(thing) by steev Thu Aug 09 2001 at 6:12:29
The following is a letter I received today, forwarded to me by my parents. It was sent to them almost certainly because all of my domain registration records (including the one for hise.org) list their P.O. Box (for just this sort of situation) as the organization address.

There's an official FBI seal in the upper left corner, and a file number, which I have ommitted, at least for now. I'm still trying to decide what I should do about this. I haven't been engaging in any computer intrusion, so I shouldn't be worried, on a naive level. But, being the type to be not very trusting of our law enforcement officials, I am a little wary. I thought this would be of interest here. If anyone has any (serious) advice, feel free to /msg me.

(note: one of the most interesting things about the letter is the strangeness of the bit of "discovered information" that they quote. It looks like a Unix command, but the only "nc" command I recognize is the Nedit client. But there's no "-p" switch for the Nedit client, that I know of. Perhaps nc is just the name of some scriptkiddie script... update: aha! i stand corrected - some helpful softlinker has given me the answer. "nc" is netcat. thank you. learn some new Unix everyday...) 

U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
450 Golden Gate Avenue
13th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102-9523
(415) 553-7400
July 30, 2001
Dear Sir or Madam,

The San Francisco Computer Intrusion Squad is currently conducting an investigation into the activities of a group of computer hackers. During the course of the investigation it was discovered that a computer or network under your control may have been compromised. The following computer or account information was discovered during the investigation:

	
	nc -p 54321 hise.org 21 beef
If this is a computer or account belonging to you, and you have determined that it has been compromised, please contact Special Agent David J. Raymond with a brief statement indicating that the computer or account was compromised, and the amount of monetary damages incurred as a result. Special Agent Raymond can be reached at the following address:
	
	FBI Resident Agency
	Attn: SA David J. Raymond
	22320 Foothill Blvd.
	Suite 530
	Hayward, CA 94541-2700
	(510) 886-7447
	(510) 583-5257 Fax
	
					Sincerely,
					
					Bruce J. Gebhardt
					Special Agent in Charge
					
					
				(signature, Peter T. Trahon)
					
					By:
					Peter T. Trahon
					Supervisory Special Agent

I like it!