FBI Shutters Web Host

By Rich Miller
Carrier Hotels Editor
Posted Feb 19, 2004

If FBI agents showed up at your data center bearing a warrant, would you be able to provide them prompt access to customer data? How long would it take?

That's an important question in the wake of an FBI raid of Columbus, Ohio hosting company CIT Hosting last Saturday. Federal agents wound up shutting down the entire operation, seizing all the company's web servers and all customer data as part of its investigation of a hacking incident.

CIT Hosting, also known as FooNet, markets itself as "the leader in the IRC and DDoS protection business for the last 5 years." The company posted a web page informing customers that its data center was shut down, and instructing customers to contact the FBI if they needed access to their files.

"The FBI executed a search warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio regarding the IRC network that we host," the company said in its statement.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a live chat system that allows users to create private discussion rooms. While IRC has a lengthy history of legitimate use, it is also a medium for discreet communication between hackers. CIT said the FBI was "investigating whether someone hosted on our network hacked and attacked someone else."

"After several hours of attempting to track down, inspect and audit the terabytes of data that we host, the FBI determined that it was more efficient (from their point of view) to remove all of our servers and transport them to the FBI local laboratories for inspection," the statement continued. "The FBI has assured us that as soon as the data has been safely copied and inspected, the equipment will be promptly returned. Unfortunately, the FBI has not been able to tell us when they will be completed with their inspection."

The seizure isn't standard procedure, and there's no way to know exactly what prompted it. CIT's account suggests the FBI may have lost patience with the process. The IRC-focused nature of CIT's business may also have been a factor.

But if you're a data center operator, you want to avoid any scenario in which the FBI gets impatient and starts hauling away your servers. Just one more item on the contingency planning checklist for the times in which we live.


www.carrierhotels.com

""The FBI has assured us that as soon as the data has been safely copied and inspected, the equipment will be promptly returned. "'

This sounds like copyright infringement against this irc net. It is their data and bears a copyright upon creation right?
hmm.. the riaa put out worms.. why cant we order the confiscation of their servers?

I learned long ago that it is important to go about things in the smartest possible way. The smartest, most efficient and honest way to go about this would have been to wait for the information they were looking for. They would have gotten to it in a decent amount of time, and get the person who did what they did. Unless there is a fear of the person becming some kind of low-level fugitive, then why would you need to move this fast?

I sure hope they get money from the FBI for being down. Hmm that could be in the millions.

LXI, not just time down but what about a violation of privacy? They took customer information as well, customers who I'm sure did nothing wrong.

Oh, not to mention the amount of data that is there. Where I work I run one production web server. I have many other servers, but lets keep this to just the one that serves up websites.

On this server there are a total of 21 sites. Now a site in my world is not just a web page or two, I'm talking about domains. Or in some cases when some one sets up a site for a new part of their domain (like movies.boycott-riaa.com) that can be redirected to a new site all to itself.

Just the logging of the web activity gets pretty big for a bunch of text files. Usually over 15GB. In my opinion those sites are not high traffic.

I can just imagine all the data being logged on those people's machines. Don't forget, you have to clear that out, so how often do they do that thus there is a chance the data FBI wanted was already deleated or perhaps on a tape backup somewhere not needing this over reaction.

Of course not knowing all the details I could be way off base, but I think it was a bit drastic to do this. I should hope they have a good solid reason and offer compensation for all innocent parties.

true was not thinking of the other customers data. So in other words the FBI copied all of the server information and will just look into what they need. Ya right they will look at it all.

Code for Pres 2004!! fire the rest of em Code

Seizing web servers --over a hacking incident? wtf. Dangerous precedent.

So now the FBI is counted among the number of terrorist organizations looking to disrupt the American lifestyle. Fer shame. Guess at heart the feds are nothing but a bunch of cops.

Know the difference between a cop and a police officer? You can trust the police officer, can't trust a cop.

Thanks LX1 !

They have no right to take all the damn servers, their warrant only pertains to the data involving the hacker in dispute. They just committed an illegal seizure of hardware and data. There's terabytes of data, and they know 99% of it doesn't involve their case.

and if they win a suit with the FBI, whos going to have to pay for it? money from their wages? nope, our tax dollars.

