Operation Sundevil

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Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide United States Secret Service crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities". Along with the Chicago Task Force and the Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, they conducted raids in Austin, Plano, Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tucson, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.

Much of Operation Sundevil was targeted at credit card thieves and telephone abusers. Other parts of the operation involved the underground ezine Phrack, which had published the contents of a proprietary text file copied from Bell South computers—including an AT&T public-access UNIX machine in Dallas, known as "Killer"—and containing information about the E911 emergency response system,[1] although this was later made null in a court case in which it was proven that the same information about the E911 system was also provided to the public through a mail-order catalog. This was also a landmark case involving the criminal status of copying data, while leaving the original data unmodified.

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[edit] The Cyberpunk Bust

Main article: GURPS Cyberpunk

As Operation Sundevil was first being reported in the media, an unrelated raid occurred at the offices of role-playing game company Steve Jackson Games. Media and histories often relate the event as part of Operation Sundevil, although no direct connection existed at the time. The Steve Jackson Games raid was conducted by a Secret Service unit from Chicago under the direction of Chicago prosecutor Bill Cook, while Operation Sundevil was led by Gail Thackeray and based in Arizona. The SJG raid led to Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, "Part Two: The Digital Underground". Hosted by Farcaster.com (Undated). Retrieved on 2007-12-09.

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