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Geek Culture / omg! Just got my computer back - Investigated /cleared

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zenassem
21
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Joined: 10th Mar 2003
Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 21:56
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Well I just got my computer back today. Apparently someone was using my computer at work to commit fraud and other illegal activities. Luckily I have not been at work for the past few months, and I haven't accessed the network from home since I have been away.

My home computer, external HD, Sim cards, CD's etc.. were all confiscated. And I started thinking about everything I could of done in the last few months. I had no idea what was going on.

I don't download music, pirated software, or anything else. I just recently renweed my subscription to Hakin9 Magazine, and I frequent 2600 site, and I have a bunch of port scanners, password crackers, IT security tools, packet sniffers and the like. But that's it. Everything else is clean as a whistle.

I don't have and never had any financial or fraudelent information like credit cards #'s, SS#'s, bank account #'s etc...

Well they scanned my entire computer, and removed the HD, and I'm sure they have a copy of everything it contains, as when they were taking the computer, I was mainly concerned about losing anything. They told me they don't do anything with the actual hardware, except copy the drive, and everything else forensincly is done on the copy. I honestly am not familiar with all the tools they have nowadays, I always thought that they needed to run retrieval software on the actual HD, not a copy. Guess their copy software does a bit more...

Anyway, I was called this morning, and told that I am in the clear and that they obviously had the wrong guy. They wouldn't tell me exaclty what they were looking for, but they said that I am good to go and I could come in to retrieve my laptop. Thank god!

Everything seems to be working fine, and the detective expalined to me that they already informed my place of work, that I am completely clean. I am assuming they were looking to see if I had accesses the work computers from home, on specific dates. Luckily I never set up a VPN, or PCanywhere or any other remote software.

I am guessing that I didn't have to turn over anything, but when confronted I just wanted to cooperate. They did try to strong talk me a bit, and I was definately trying to see what they were on to. I knew my Ebay account was hacked a few months ago and someone was selling golf clubs on my account. But I had completely resolved that with Ebay. So for the details I am a bit in the dark, and just glad that the whole ordeal is over. Even when your not guilty of anything, something like this can shake you up.

The funny part was they did ask me what this DarkBasic thing was all about, and my newly aquired FPScreator. When I went to retrieve my equipment, they had a different tone and were all appologetic. Then the one detective was shooting the breeze with me about game dev, and some of my other apps I have been working on. Hope they didn't steal it from me? lol! I'm just happy to have my comp back. Can't help but think they installed some tracking software on my box???? Maybe they think that DarkBasic/TGC is some kind of terrorist network.

I still don't have a full scope of what was going on, which leaves me perplexed. If someone is doing something under my name, or my computer at work/home, I'd like to know about it. No one at wrok bothered to give me a heads up at all. Now I'm suspicious of everyone. Guess Big Brother is still alive after all.

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MikeB
17
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Joined: 5th Apr 2007
Location: My Computer, Shropshire, England
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 22:58
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Well, glad you got it back, but it's a shame the world is turning Fascist again .


Mike

Call me Mike please
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Evil Star
18
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Joined: 24th Jan 2006
Location: England, Colchester
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 22:59 Edited at: 6th Jul 2007 23:00
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Quote: "but it's a shame the world is turning Fascist again"


Bound to happen at some point...Meh, just go along with it

"Don't make me come down there!" -God
"I'm not a rascist...I just hate everybody" -Christian "Flake" Lorenz of Rammstein
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Roxas
19
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Location: http://forum.thegamecreators.com
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 23:02
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Just sue the guy


[B] - LINKIN PARK - [/B]
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zenassem
21
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Joined: 10th Mar 2003
Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 23:19
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The good thing was, they didn't come in like the old days, with a battering RAM and guns drawn. In fact, the first day the investigators came by, I wasn't home and they told my gf that I was a witness to an accident a few months ago. So I called them the following morning, and they discreetly came by. Except for the fact that they looked like Men In Black. lol. They gave me the hard-line questioning in the beginning... but quickly eased up when they realized that they probably had the wrong person. They were careful with my equipment, and returned it (except the fact that I had to drive to headquarters to retrieve everything) all in the same condition.

