  To: ALL
Subj: FBI & GI STING

Well it seems that the FBI and the U.S. Customs deptartment
in conjunction
with GI have pulled off a MAJOR sting operation in New
Orleans yesterday.

By now everybody has heard of the so-called VCII Plus clone
fix that has been
shown around in the states.

The story starts 6 months ago and I will try to set out the
players in order
of appearance.  Everybody has asked for a VCII plus fix -
when will it be
released?  A new member on this BBS using the name Gerald
?XXXX kept bugging
me about a rumour he was hearing and trying to chase down. I
kept saying - it
is too hard and too expensive to develop. But lo and behold,
2 weeks ago, he
called me and said he found the guys with the VCII PLUS clone
fix and he was
now representing them and was marketing it for the
developers. The developers
wanted to keep them names out of the picture completely.


We were told that Gerald's associate "Richard Collins" would
be in touch with
us to do a demostration of the product. Arrangements were
made for "Richard"
to meet us in Canada just accross from the border of Buffalo.
But at the last
minute Richard called and said he wouldn't cross the border
with the VCII
units and we have to go to the states for the demo. We
complied and went to
see the device. Sure enough, he had a MASTER unit and three
clones of that ID
number.

All three were tested seemed to be identical. The three
cloned units had a
soft epoxy on them and we were told that the parts under the
epoxy could be
bought at Radio Shack for the simple mods.

One of the cloned units was picked at random, put on line and
called in for a
subscription to be added to the unit. The hit came down
within minutes and on
came the new subscribed channel.  This verified the existence
of a cloned
unit.

Richard informed us that the price of the technolgy was
$50,000.00. They
wanted 20 people to put up $50,000.00 each to pay off the
developers a total
of $1,000,000.00.  This fix was to be guaranteed for a year.

A meeting was going to be held in New Orleans on Sept 7 1993
for a demo of the
so-called keypuller/reader/writer device. At this meeting we
would be taught
the full operation of the process and then pay for it and
leave with the
product.

We stalled off on answering their questions about when we
would arrive in New
Orleans.


                Something was fishy!
                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Richard was using the same sales pitch on too many people in
the industry!
Feedback was coming in from all over the country!  Even from
people that I
knew, who could not afford the $50,000.00 price tag - why
were they attending
this so-called hush-hush meeting. Were they playing around
with the price tag?

Better off to sit back and let it shake itself out.

Did you ever see that Eyewitness Video episode on how a
police department set
up a phoney front that bought any hot stuff from crooks.
After 3 or 4 months
in operation they had a party for all of these "customers" of
theirs and then
the FBI raided them and hauled them off to jail.

Well I couldn't get that episode out of my mind!  I keep
thinking - what a
major catch for the FBI and GI.

A perfect STING operation - 20 or more of the top chippers in
the industry,
all in one spot at one time!

And that is exactly what GI and the FBI and U.S. Customs did!




Now the others players who were involed in setting up the
sting:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Richard Collins - possible alias: Ted LaFever - U.S Customs
  agent
  Gerald XXXXX    - New Orleans  - hosted the demo !

  Dana XXXXXXX    - Corning N.Y. - was he busted or was he
also was selling
                    the fix.   aka: Jason Bates

 Busted:
 ~~~~~~~
 Tony            - Magna Systems
 Jeff C.         - Tennennese
 Jeff P.         - Tennennese
 Scottie         - S&S Satellite
 Kenneth         - New York
 Theo            - Nassau
 Robert          - Kentucky

  To: ALL
Subj: BRUSH WITH FATE

Cool.  They got Jeff and Jeff.  Be careful what you ask for,
you just might get it!

It could have been me.

Plus Fix indeed!  It's a fix all right.  Pushed all the
right buttons too.  I met the guy in a mall in Buffalo.
Talked with him.  He was not too technical, and he admitted
as much right up front, instead of trying to baffle me with
bullshit.  Made me feel honoured to be one of the few
trusted people he was sharing this with.  We talked money.
We talked proof.  He was paranoid in a different sort of
way.  Wanted to know where we were going.  Assured me of
security concerns, told me about "how it would go down" on
the seventh, he would pick me up, he had a location near the
airport rented, how safe it was.  How paranoid the engineers
were about security.

I saw it working.  One master, two clones.  All looked like
stock boards.  They took hits & worked.

The trap worked too.  They got the VMS boys, and probably
several others.  They would have got me except some people
talked some sense into my head.

And this has an interesting consequence...

The VMS software back doors, if not already, will soon be
known by GI.  Imagine the havoc this will cause!

The VMS Host works on an "update list" priciple.  The head
of a chain has an update list, and each host has an update
list.  So, one unit gets updated, and that RAM file filters
down the chain, like a pyramid.

GI can now pull ECM's on modems!

Jim Shelton in a recent interview:

It is not a very viable method to go.  The next step is
obviously a modem to download consumer or commercial keys
constantly since they are changing every two or three days
in order to steal the programming.  So far, those techniques
have not been very effective.  We, however, do not
underestimate the pirate underground.  We anticipate they
will perfect it in a matter of time, but there are
investigative methods underway with the FBI and Customs and
I would not spend a great deal of money going in that
direction either.  There is software in counter measures
that can eliminate that type of theft.  So, it is not a very
good, rewarding, quick return on your investment to pay
somebody to go in that direction just to encounter that it
does not last less than 30 days.  And, what it comes down to
is an economics game, and we recognize that.
           CALL GROUND CONTROL SATELLITE BBS
                    1-416-723-5059
