8 ms·

"So why can't you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we're going to give it to them for free." As ill advised as messing with the FBI

"So why can't you sell this information to the FBI like you intended? Because we're going to give it to them for free." As ill advised as messing with the FBI may be, this is a masterstroke. Hats off.

jayzee 16y ago
You can't buy stolen stuff. If the FBI wants to use the stuff they may still have to pay for it. Besides deals at that level are all political and given to their buddies. The person who gave the deal to HBGary is going to still fork over the money since what is a few $M between friends esp when they are not your $M.
- rthomas6 16y ago
  Is it really stolen if people just tell the FBI the information, and it just so happens to be the same information that the security group was going to give?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
    Say you and I know this really cute girl. Let's call her Susie. I just won the lottery and I bought a new Mercedes (or whatever the devil it is these kids are driving nowadays...) that I want to give to Susie for Valentine's day. But on Feb 13, I leave the keys in the ignition when the car's in my driveway and you take it and give it to Susie as a present from you to her. You get the love, I get screwed. Is it really stolen if you just give the car to her and it just so happens to be the same car that I was going to give?
    - ddagradi 16y ago
      You wouldn't download a car.
      - bloodnok 16y ago
        Fuck you I would.
        gcb 16y ago
        this is the reference (contains same language as parent post) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thevrabec.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/download_a_car.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thevrabec.com/2009/08/29/you-wouldnt-download-a-car/&h=337&w=495&sz=18&tbnid=YJ4hnAWIdbwwNM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyou%2Bwouldn%2527t%2Bdownload%2Ba%2Bcar&zoom=1&q=you+wouldnt+download+a+car&usg=__-D_u-jUDuFC-Bd3fcHBzTfKfCDg=&sa=X&ei=A3FQTe2ZC4nGsAOsprXgCg&ved=0CBgQ9QEwAA http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thevrabec.com...
      - pyre 16y ago
        Obligatory piracy warning from The IT Crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
      - Unseelie 16y ago
        I actually have downloaded blueprints for every patent filed...well, did in 2005. I'm just waiting for my printer.
      - vacri 16y ago
        Of course not, it'd block the tubes!
    - Jach 16y ago
      Please, let's stop equating information with property. Say you're a guy in a pub and you overhear some private company contractors talking about just learning that a group of terrorists is plotting to blow up the Empire State Building, and mentioning some things in detail. You decide to tell the FBI about the terrorists, while they might refuse to give up their information if the price isn't right.
    - ecuzzillo 16y ago
      No, that's an example of stealing an object. Stealing an object is fundamentally not the same as telling someone something, even if it's something you didn't want them to say. This is why your example induces an obvious ethical reaction, whereas the original example induces a much more complicated one. The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car. But in this case, the information was actually of little value, but because there was a scarcity of information in the first place, the FBI would have been none the wiser. The ethics of spreading information are complicated. Oversimplifying them by comparing them to the ethics of stealing physical objects is wrong and bad.
      - gphilip 16y ago
        "The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary
      - gphilip 16y ago
        "The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - rhizome 16y ago
      I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concept of rivalrous goods.
      - derleth 16y ago
        I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concept of making people think that treating nonrivalrous goods as rivalrous is a moral imperative. After all, you wouldn't download happiness.
        rhizome 16y ago
        Ah, but you can steal a kiss.
    - dools 16y ago
      This is a thoughtful enough contribution to the discussion. Should you really be downvoting something to oblivion because you disagree with the sentiment or find the content erroneous/apocraphyl?
    - knowledgesale 16y ago
      Please, don't downvote opinions you don't agree with. Even though the opinion may look ridiculous to you in general(it does to me), it is clearly stated and has its inner logic and has the right to be expressed. Downvoting is for irrelevant or emotion-driven comments. (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html )
      - wtallis 16y ago
        Not all opinions are equally valid and worthwhile. In particular, opinions derived from from oversimplifications do not help the conversation and should be downvoted regardless of the stance.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  Your second paragraph is true, but the first paragraph only applies to physical property and, trivially, to legally protected intellectual property. ("Trivially" because in the case of intellectual property, the only value is in the legal protection itself, whereas for physical property it's possible to illegally transfer stolen goods even though the new possessor will not have a legal claim to them.) However, private-eye type intelligence has no legal protection as property as far as I know. It is only "sold" in the sense that the person who has it reveals the info in exchange for compensation.