I'm just glad they realized that I was innocent and were appologetic for putting me through the ordeal. Even when you know you haven't done anything wrong, you can't help but think that your going to be railroaded like in some Hollywood movie. Meh. All and all it was painless, and I'm back. I lost a few days of productivity, as they took my backup-drive as well.

It's just really bizarre to have something like this happen. I am by no means a hacker, theif, or underwold criminal mastermind. I'm good with computers, and have an interest and work in IT security, but in no way a criminal. lol.

I wonder what would have happened if I didn't comply with their request? Honestly, I didn't want to find out and I was a bit shaken. I had nothing to hide, except maybe my gf's oldest daughter's music library. (I'm sure she has some illegit downloads). I didn't want to be a problem, and have them come back tearing up the place. So I just kindly handed them everything they wanted.

Glad the whole thing is now behind me... I just don't like the fact that they probably still have a copy of my entire HD. Not sure if there is any law that states they have to dump it, now that I have been cleared. I am now looking into HD encryption software. So far I have come up with TrueCrypt which is Opensource. I'm reading through the tutorial now.

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xplosys
18
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Joined: 5th Jan 2006
Playing: FPSC Multiplayer Games
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 23:20
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Quote: "Maybe they think that DarkBasic/TGC is some kind of terrorist network. "


That's what I thought it was. Isn't it?

I'm sorry, my answers are limited. You must ask the right question.

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Steve J
18
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Location: Vancouver, Washington
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 23:49
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Wow, good thing nothing happened, that would suck if they took you in for something you didnt do.

Time is ticking away.
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BatVink
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Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 00:18
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I have to say Americans are extremely paranoid about these things. We have recently had to watch videos about how not to do business with terrorist states. We were managing OK without the video, I have to say. There was one guy who turned up at reception in a balaclava and rucksack, but it turned out he was just lost.

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Grandma
18
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Joined: 26th Dec 2005
Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 00:49 Edited at: 7th Jul 2007 00:52
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Wow zenassem, that would have scared me too, especially since i have alot of EVUL stuff on my comp (no not that). I've been registered *can't remember name* for having child porn (which i didn't have mind you! I only had regular porn but with some stupid spam-filenames on them, you probably know what i'm talkin about). Think about what would happen to my life if i got charged for that! Now that was scary.

Good to hear you're cleared though, if they made a mistake and charged you for something you haven't done, we probably wouldn't hear from you in a while.


Quote: "Maybe they think that DarkBasic/TGC is some kind of terrorist network."


Quote: "That's what I thought it was. Isn't it?"


I think so. It's the reason i joined.

Soooo? When's the next OP? I'm sure the mods (AKA leaders) are cooking up something for the weekend. Hey BatVinK, any luck getting that uranium yet?

Operation Mockingbird
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UnderLord
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 01:45
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Quote: "Soooo? When's the next OP? I'm sure the mods (AKA leaders) are cooking up something for the weekend. Hey BatVinK, any luck getting that uranium yet?
"


*waits for home land security to break down ever door of every DB user and mod*

"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."
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Grandma
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Joined: 26th Dec 2005
Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 02:32 Edited at: 7th Jul 2007 02:33
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Quote: "*waits for home land security to break down ever door of every DB user and mod*"


Well not every DB user lives in the US, but;

Good. About time we were stopped! We are crazy terrorists who are planning to blow up the universe with shampoo! Please stop us before it's too late! Right? Anyone?......hello? Where'd everyone go? HELLO!?


.....awww

*gets sent away for being wierd again, gets new jacket that makes me hug myself*

Operation Mockingbird
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zenassem
21
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Joined: 10th Mar 2003
Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 04:06
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@Grandma,

Yeah I know what your talking about. And sure enough I had some Adult material (with some questionable filenames as well ) on there, and of course the bloke had to bring it up. I figure it was to make me uncomfortable or embarassed. Everything was legal stuff and it doesn't embarass me. so meh...

