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Yes, it was by the Secret Service and yes they were overly excessive in what they grabbed (e.g. everything plugged into an electrical socket that was not involv

by evgen 10y ago

Yes, it was by the Secret Service and yes they were overly excessive in what they grabbed (e.g. everything plugged into an electrical socket that was not involved in food production), but even Loyd would probably admit by now that it was not entirely without cause...

scandox 10y ago
Yes perhaps it is better to use a term like "heavy handed". Current situation seems so much more adversarial and frightening than what Sterling describes.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Yeah, these days you're lucky if you don't have an armored vehicle crash through the wall of your house and you or your family don't get "accidentally" shot during a police raid.
mcv 10y ago
There was of course a reason why the Secret Service raided them, but that doesn't mean it was a good reason. At the time, everybody was shocked and the courts sided with Steve Jackson, but with the past 15 years, I can imagine people are now more used to this kind of invasive, ill-justified raids by law enforcement organizations, and more willing to accept this as normal behaviour.
- evgen 10y ago
  It was a good reason even if they were incorrect regarding their suspicions, and they did not have either the proper paperwork to enter the premises or the legal authority to remove what they did. As someone personally involved in the whole affair I can assure you that it was considered excessive and the Secret Service rightly deserved losing that case.
aetherson 10y ago
What was the cause?
- evgen 10y ago
  Loyd was a bit of a hacker (</understatement>) and was working with SJG to write a cyberpunk GURPS module. As a part of operation sun devil the secret service raided a bunch of hackers, including Loyd. When they found the material related to the game and asked about it he mentioned that he was writing a game for this company down the road. The agents headed over, basically broke in, and seized a ton of gear including an Amiga that was running a BBS and also held a bunch of printing files and markup for the game. The story was later changed to them thinking that the BBS might have had a backdoor to a hacker board, but this was complete BS and the collection of what was seized showed that the agents on the scene had no idea what they were doing.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    You missed the part about GURPS Cyberpunk being a "hacker manual". Ah, Operation Sundevil.

by evgen 10y ago

scandox 10y ago

Yes perhaps it is better to use a term like "heavy handed". Current situation seems so much more adversarial and frightening than what Sterling describes.

pmoriarty 10y ago
Yeah, these days you're lucky if you don't have an armored vehicle crash through the wall of your house and you or your family don't get "accidentally" shot during a police raid.

mcv 10y ago

There was of course a reason why the Secret Service raided them, but that doesn't mean it was a good reason. At the time, everybody was shocked and the courts sided with Steve Jackson, but with the past 15 years, I can imagine people are now more used to this kind of invasive, ill-justified raids by law enforcement organizations, and more willing to accept this as normal behaviour.

evgen 10y ago
It was a good reason even if they were incorrect regarding their suspicions, and they did not have either the proper paperwork to enter the premises or the legal authority to remove what they did. As someone personally involved in the whole affair I can assure you that it was considered excessive and the Secret Service rightly deserved losing that case.

aetherson 10y ago

What was the cause?

evgen 10y ago
Loyd was a bit of a hacker (</understatement>) and was working with SJG to write a cyberpunk GURPS module. As a part of operation sun devil the secret service raided a bunch of hackers, including Loyd. When they found the material related to the game and asked about it he mentioned that he was writing a game for this company down the road. The agents headed over, basically broke in, and seized a ton of gear including an Amiga that was running a BBS and also held a bunch of printing files and markup for the game. The story was later changed to them thinking that the BBS might have had a backdoor to a hacker board, but this was complete BS and the collection of what was seized showed that the agents on the scene had no idea what they were doing.
- mcguire 10y ago
  You missed the part about GURPS Cyberpunk being a "hacker manual". Ah, Operation Sundevil.