  - pyre 16y ago
    It depends on whether the information in question is the raw source information, or the actual intelligence report created by the private-eye.
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      Only if the buyer intended to publish the report, in which case it would be the protected intellectual property I mentioned. But if the report were leaked before the private-eye was able to sell it, there is nothing he could do legally to prevent the potential buyer from acting on that information (which is usually why people hire detectives). In particular, the FBI would legally be able to investigate and prosecute people using HBGary's info without paying HBGary. Professional courtesy and/or conflicts of interest might prompt them to pay for it anyway, of course.
      - pyre 16y ago
        I was assuming there would be some sort of copyright issues with the information. I think that HBGray owns copyright on the report itself since they likely have some sort of analysis in addition to the raw information organized in an understandable fashion, though I guess there might not be any 'fruit of the poisoned tree'-type issues with the FBI using that information in their investigation.
      - ZachPruckowski 16y ago
        What about chain of evidence? Who's to say that the hacker didn't change details of the report between downloading it and publishing it? "This is a report from a security expert" sounds quite a bit better in court than "This is a report that another hacker claims is an unaltered copy he nicked from a security expert".
- jharrison 16y ago
  Wouldn't the FBI want to get HBGary's copy anyway? Why wouldn't they expect the torrent to be tainted or incomplete?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
krschultz 16y ago
Regardless of whether or not the information is handed over by Anonymous to the FBI, the company will get paid. There is a contract between the government and the contractor, and it will be upheld. It is embarrasing for the company but really this move won't change anything financially for either party.
- tomsaffell 16y ago
  ..until they come to negotiate their next contract.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    And what then? The FBI uses the Bittorrent archive instead of paying the company? Please. 100% of my work is government contracting, thats not how this works. The only question is whether the FBI will ever use this company again, if the FBI thinks they are incompetent then HBGary is out of work. But if the FBI still believes they are competent then they will get another contract to find more information even if some of that information is already in the public domain. The FBI won't punish them for a criminal action. At my job, just because something leaked through Wikileaks doesn't mean its unclassified. We still abide by all the rules and you can get in a lot of hot water for talking about something off of Wikileaks that you do not have need-to-know on. It's as if leaks don't exist to the government. You or I, and many companies would take advantage of the situation and just use the publically available information and not pay the PI firm. But this is the government. They operate in a whole different ballgame with a different set of rules. Anyone pointing their finger and laughing hasn't been through the requisition process, the government has thrown good money after bad in much fouler situations than this.
    - rhizome 16y ago
      At my job, just because something leaked through Wikileaks doesn't mean its unclassified. ...as long as you're clear that this is merely company policy and is not actually a point of law.
adn37 16y ago
The most astonishing info here is that this is HBGary that is involved. Come on, we are talking about the rootkit.com guys. Not taking side is one thing, taking the opposite side is a completely different one. Pretty much everything I learned for fun about rootkits, I learned it thanks to these guys. I am speechless.
- getsat 16y ago
  Expertise with Win32 internals doesn't make you a competent sysadmin or web application developer. rootkit.com runs one of the worst custom web apps I've ever seen. If you can't even get GET/POST/cookie escaping correct in PHP after years, you should probably not be building web apps. It's a shame that their site is so bad when their book is so awesome.
  - adn37 16y ago
    Indeed. I am speechless because they (started?) monetize going after the 'bad guys', while they have been publishing grey/black hat stuff on Rootkit.com for many years. The trust is gone.
  - hysterix 16y ago
    Yes to everything you said. The book is amazing, yet their web site is awful. It sucks seeing as how I'm in that list too. p.s. - if anybody can crack my password, I'll be impressed.
maayank 16y ago
I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way and not because of "HBGary are friends with the FBI" as the other posters seems to think... HBGary probably have a contract with the FBI where the FBI pays either anyway or based on the results (probably the latter). Notice however that based on the results here is based on the results of HBGary only, unless there is false data in the results. Think of it this way - if the FBI contracted HBGary and HBGary did all the work and gave it to the FBI only to find out that the FBI contracted a second group at half the price and now refuses to give money to HBGary - would it seemed fair/probable that such a contract have been signed?