(They have no right to take all the damn servers) Patriot Act gives them the right to do it. All they have to is say terrorists are coming,the terrorists are coming. Up the color now to pink pokerdots. School kids duck and cover.

Terrorist networks and other spook like orgaizations commonly use IRCs to communicate. It sounds like they are looking for Al Qaeda.

I worry about this because I think the FBI chose to seize the equipment so that they could learn about Joe Schmoe, and also, somebody said that the FBI's 3rd thing or something of importance was piracy.

yar maties, there be good loot on the waters ahead.

raoulduke1...also, a lot of file trading (of all kinds of files) goes on using MIRC /IRC...and remember...copyright and intellectual property protection is now number three priority after "terrorism" and "counterintelligence" for the FBI....
they may be trying to catch those darn MP3 file traders....

This kind of thing is just plain WRONG!

Well...I was on MIRCX (An anime specific IRC server) when it went down from serious DDoS. I have seen a log with some users who were talking to someone purportedly attacking the MIRCX network because the owner purportedly reported them for using FooNet of hacking. This is all hearsay of course. I haven't a clue what really happened. All I know is that MIRCX closed down (Permanently now) because of an apparent hacker grudge match. I moved to Aniverse along with several others and now that's down too. Currently on a server I've never heard of with all the other channels that were on MIRCX and I think Aniverse too.

Note: I'm just an idiot newb who doesn't know much about anything to do with hacking. I barely manage to work out IRC commands so Mr FBi officer I'd appreciate you not coming bashing down my door.

Yes you would be correct Code Alot of file trading goes on on IRC/MIRC. But most of it is under the normal Irc users and from what I have read it is done off of hacked PC's. But I could be wrong. I have been before. But even still it does not give them the right to shut down all servers and take them. I did go to the CIT website and they said that the IRC server will not be coming up anytime soon. That and they moved to a multi oc192 Place.

But even so that is the nature of IRC and thier channels. one group of people always try to take over the other peoples channels and server and so fourth.

The IRS does raids like this to, check out Larkin Rose's Story at www.taxableincome.net

I think Larkin Rose is the one that has that cool, powerpoint like video explaining tax laws...

The IRS definitely doesn't like people demanding to see the actual law saying you have to pay income tax (16th Amendment be damned)...look at what happened to Irwin Shiff
http://www.paynoincometax.com/
or the guy from Bedford TX with Arrow Plastics, Dick Simkanin,..
http://irscases.blogspot.com/

This whole incident sounds amazingly similar to what created the EFF. Check out their story:

http://www.eff.org/about/#history

Codewarrior,
Glad to see you know about Larkin Rose, and others who have been totally abused by uncle sam.
Larkin Rose has his Flash Presentation of Theft By Deception coming out soon, should hopefully wake up thousands of ppl.
Also, sad to hear you have also heard of Dick S. The Judge Mcbide in that case, pretty much convicted Dick, we'll see how the appeal goes.
Code, how did u hear about these ppl? Glad to hear you up on these ppl.

I'd seen Larkin's work on local access...and I listen to Patriot radio all the time, one of the guys who lives near the town I live in, testified in the Dick Simkanin trial as a character witness.

There was the female pilot for FedEX or UPS that fought a civil suit by the IRS and won because she had a jury trial.

She used the same tactic of demanding the gov show her the law that says she must pay income tax...it was not provided...The judge in Simkanin's trial, would not even let that issue get explored...he just said to the jury HE knew that the law was "in there" and would not let a lot of valuable and important issues get aired.

CodeWarrior... A few years back my mother was fighting for back childsupport for my cousin. They had a judge who was about to rule for us, but then quit out of the blue.

He was replaced by an awful lawyer who simply wanted the case overwith (being pissed she was stuck with an extra 100 cases)

During one of the hearings, the judge kept refering to a 'law' and said my cousin was on his own.

So, on the final hearing my mother asked to see/read the law the judge kept going on about. The judge coulden't find it, and she kept getting more and more pissed. Eventually after 20 min of looking she found it.

After the new judge took over my cousin never had a chance, but they still fought. I'm sure if they had a jury, they would of seen how judge was pushing the case so it would be 'over with', they would of ruled for my cousin.