Not much to say. It was part of operation sundevil. I was never arrested or indicted and eventually got all my equipment back.
I'm not sure if it is SOP, or the Secret Service thought they were dealing with violent criminals. But they knocked down the front door with one of those rams you see on TV , ran room to room "securing" everything. Once they realized they were dealing with a scared 13 year old they seemed more embarassed than anything.
In addition to the local cops, and the Secret Service, there was a postal inspector involved, that guy was kind of a dick, he kept sneering and telling me stuff like "you are going down buddy", even at that young age I figured he didn't get out of the office much. The Secret Service spent post of their time bullshitting and telling me stories of various trips abroad with the president. Some of the nerds bagging up all my equipment would sometimes come in and peer at me, asking me minor questions like "Why do you have so many batteries" until they were reminded that I was a minor and they did not have parental permission to ask me questions.
I waited for years for the other shoe to drop, and be indicted, but I never was.
I still have all the equipment, still tagged, and even have some disks they put in the drives labeled "SS transport disk"
"I'm not sure if it is SOP, or the Secret Service thought they were dealing with violent criminals"
seems possible the bulk of them had first learned about hackers at the same time they learned about the raid -- perhaps from someone who exaggerated the average size of a hacker's fangs. in any event it doesn't seem likely that in preparation for sundevil they'd have consulted with anyone that would have urged a relaxed and moderated view of what was at that time an unexplored frontier of law enforcement.
Right, from the sheer scope of the raids I'm sure they thought they were dealing with some sort of syndicate, probably professional criminals branching out. They were absolutely dumbfounded, they didn't know whether to slap the cuffs on me or give me milk and cookies.
I'm not sure if it is SOP, or the Secret Service thought they were dealing with violent criminals. But they knocked down the front door with one of those rams you see on TV , ran room to room "securing" everything. Once they realized they were dealing with a scared 13 year old they seemed more embarassed than anything.
In addition to the local cops, and the Secret Service, there was a postal inspector involved, that guy was kind of a dick, he kept sneering and telling me stuff like "you are going down buddy", even at that young age I figured he didn't get out of the office much. The Secret Service spent post of their time bullshitting and telling me stories of various trips abroad with the president. Some of the nerds bagging up all my equipment would sometimes come in and peer at me, asking me minor questions like "Why do you have so many batteries" until they were reminded that I was a minor and they did not have parental permission to ask me questions.
I waited for years for the other shoe to drop, and be indicted, but I never was.
I still have all the equipment, still tagged, and even have some disks they put in the drives labeled "SS transport disk"