the good news for him is so far that the FBI's just fishing on his machines right now. If they find what they're looking for, or anything else very illegal to have, then they'll be back with the cuffs.
Re:System working.... (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the legal scope of their search?
For example, let's pretend this Toshok fellow is completely innocent, and the FBI search of his computers establishes zero link to their original investigation. However, on one computer they find thousands of dollars of unlicensed software and thousands of pirated MP3s and divx vids. Can they confiscate his computer for such an unrelated offense? Can they charge him with a crime? What if during the search of his apartment they found some drugs and an unregistered weapon?
Exactly where is the line?
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Re:System working.... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:System working.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it reasonable to sieze everything (including things not on the list, if his story's true...) in sight on a mere suspicion? Sounds like unreasonable search and siezure to me. Considering that the Hungry programmers aren't the ones that were off and bragging about it, I have a very big suspicion that we're seeing another Steve Jackson Games debacle playing before our eyes. While I'm going to give the Feds some benefit of doubt- it's not a lot, as they're not all lilly-white pure followers of what the law states, including the Constitution and they've been guilty of some rather heinous acts themselves in the relatively recent past.
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I think... (Score:5, Funny)
The evil has spread.
=)
These aren't the IP addresses you're looking for (Score:5, Funny)
I can just imagine some clueless FBI agent rifling through the poor guy's Rolodex and demanding that he tell them where his IP addresses are. "Sir, where do you keep your IP addresses sir?! This isn't a joke, son! You think this is funny?! Keep it up punk! You can laugh at the judge when we tell him that you wouldn't tell us where your IP addresses were!"
Special Half-Life level (Score:5, Funny)
Out of curiosity..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Out of curiosity..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this a great country, or what?
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Poor guy is screwed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew someone whose ex-wife accused him of abuse because she hated him. He never came close to being convicted, but he hasn't been able to get a job since.
You don't have to be convicted to be branded a criminal.
A few questions for anyone with experience (Score:5, Insightful)
a) What countermeasures/damages can you persue
b) If your computers are for business use, can you sue for lost revenue?
c) If they find something illegal (who doesn't have a "hack for program x" or keygen etc), but it is found that they came after you mistakenly, are your computers still lost?
d) You got no card, how can you call to find out about your stuff?
e) 9 computers, decent chance one is a server. How about if the server was hacked (cmon, if they hack valve wouldn't they redirect through dummy servers)
Re: A few questions for anyone with experience (Score:5, Interesting)
> If they find something illegal (who doesn't have a "hack for program x" or keygen etc),
Don't the rules limit them to using what was specified on the warrant? Otherwise it's too easy to use a warrant for something trivial as the justification for a fishing expedition.
Of couse, in these days of the all-important War on Blacks^wDrugs and War on Arabs^wTerror, the rules don't seem to matter very much.
> but it is found that they came after you mistakenly, are your computers still lost?
AFAICT, you might as well kiss your stuff goodbye even if you're innocent. Remember the outcome of the clueless cop's crusade against Steve Jackson Games?
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Here's an interesting idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The debate over that ought to be interesting.
A bit torn (Score:5, Interesting)
However that said, and my condolences to his lost PCs, if he is resposible for stealing the HL2 code, he kinda did deserve it, because I for one am a little pissed about the delay, and if he's guilty I guess karma(and not the
Now here's a question worth asking... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I hadn't done anything wrong, I'd stick around to see what's being confiscated. It seems like this guy's first priority was to sound an alarm...
Re:Now here's a question worth asking... (Score:5, Insightful)
No point in doing that. They give you a receipt for anything they take, and they can't use and item as evidence in court without first proving that they gave you a receipt for that item. So everything they touched is going to be clearly itemized.
It seems like this guy's first priority was to sound an alarm...
Makes sense to me.
"Hey guys. I thought I'd let you know, there's a bunch of cops searching my apartment right now, so if I end up missing by the end of the day, you'll know what happened. In that case, could you please call a lawyer for me?"
It's the kind of thing friends tell each other, don't you think?
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Chris' call to Valve (Score:5, Funny)
XP CD Key (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Informative)
Secret Service Website [ustreas.gov]
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Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the irony...
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Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Informative)
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 they're always involved with all the big time hacker cases.
for more info, check out United States Code (USC) 1030
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Re:Secret Service (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nothing new... SteveJackson games anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
More info:
http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/express/te
http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ [sjgames.com]
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/SJG/ [eff.org]
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Re:HL2 code theft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:HL2 code theft (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you know it didn't affect and delay the product? Do you work for Valve? Where's your proof?
I can tell you, at my company, if there was a break-in that got all our code, we'd be up shit creek. There would be a complete overhaul of all our processes, interviews with all the personel, new security training, new procedures, a complete audit, and worst of all talented and hard working people would get fired. All of this would take time, affect everybody, and slow every project down.
I find it hard to belive that Valve didn't go through something similar internally. If you're going to make drastic claims like this, at least provide some proof or reasoning behind your logic.
Bryan
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Re:HL2 code theft (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong. Charging Valve with fraud would require that they were somehow illegaly profiting from delaying the release date. Since the product isn't for sale, pray tell how this can be considered fraud under any aspect of law!
Golly I completely forgot about the 1987 Digital Entertainment act that required game makers to hold to tentative release dates! Bastards!
>Until now it was just harmless marketing lies.
What's this? Oh no! A company that markets their product! Where is the justice!
> Someday I would like to see a game company create a game in an open way. They should have all their engine code out in the open so anybody could follow the progress and even contribute if they felt like it.
And some day I would like to see all commercial ventures opened up under the watchful eye of a high council of elves, leprechauns, and magical wood faries! Using their arcane magics for the betterment of mankind, we will transform the world into an utopian paridise, where every jack-ninny can voice their opinion equally, even in private commercial and private forums! Lo, in this brave new future disease will be cured, everyone will earn $50K USD annual salary because knowledge is intrinsically designed to be free and open to everyone!
Viva la revolution!
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