I have a lot of "Dark" stuff on my computer as well. I'm not a bad person or anything. Just happen to like the style. My music is all hard-core and some anti-establishment. Sure enough I had "V for Vandetta" & "Freedom Downtime" on my desktop. And it figures that I just installed FPS creator. I was honestly worried they would profile me as some sort of threat.

I'm a real easy going guy, but I just happen to like the darker side of things at times. Especially all the weapons I have been researching as of late. Add to it that I use another alias "Dioxin" which happens to be one of the Dirty Dozen or twelve deadliest chemicals known to man. So of course I had all this stuff downloaded about toxic chemicals, chemical warfare, Agents/poisons. lol! They must have had a field day with me.

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Jeku
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 04:29
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Question: why do you use your work computer for personal stuff like that anyways? Adult pics?? Unless you use your own PC at your work, to which I say find a better job

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zenassem
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Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 04:52 Edited at: 7th Jul 2007 04:56
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Quote: "Question: why do you use your work computer for personal stuff like that anyways? Adult pics?? Unless you use your own PC at your work, to which I say find a better job "


Good question. And the answer is, I shouldn't. I have numerous computers around the house, and my work provided laptop is a tablet PC. I just tend to use it more becuase of it's portability. I actually have to build a new desktop. But yeah, I hear you Jeku. And trust me, I have cleaned my Hard drive with D.O.D. level cleaning software because of this experience. Most of the content I hadn't accessed in roughly 8 months to a year or more. You never know what's lurking around. So, use my experience as a wake-up call.

Also, the illegal activity happened to be on my work computer "AT Work". They just happened to confiscate my work related stuff from my house, to see if I had been the one accessing my computer from home. Luckily I wasn't. And I haven't been to work for nearly 2 months and won't be returning till august. So whatever was going on, wasn't me.

The other stuff is on a networkable Hard/Media drive, and basically that's where I keep most of my stuff and backups. It's centralized storage.

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GatorHex
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Location: Gunchester, UK
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 06:03 Edited at: 7th Jul 2007 07:34
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Quote: "I just recently renweed my subscription to Hakin9 Magazine, and I frequent 2600 site, and I have a bunch of port scanners, password crackers, IT security tools, packet sniffers and the like. But that's it."


LOL, is your job network security? If not, I'd be suspicious of any employee with that lot too

Quote: "I am now looking into HD encryption software. So far I have come up with TrueCrypt which is Opensource. I'm reading through the tutorial now."


I've given you all DarkFish DLL for free! Make your own secret safe app in DBP
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=109067&b=5

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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Grandma
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Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 12:54
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Quote: "I have a lot of "Dark" stuff on my computer as well. I'm not a bad person or anything. Just happen to like the style."


Yeah, that tends to confuse people. If some police were to search my harddrives, they would no doubt think i'm evil beyond comprehension. I have some anarchist cookbook (not that i find that evil, it's educational really to know all what you can do with common household items ). The satanic bible, David Hasselhoffs "hooked on a feeling" and soundbytes of hitler speeches. Ofcourse in that mix, i have some video clips, Kennedy's assassination, alot of 9/11 material and lost and lots of communism propoganda posters (i'm not evil, i just like the style). I have lots of wallpapers with weapons (especially AK) and i have lots of death metal songs.

Those who would look trough my computer would no doubt think a very evil person use it.

To clear things up at the end, i'm not a communist, fascist or an anarchist.

Operation Mockingbird
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Kentaree
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Posted: 7th Jul 2007 14:15
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Just special...

Nephin Games
Devhat Developer Network and IRC Channel
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Jess T
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 15:24
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First adr finds a Con-artist's HDD, now you get pulled up for fraud...

