> He says the New York district attorney’s office tried to strong-arm him into a plea agreement that would have had him hacking into the systems of his software clients in order to obtain the usernames and passwords of gamblers and their bookmakers to help authorities gather evidence of illegal gambling.<p>If the premise of Harvey Silverglate's book, "Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,"[0] is correct, then this is quite plausible. A key message from Silverglate's book is that because it is impossible to know if one's behavior is lawful[1], it is impossible to be sure that one operates within the contours of the law at all times. Thus, if you would be convenient to nail not because of anything in particular that you've done but <i>because you can probably be convinced to testify against someone higher up in their chain</i>, beware.<p>From my recollection of this book, this was a tactic more typically used at the federal level, so either the tactic is spreading or my recollection of its state-level use is just dim.<p><i>EDIT</i>: In response to all of the other comments pointing out other absurd choices the authorities could make (they could prosecute Pepsi since they sell soda to these operations, etc), Silverglate's book provides a nice framework for why this programmer would be targeted and not Pepsi. He's not the fodder, but he does have meaningful access to the fodder (whereas Pepsi surely does not).<p>[0] = <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...</a><p>[1] = In contrast, it's often quite possible to know when one's behavior is unlawful.
The degree of militarization of, and breathtaking overreach by law enforcement depicted here is stunning. 30 camouflaged SWAT officers? To arrest a coder because someone else was using his software illegally? Really?<p><i>The case began in February 2011, when Stuart says he and his wife got the Kim Dotcom treatment after about 30 local Arizona law enforcement agents wearing SWAT gear and camouflage dress — some of them with bushes attached to their shoulders to blend into the woods around his house — descended on his home and threatened to send him and his wife to prison for 35 years if he didn’t cooperate.<p>The search warrant used in the raid said Stuart and his wife were engaged in money laundering, operating an illegal enterprise and engaging in the promotion of gambling. Stuart has tried to obtain a copy of the affidavit used to get the search warrant, but it’s currently sealed.<p>The conversation for the plea agreement occurred the day after the raid, when Stuart says he was still traumatized by the experience and had only rent-a-lawyers, hired quickly over the internet, to represent him. The lawyers urged him to cooperate and agree to the terms.</i><p>And then once they arrested him, this:<p><i>Stuart showed Wired a plea agreement (.pdf) signed by former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney James Meadows, which stated that he would plead guilty to second- and fourth-degree money laundering charges and assist the DA’s investigations by, among other things, “aiding in the design of software used to obtain records, usernames, passwords, and other information stored on websites using” his company’s software.<p>Stuart says authorities specifically told him that they would not use the backdoor themselves but that he would be expected to access the servers of online casinos and others who used his software overseas in order to retrieve the information of gamblers and bookmakers on their behalf.<p>“They made it clear that they would do nothing. I was expected to do everything, to modify the system to allow myself to get in to get the information they wanted,” he says. “Their whole intention was for me to retrieve information from those databases that were located in foreign countries…. They were going to use me to get to the clients…. But I’m not a hacker, I’m a software developer.”</i><p>So in other words, these guys are too lazy to do any of the hard things associated with their job: not investigating, not establishing proof, not getting a valid search warrant that passes the laugh test. So they've decided to find ways around doing their job, and get the accused to do their job for them, via SWAT teams and threats.
The NY State government has a huge hang up about gambling. I've had multiple discussions with NY State liquor control and the AG's office about what they consider "Gambling instruments", which you cannot possess in a establishment that serves alcohol.<p>Not Gambling instruments:<p>Darts
Chessboard & Chess Pieces (including checker pieces)
Bowling Balls (and Bowling in general)
Pool cues (and Pool tables & balls)<p>Gambling Instruments (possession of any of these items is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year in jail):<p>Deck of cards
Dice<p>That makes the following games illegal:<p>Any card game (Poker, Blackjack, Rummy, Go Fish, Solitare)
Yahtzee / Boggle
Trivial Pursuit (just having the cards are OK for some reason)
Candy Land (!!!)<p>Just to further the point, you can shoot pool, for money, and it's not gambling. But if you carry a child's boardgame into a bar, you've violated NY State gambling laws.
