[ Thanks to Noel
for this link. ]
“I have been asked a lot of questions about the Cracked! series
of articles and our dealings with the police. Some people have
asked why we did not prosecute the cracker and why we did not try
to catch him. I decided to write an article discussing our
experiences with local, state and federal law enforcement. Please
remember that I am not a lawyer and this article is not intended
and should not be used as legal advice.”
“Once the cracker had trashed our system the FBI became much
more interested. They had us make up a estimate of how much the
losses and damage cost us. Which as usual for these sort of things
was somewhere between real and ridiculous. How to you assign dollar
amount losses to a community network’s down time? They told us that
it was much easier to get a prosecution when there were actual
damages and not just an intrusion. If I ever go through this again
I think that I would report all time spent recovering and dealing
with the crack as losses from the onset. After all they are real
losses of time and effort.”
“So what lessons did I learn from all of this? The first
lesson would have to be that when you want someone arrested it
really helps if they are a citizen of your own country and they
live nearby. Other lessons include the more hops they go through
the more sniffers you need to catch them and that the cops have a
lot to do and they may not take the time to help you, while still
sounding like they are. I kind of understand why the FBI does
not talk about investigations that they are working on. Having the
details leaked would not help them catch anyone but from our
perspective it was very frustrating. After a while you realize that
the positive spin is just spin.”