

Atari employee tapped to help in Secret Service raid - allenbrunson
http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1031

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mattmaroon
I guess I'm missing why he feels bad about it. They had warrants and pretty
damning evidence. They went after people who were engaging in fraud and
identity theft, crimes that cost innocent people untold billions per year,
both as consumers and investors. This wasn't some Patriot Act wiretapping
bullshit. I don't see this as an unreasonable violation of people's privacy
though it does sound like that happened once along the way, with the pictures,
but that's humans being humans and an unfortunately reality in law
enforcement.

A year and a day in jail is probably not enough for people who engage in
credit card fraud to be an effective deterrent. I can't see any reasonable
argument as to why they don't deserve felonies on their records. It sounds as
if, for the most part, this is just a case of the system actually working to
protect citizens rights. I'd be happy to assist in a case like that.

~~~
allenbrunson
I had that same reaction. It's like he doesn't have a problem with people
getting busted for committing crimes, so long as he doesn't personally have to
get his hands dirty with the icky details.

Another way to look at it, though, is that he felt he wasn't prepared for such
a thing. He mentions that he had no training in computer forensics and got
very imprecise instructions, and the crooks could have foiled his work with
very little effort.

~~~
jksmith
Missing the point. No matter what the crime being committed, he trusted the
authorities without reciprocation. Huge liability for him and Atari. Consider:

1) Would you help a stranger recover a stolen item from the perpetrator?

2) If you were in Mexico, and Mexican authorities asked you help them catch
someone they labelled a criminal, would you do it?

Read about the experiences of Steven Hatfill and Rick Convertino as a reminder
of why trust relationships are easily abused by governmental power.

~~~
mattmaroon
Your first example is nothing at all like the article. I would do some
consulting for a law enforcement agency that had a court issued warrant for
that purpose, no doubt. I would not, say, break into one neighbor's house to
steal back a blender he took from another neighbor.

And in the second, if I were running a Mexican business, and a Mexican law
enforcement agency had a valid warrant, again I would consult. It's a simple
case of the system working as planned to protect innocent victims. I'd be glad
to help.

Those people you cited have no parallels to what happened in this specific
instance.

~~~
jksmith
The examples show circumstances separated by a matter of degrees regarding
application of trust.

>It's a simple case of the system working as planned to protect innocent
victims.

I'm not going to be a yahoo about this, but that's just plain naive. I'm not
getting the point across, which is that when a government asks you to act as
an agent for their benefit, that government appeals to your assumption of
trust without providing any evidence for that trust.

A warrant may be enough insurance in return for consulting, but would I go on
a raid? Absolutely not. What if your consulting involved providing private
information on citizens just because someone in the government assured you
that what you were doing was legal. Would you still do it? If you would only
with a warrant, then what if they told you that this was some kind of FISA
thing that didn't require a warrant?

I cited Hatfill and Convertino because they're examples of one-sided trust
relationships with the government that went terribly wrong.

------
SingAlong
Wow! I enjoyed this story. This could be a hit if made into a film. Would
surely win an Oscar.

The author must have felt like a geek-hero during the job, considering the
fact that the Atari-800 released in 1979 and this incident must have occurred
sometime around 1979-85 or so.

The lines I liked very much... \--"and next to it hummed a TEN MEGABYTE HARD
DISK, clearly the pride and joy of its owner." \--"That’s a modem cable.
That’s a modem. Wait, I need to shut the computer down"

I was born almost a decade after Atari-800 released. Couldn't understand these
terms: "Pen Register" and "Sprint Codes"

After googling: Pen Register is a device that maintains phone call lists for a
fixed phone line.

But does anyone know what "Sprint codes" mean? Googling didn't get me much
info.

~~~
allenbrunson
Sprint is (was?) a long distance telecom provider. I'm pretty sure "Sprint
Codes" means some type of access code that allows you to make long-distance
phone calls without that call showing up on your bill, i.e., it was paid for
in advance by some other method.

~~~
mattmaroon
I'm pretty sure it means that your calls would be billed to some other Sprint
customer.

~~~
allenbrunson
yeah, that's what i meant, thought it would be obvious.