In other news, people are still looking for the inventor of the hammer to charge him with multiple accounts of manslaughter, consequence of every death in which his invention was used. People with sore thumbs are waiting for a verdict before presenting their griefs.<p>Faraday commented: "I am not guilty of the use of electricity in Guantanamo"
This is alarming. Gambling laws in the US are antiquated and intellectually dishonest. It is unfortunate the Wire Act of 1961 was written more to stop organized crime than it was to actually help regulate gambling. The language in this piece of legislation is so broad and poorly defined that states often reach conflicting conclusions.<p>One hopes this guy can afford suitable counsel and get out of this without too much trouble. I sincerely hope a future victory will set a more business-friendly precedent.
> <i>At the time of the raid, Stuart had about 20 clients, all of them outside the U.S. in Costa Rica, Panama, Australia, Jamaica, the UK, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. Now he’s down to 10 clients.</i><p>Maybe this was the goal all along. Simply targeting this individual is enough to permanently damage his business. It might even cause others to have second thoughts about developing gambling software. Even if this doesn't end in a conviction the landscape of online gambling software will be altered.
$2.3M in cash and money orders? Isn't that a MASSIVE red flag that you are dealing with unscrupulous people? That's textbook money laundering.<p>It's alarming on the surface, but he HAD to know he was dealing with criminals with that volume of untraceable payments. I certainly don't think he should be facing criminal charges, but I can't imagine he's actually surprised.<p>Also, their website: <a href="http://www.extensionsoft.com/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.extensionsoft.com/index.htm</a><p>Apparently designed in MS Word, minimal information, no product details (why not?), can't keep their own tagline straight (is it "International Software Systems" or "International Sportsbook Systems"?).<p>I hope it's not delving into ad hominem territory, but it's a shady website no doubt.
It seems to me that this Assistant DA was trying to coerce this guy into breaking international law. I would think that some of these foreign countries have laws about hacking (installing back doors, secretly extracting user information, etc.). It could be argued that this Assistant DA could be charged with an attempted conspiracy to violate said international laws. I can imagine a scenario where he goes on vacation outside the US and discovers that there's an international warrant for his arrest.
The irony of this is that unless you have solved the halting problem, how do you want to prove that a given piece of software does <i>not</i> do something illegal like facilitate gambling? They are called "general purpose computers" for a reason.
Your identity is becoming more of a liability than an asset. In the next iteration, guys like this and Kim Dotcom will only be known by pseudonymous online handles and accept payment in bitcoin.
Seriously, if it wasn't illegal gambling where these people gambled I don't see a problem.<p>Let them find proof for the charges. Sad thing is that it actually hurt an otherwise legal business.<p>This and the whole megaupload story show very much the problem of law enforcement and the de-facto borderless nature of the internet.
Do those casino's sell their gamblers coca-cola? Better go after them, or maybe even pepsi!<p>Those drinks are being sold to gamblers and these soft drink companies are benefiting directly from gambling proceeds!
This guy made the critical mistake of treating his customers with respect. I would have turned state's witness, installed the backdoor, and kept cashing the checks. Don Aronow would approve.
In cases like this I have always wondered if you could ask the judge/jury if they would also shut down Dell, Microsoft, Apple etc. as the wares from these companies are also used?
"Under plea agreement discussions that were never finalized by a judge, and that occurred in February 2011 before Stuart was charged with any crime, Stuart says New York authorities pressed him to install a backdoor in his software and distribute it to clients so the data of gamblers and bookmakers could be retrieved."<p>I hope the Bitcoin community is paying attention to this.
When balancing my dislike for furthering the practice of gambling with my dislike for the increasingly excessive use of force by the politicians and their servants, I think I should still side with the software developer. Since the politicians and their servants seem to be trying to intimidate our side, I would be for a solution in which we start intimidating back. Otherwise, our own position will keep eroding until nothing's left.
Do the machines the software ran also had windows or linux ... and the sites were listed in google. i see a lot of fat amicus briefs flooding the courts.
if gambling were legal, then corporations would be fairer than the government run lotteries on every street corner's store. it's not about legal or illegal gambling. it's about protecting their income streams.
Even though I am not particularly interested in interfering with how the politicians and their servants are taking the general populace for a ride -- since they may have indeed asked for it -- the politicians and their servants should know their limits and they should know when to stop. If we do not show the courage and the good sense to retaliate, they will simply extend their intolerable excesses over our profession too.