Atari employee tapped to help in Secret Service raid | Hacker News Reader

Atari employee tapped to help in Secret Service raid

dadhacker.com

8 pointsallenbrunson11 comments

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.

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.

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.

That's an interesting idea. Do you see any evidence in the original article that this is the issue with which the author was having moral problems? I don't see anything like that.

The moral issue can be separated out. The issue for me is just the liability. He notes that he did not seek legal advice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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