OT: The FBI Hacked My Computer

[Atrocities]

Today at 10:00PM the FBI broke into my computer, looked at all the software, and determined (of course) that some copies (and they were listed to me!) were illegitimate. The FBI pushed a script into my computer and it read "We have determined that some of the software installed in your computer are unauthorized or have been obtained illegally, as multiple Users have been reported to be using the same serial numbers. We are giving you a warning; You must properly register all software or remove it immediately from your computer. You may otherwise be punished to the maximum that law can allow."

It is ironic since recently there was a thread in this forum talking about why people pirate their software...First, you have to be careful when you post stuff in the web, in forums, etc...because everything you do in the web is recorded....your IP isn’t transparent to the people that want to hunt you down like the FBI and Software companies, and perhaps Gamespot might be also keeping an eye on people who stupidly state that they pirate games. Despite my hardware firewall and Norton internet Security the whole protection was nothing to the FBI. I had to uninstall virtually $10,000.00 worth of software in my computer that was obtained via Morpheus and other PTP sites. So now I am on their list....and it feels awful. For many of us this is kind of a game and we probably don't even think of the true consequences of such act. Be smart and stop pirating...I now realize how dangerous the game can turn out. Sad but true, a lot of the software I had installed, I own original copies from. However, all the Insert-CD in order to play has been annoying so I have modified them to NO-CD and so on. The same with Windows XP and Office XP, I own both but the fact that you have to call Microsoft every time you have to wipe your drive due to driver flaws or new hardware it is a pain in the butt. Thus I have disabled the need to call Microsoft to activate the products and so on. I will have to go back to the pain of dealing with Microsoft.

The FBI was able to point to me all the software that was illegal in my computer, thus it is not a random virus or script sent by a vicious kid or anything. This is a true fact and if you don't believe it you might be in danger of being caught. Bush authorized the FBI recently to go against terrorists and use all means to hunt them down...the problem is that anyone suspicious can be tracked by the FBI and not only foreign terrorists will be hunted down but also mainland criminals. I think for the first time our privacy is being hurted....we are no longer free in our own country.

Be smart and stay out of trouble....I hope my case doesn't get any worse than it got already. Just stay out of trouble and don't visit pages that might have to do with pirating software...remeber that child pornography is not the only thing they can track you for! So stop getting in trouble if you are.

Horse *Crap*! Whoever believes this is a moron.

This alleged FBI Hacking. It is utterly untrue. If you fall for this guy’s post, then I would strongly suggest that you send money to some guy in Africa and sit back and wait for him to send you a million dollars.

The most the FBI can legally do is monitor you instant Messages and email. That is called Carnivore. This hacking of a person’s computer is illegal. To "search" someone’s computer without a search warrant is a clear violation of that persons constitutional rights. So I say he is full of it. Believe him if you want, but understand this, even the FBI isn't above the law.

And why in gods name would they bother. I honestly think this is just a good method of scaring people into NOT pirating stuff. I wonder how many paranoid freaks went and F-disked their PC after reading this.

Oh great, no one is here any more....

[ July 30, 2002, 03:12: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[pathfinder]

Yikes....

I wondered what the h*** then I read your finale there Atrocities....

I thought that a warrant was needed but with 9/11 I wasn't sure what emergency powers MIGHT have been given....

I work for a goverment agency and while agency PCs ARE watched like a hawk, I hadn't heard of any extraordinary measures been taken against private ones....

[Phoenix-D]

"This hacking of a person’s computer is illegal. To "search" someone’s computer without a search warrant is a clear violation of that persons constitutional rights. So I say he is full of it. Believe him if you want, but understand this, even the FBI isn't above the law."

heh. Sorry, but you might be wrong on this point. There's a bill that was introduced in Congress to let *record companies* do exactly that. If Congress will let RIAA hack into people's computers.. the FBI isn't fare behind.

Phoenix-D

[Trajan]

BAH! This is a load of crap. I agree with Atrocities. If you think this is true then send some money to the guy in Africa.

I have worked in the IT info sec industry and have seen what they are capable of first hand. This is not representative of what they are even remotely interested in.

Anyhow...I had to respond since it appeared that the community was so quiet right now and I had a range check error on my SEIV game.

Cheers!
Trajan

[Puke]

okay, thats just like the difference between ALLEGED murder and REAL murder. lots of bills are INTRODUCED into congress. at no time has a bill been PASSED to allow the riaa to hack anything.

bah, i say. alarmism at its worst.

[Baron Grazic]

Certainly a lot a crap but did Bush really "authorized the FBI recently to go against terrorists".
I thought the FBI working inside the US borders & the CIA worked outside.
And if you can't already tell, I am not a Yank.

[Puke]

heh. i heard an anicdote recently about an englishman visiting one of the southern states and making the faux pas of refering to someone as a 'Yank.'

Some of the good-old-boys are still a bit bent out of shape about the outcome of our civil war, you see. as the story has already degraded to a tertiary account, i will leave details to your imagination.

in any event, our federal agencies have been encouraged to take new measures but, as far as i know they have not been granted any wartime powers. indeed Grazic, your knowledge of US government agencies is commendable. the FBI is responsible for investigating interstate crime, and the CIA is responsible for toppling smaller governments that we dont like.

I myself know next to nothing about the AIC, or NOSIC. although NOSIC has a really cool logo.

[ZeroAdunn]

The FBI isn't above the law? News to me. People seem to think the government worries about "laws"

This report is probably not fake. It is probably a hacker messing with someone. Trust me, me and my friends used to do this kind of stuff all the time. Not to this extent, but still similar things.

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"This hacking of a person’s computer is illegal. To "search" someone’s computer without a search warrant is a clear violation of that persons constitutional rights. So I say he is full of it. Believe him if you want, but understand this, even the FBI isn't above the law."

heh. Sorry, but you might be wrong on this point. There's a bill that was introduced in Congress to let *record companies* do exactly that. If Congress will let RIAA hack into people's computers.. the FBI isn't fare behind.

Phoenix-D

Even if it did pass congress, that doesn't necessarily make it constitutional.

[Trajan]

<Trajan get's out his checkbook and begins filling it in....>

Pay to the order of Growlti......

!Wait a minute...I smell somthing fishy about this. Is the FBI or CIA involved watching me as I write this?

<Trajan rips up the check and goes back to work.>

There is a product called "Overkill" that a chap at my former company developed. It is little more than a huge number of Harddrives run by a old low-rent pentium chip system that simply crawls the internet grunging all information it can find on information security, from BBS's chatting, web pages, and anything else it can find. It stores it all on those numerous harddrives then indexes it so that all of the information is searchable. Before I left the company the data was so enormous that it was unable to be indexed every day. I suspect that it has been upgraded by now though I bet it is still mostly unusable. The company had no idea what to do with it. We used it internally as a research tool but could never really productize it appropriately. THere were just far too many legitamitacy issues surrounding it. I know that when the FBi would come to our office seeking information on some particular hacker we would let them peruse the database to their hearts content.

Keep in mind that this thing only tracked Online conversation (of any form). Nothing on any persons home networks or desktop machine was ever captured. It was a cool tool, but utterly useless for anything other than research.

Cheers!
Trajan