Do I see a pattern within the TGC community?
Maybe they're watching us?



Seriously, though, good to hear that you're clean, but it's gotta be a bugger having them rock up at your door and taking your personal data.

No matter how innocent I was, I would insist on either not letting them take it, or watch over every activity they took on my HDD (or ask for an access Audit of some-kind), then as them to delete their copy.
I'm very anti-other-people-knowing-about-me, so maybe I'm a little extreme, but still, my personal stuff is my personal stuff!

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
http://jt0.org
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Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 19:51
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Quote: "lots of communism propoganda posters"


If you're into that, check out North Korean art, which *only* allows for socialist realist propaganda.

http://www.dprkstudies.org/documents/nkpics/picgal.html

Pretty cool stuff.

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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 20:12
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Quote: ""Maybe they think that DarkBasic/TGC is some kind of terrorist network.""


I can't access TGC from work, its blocked. Pretty much anything related to games is blocked. I can't even visit gamedev.net because of the domain name. I guess folks were playing too many yahoo games instead of working so the firewall filter was set to block anything about games.


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Grandma
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Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 7th Jul 2007 23:28 Edited at: 7th Jul 2007 23:29
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Quote: "If you're into that, check out North Korean art, which *only* allows for socialist realist propaganda."


Heh, nifty stuff. What a great leader that Kim is. Boy, i wish every leader is as compassionate as him. I mean, no evil person could be portrayed that good could they? I thought not. I'm moving to North Korea, to serve the one TRUE leader!

Operation Mockingbird
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Steve J
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Posted: 8th Jul 2007 00:40
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Here he is mingling with the farmers!



What an awesome leader! That actually looks like a politicans campaign image though..

Time is ticking away.
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Jeku
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Posted: 8th Jul 2007 00:55
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That's Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il's father. It is widely accepted that the Kim's have the strongest and most elaborate personality cult in history. If I had a few hundred extra bucks I'd buy one of these original works of art when I visit Pyongyang next month.

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Steve J
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Posted: 8th Jul 2007 01:34
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Oh, I wasnt suggesting otherwise. It is amazing how much of a following he has. If I was able to go there, I would. For now I will have to settle with South Korea..

Ive read about North Korea, its amazing how all their monuments were reconstructed / made post Korean war.

Time is ticking away.
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zenassem
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Location: Long Island, NY
Posted: 8th Jul 2007 02:24
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Now I found this interesting...

I have gotten unwanted popups in the past on my computer. Some sites are really scrupulous when it comes to that. I remember trying to go to my secondary mail account and "accidentally" typed "hottail" .com instead of hotmail. I was instantly barraged with crap. Of course I ran all the common clean utils, and got rid of the stuff. But without writing low level 0's and multiple patterns across that area of the drive, that information is still retrievable.

Let me be the first to say that YOU ARE GUILTY until you can prove your innocence, even here in the States. These guys, while discreet, weren't very nice to me in the beginning. It's all eyes on you. So that email you accidentally opened, it's there... that errant web search, it's there. So according to forensics my Mother is dealing in male enhancement formulas. So if your drive is unecrypted, you could wind up on the side of proving your innocence.

I asked the detective about this, as I work in IT, and constantly clean people's computers of Adware, Spyware, Viruses, Trojans, Embarassing Pop-ups and downloads, Web Browser injections, False security zones, etc... The answer sounded like they were at least moving in a more positive direction to determine intent. Their software, will look at the date stamps, and access stamps. So according to him, if you get something you didn't intend, do your best to rid yourself of it, and immediate deletion will be in your favor. And yes... They were able to pull up info related to my hottail faux paux.

If another person in this community gets investigated then perhaps, Carnivore is seriously looking at words that come up on this site. Improbable but not exactly impossible....

Makes you wonder!

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Jess T
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 8th Jul 2007 04:54
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Just grab yourself a set of rare-earth magnets and have them ready in a cupboard to run over your HDD

Instant deletion

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
http://jt0.org
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