CYBER PIRATES - Fell for FBI lure

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Cyber pirates fell for FBI lure

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent

CONCORD, N.H. - The bait was software, some of it newer than new, uploaded to hidden and allegedly secure sites on the Internet as federal agents using hipster nom-de-plumes waited in the cybershadows for a bite.

And in the anti-establishment software, movie, and game piracy ring that called itself ''warez,'' there were plenty of people around who were eager to leap at the bait.

FBI agents and other investigators monitoring the upload, transfer, and download of their bait software found that less than 12 hours after it was posted, the software's security code was cracked and the software was distributed to hidden sites worldwide.

But many of those avenues for security breaches were closed off yesterday after what is being called the largest law enforcement action to date involving the piracy of software.

By yesterday, federal investigators said 104 computer searches and seizures had been completed nationwide, with local ties to a Bank of America computer in Boston, a Londonderry, N.H., warez user, and a system administrator who maintained computer servers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

There have been no arrests, according to Arnold H. Huftalen, assistant US attorney in New Hampshire, whose office headed one of the three simultaneous stings.

Charges will likely come down the road, but for now, investigators and their superiors in Washington, D.C., were more interested in sending a loud message than in locking up hackers.

''One of the major objectives of the investigation is to impress upon people involved in trading pirated software that it is criminal,'' Hulftalen said yesterday. ''If the upshot is that enough people cease their activity, then one of the objectives has been met.''

New Hampshire investigators, overseen by US Attorney Gretchen Leah Witt, began ''Operation Digital Piratez'' after their office and agents from the FBI's specialized computer squad in Boston - two of the nation's most sophisticated cyber-investigative units - obtained cutting edge experience when they were tracking down Internet pedophiles in the 1990s.

This new sting operation lasted a year. On Tuesday, it resulted in nine search warrants and approval to search three other computers in areas as diverse as Barton, Fla., and Tulane University in New Orleans. Other warrants were issued for computers in homes and businesses outside Lincoln, Neb., Atlanta, and Des Moines.

Two other investigations, code named Operation Bandwidth and Operation Buccaneer, were based in Nevada and Virginia.

Buccaneer, headed by the US Customs Service and the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section, was deemed ''the most significant law enforcement penetration of international organizations engaged in illegal distribution of copyrighted software, games, and movies over the Internet,'' according to department officials.

It was under this sting that investigators issued warrants for computers at Bank of America in Boston and for servers and computers at MIT, where a systems administrator in the economics department was allegedly involved in the distribution of pirated software.

Christopher Tresco, 23, has not been charged and told a reporter last night that he apologized, saying he ''regrettably got involved in stuff I shouldn't have.''

Tresco could not be reached for comment. A colleague in the economics department said he had come to work early in the morning and left by lunchtime.

Meanwhile, MIT has launched its own investigation into the matter, said Robert Sales, an MIT spokesman. ''No decision has been made on his status.''

In a written statement, James D. Bruce, vice president for information systems at MIT, said that if the charges were true, they were also serious violations of MIT rules that specify that MIT phones and computers are intended for institute use only.

The warez groups targeted by the federal investigation are highly structured and security conscious, ranging from pages that are easily accessible on the Internet to hidden pages that require layer-upon-layer of clearance, Huftalen said.

The motivation is both the thrill and the skill of hacking - breaking a secure code, making a copyrighted item public and free, and trying to do it to items that have yet to be released.

In some cases, Huftalen said, investigators found pirated software that was cracked days before it was officially released.

Investigators will likely take the computers and, over the next several months, track the log files within them - computerized road maps that will show which users uploaded what software from where, and who downloaded it.

And in this investigation in particular, game companies like Sega Corp. and other software-related businesses can help investigators spread the word. By yesterday morning, word of the bust had spread throughout the Internet via usenet groups and Internet Relay Chat. But on the usenet group alt.crackers, requests for entry into copyrighted software and games kept pouring in.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2001

Answers

Wonder if this was related?

http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/1213pirates13.html

Pirated videos, software seized in E. Valley

By Jane Larson The Arizona Republic Dec. 13, 2001

Federal agents seized $233,000, 30 guns and hundreds of pirated videos and computer games from two East Valley homes as part of an investigation into a global ring of software pirates.

"Operation Buccaneer" targeted 62 people in 27 U.S. cities and five foreign countries in a yearlong undercover investigation that U.S. Customs officials call the most extensive software piracy probe ever.

Five people in England were arrested. All those targeted are suspected of pirating popular software programs, games and movies as part of the Moscow-based international network known as "DrinkOrDie."

Customs officials in Arizona executed search warrants Tuesday at one home in Gilbert and one in Mesa, Customs group supervisor Kevin Jeter said.

At the Gilbert home, they seized five desktop computers, a server containing 250 gigabytes of information, 600 CD-ROMs, the cash and guns, he said. The CDs contained reportedly pirated versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Me and Windows 2000 software, games and recent movies such as Blow.

Officials allege that a man at the Gilbert home let friends download the pirated software, Jeter said. He declined to release the man's name or more details, saying no arrests have been made and the investigation is continuing.

Three laptops and a desktop computer were seized at the Mesa home, Jeter said.

Associated Press and New York Times contributed to this article.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2001


One activity that Microsoft is expending a huge effort on (and I don't blame them a bit) is software piracy.

I wish they would expend the same effort in plugging security holes in some of their products, like Outlook Express.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2001


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