jayzee 16y ago

You can't buy stolen stuff. If the FBI wants to use the stuff they may still have to pay for it. Besides deals at that level are all political and given to their buddies. The person who gave the deal to HBGary is going to still fork over the money since what is a few $M between friends esp when they are not your $M.

rthomas6 16y ago
Is it really stolen if people just tell the FBI the information, and it just so happens to be the same information that the security group was going to give?
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  Say you and I know this really cute girl. Let's call her Susie. I just won the lottery and I bought a new Mercedes (or whatever the devil it is these kids are driving nowadays...) that I want to give to Susie for Valentine's day. But on Feb 13, I leave the keys in the ignition when the car's in my driveway and you take it and give it to Susie as a present from you to her. You get the love, I get screwed. Is it really stolen if you just give the car to her and it just so happens to be the same car that I was going to give?
  - ddagradi 16y ago
    You wouldn't download a car.
    - bloodnok 16y ago
      Fuck you I would.
      - gcb 16y ago
        this is the reference (contains same language as parent post) http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thevrabec.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/download_a_car.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thevrabec.com/2009/08/29/you-wouldnt-download-a-car/&h=337&w=495&sz=18&tbnid=YJ4hnAWIdbwwNM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyou%2Bwouldn%2527t%2Bdownload%2Ba%2Bcar&zoom=1&q=you+wouldnt+download+a+car&usg=__-D_u-jUDuFC-Bd3fcHBzTfKfCDg=&sa=X&ei=A3FQTe2ZC4nGsAOsprXgCg&ved=0CBgQ9QEwAA http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thevrabec.com...
    - pyre 16y ago
      Obligatory piracy warning from The IT Crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
    - Unseelie 16y ago
      I actually have downloaded blueprints for every patent filed...well, did in 2005. I'm just waiting for my printer.
    - vacri 16y ago
      Of course not, it'd block the tubes!
  - Jach 16y ago
    Please, let's stop equating information with property. Say you're a guy in a pub and you overhear some private company contractors talking about just learning that a group of terrorists is plotting to blow up the Empire State Building, and mentioning some things in detail. You decide to tell the FBI about the terrorists, while they might refuse to give up their information if the price isn't right.
  - ecuzzillo 16y ago
    No, that's an example of stealing an object. Stealing an object is fundamentally not the same as telling someone something, even if it's something you didn't want them to say. This is why your example induces an obvious ethical reaction, whereas the original example induces a much more complicated one. The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car. But in this case, the information was actually of little value, but because there was a scarcity of information in the first place, the FBI would have been none the wiser. The ethics of spreading information are complicated. Oversimplifying them by comparing them to the ethics of stealing physical objects is wrong and bad.
    - gphilip 16y ago
      "The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary
    - gphilip 16y ago
      "The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - rhizome 16y ago
    I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concept of rivalrous goods.
    - derleth 16y ago
      I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concept of making people think that treating nonrivalrous goods as rivalrous is a moral imperative. After all, you wouldn't download happiness.
      - rhizome 16y ago
        Ah, but you can steal a kiss.
  - dools 16y ago
    This is a thoughtful enough contribution to the discussion. Should you really be downvoting something to oblivion because you disagree with the sentiment or find the content erroneous/apocraphyl?
  - knowledgesale 16y ago
    Please, don't downvote opinions you don't agree with. Even though the opinion may look ridiculous to you in general(it does to me), it is clearly stated and has its inner logic and has the right to be expressed. Downvoting is for irrelevant or emotion-driven comments. (see http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html )
    - wtallis 16y ago
      Not all opinions are equally valid and worthwhile. In particular, opinions derived from from oversimplifications do not help the conversation and should be downvoted regardless of the stance.
jessriedel 16y ago
Your second paragraph is true, but the first paragraph only applies to physical property and, trivially, to legally protected intellectual property. ("Trivially" because in the case of intellectual property, the only value is in the legal protection itself, whereas for physical property it's possible to illegally transfer stolen goods even though the new possessor will not have a legal claim to them.) However, private-eye type intelligence has no legal protection as property as far as I know. It is only "sold" in the sense that the person who has it reveals the info in exchange for compensation.
- pyre 16y ago
  It depends on whether the information in question is the raw source information, or the actual intelligence report created by the private-eye.
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    Only if the buyer intended to publish the report, in which case it would be the protected intellectual property I mentioned. But if the report were leaked before the private-eye was able to sell it, there is nothing he could do legally to prevent the potential buyer from acting on that information (which is usually why people hire detectives). In particular, the FBI would legally be able to investigate and prosecute people using HBGary's info without paying HBGary. Professional courtesy and/or conflicts of interest might prompt them to pay for it anyway, of course.
    - pyre 16y ago
      I was assuming there would be some sort of copyright issues with the information. I think that HBGray owns copyright on the report itself since they likely have some sort of analysis in addition to the raw information organized in an understandable fashion, though I guess there might not be any 'fruit of the poisoned tree'-type issues with the FBI using that information in their investigation.
    - ZachPruckowski 16y ago
      What about chain of evidence? Who's to say that the hacker didn't change details of the report between downloading it and publishing it? "This is a report from a security expert" sounds quite a bit better in court than "This is a report that another hacker claims is an unaltered copy he nicked from a security expert".
jharrison 16y ago
Wouldn't the FBI want to get HBGary's copy anyway? Why wouldn't they expect the torrent to be tainted or incomplete?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

krschultz 16y ago

Regardless of whether or not the information is handed over by Anonymous to the FBI, the company will get paid. There is a contract between the government and the contractor, and it will be upheld. It is embarrasing for the company but really this move won't change anything financially for either party.

tomsaffell 16y ago
..until they come to negotiate their next contract.
- krschultz 16y ago
  And what then? The FBI uses the Bittorrent archive instead of paying the company? Please. 100% of my work is government contracting, thats not how this works. The only question is whether the FBI will ever use this company again, if the FBI thinks they are incompetent then HBGary is out of work. But if the FBI still believes they are competent then they will get another contract to find more information even if some of that information is already in the public domain. The FBI won't punish them for a criminal action. At my job, just because something leaked through Wikileaks doesn't mean its unclassified. We still abide by all the rules and you can get in a lot of hot water for talking about something off of Wikileaks that you do not have need-to-know on. It's as if leaks don't exist to the government. You or I, and many companies would take advantage of the situation and just use the publically available information and not pay the PI firm. But this is the government. They operate in a whole different ballgame with a different set of rules. Anyone pointing their finger and laughing hasn't been through the requisition process, the government has thrown good money after bad in much fouler situations than this.
  - rhizome 16y ago
    At my job, just because something leaked through Wikileaks doesn't mean its unclassified. ...as long as you're clear that this is merely company policy and is not actually a point of law.

adn37 16y ago

The most astonishing info here is that this is HBGary that is involved. Come on, we are talking about the rootkit.com guys. Not taking side is one thing, taking the opposite side is a completely different one. Pretty much everything I learned for fun about rootkits, I learned it thanks to these guys. I am speechless.

getsat 16y ago
Expertise with Win32 internals doesn't make you a competent sysadmin or web application developer. rootkit.com runs one of the worst custom web apps I've ever seen. If you can't even get GET/POST/cookie escaping correct in PHP after years, you should probably not be building web apps. It's a shame that their site is so bad when their book is so awesome.
- adn37 16y ago
  Indeed. I am speechless because they (started?) monetize going after the 'bad guys', while they have been publishing grey/black hat stuff on Rootkit.com for many years. The trust is gone.
- hysterix 16y ago
  Yes to everything you said. The book is amazing, yet their web site is awful. It sucks seeing as how I'm in that list too. p.s. - if anybody can crack my password, I'll be impressed.

maayank 16y ago

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way and not because of "HBGary are friends with the FBI" as the other posters seems to think... HBGary probably have a contract with the FBI where the FBI pays either anyway or based on the results (probably the latter). Notice however that based on the results here is based on the results of HBGary only, unless there is false data in the results. Think of it this way - if the FBI contracted HBGary and HBGary did all the work and gave it to the FBI only to find out that the FBI contracted a second group at half the price and now refuses to give money to HBGary - would it seemed fair/probable that such a contract have been signed?