Well, geez. Yesterday afternoon I got a visit from "The Man" about something that, since "I am not a criminal" (which I would tag with TM if Nixon hadn't already worn it into the ground) caught me utterly flatfooted and left me rather stunned. I've documented it on my LJ but the short of it is that for the immediate to short-term future I'm on "administrative leave" from work. At least I'm still being paid for staying away from the office so it doesn't screw up my financial planning (such that it is).

Hopefully this will blow over quickly and I can get back to doing productive things.

MemeStreams user (and good friend) Dagmar is currently under FBI investigation due to some mysterious systems break in at the university he works. Click through to read his story about it.

He says he didn't do anything, and I believe him.. Its not out of the norm for the feds to vet anyone who has ever been associated with the word "hacker" when an intrusion takes place where they work. Happens all the time. Friends here in the south-eastern security scene have often joked that somewhere the FBI keeps a list of us all, which it refers to and updates regularly. I expect this will be resolved quickly, and have either an amusing or positive outcome. If it doesn't, I guess we just have to make a big stink over it. We've done that before too..

Colleges have zombies all over the place. I worked in collegiate IT - its just a mess. Academic Freedom and all that. (Which is great, and I support, but it makes it very hard to control access to a network.)

I had a problem when I went to work at a college - at first my boss really suspected me of being some sort of ebil debil hacka because I happened to know something about it, and because I knew their wireless was wide open, and probably because I had made a KITTY TREATS can antenna. NEVER MIND that I came to the college from a respected security company, with an impeccable work background. It was more likely because, 4 years ago - I knew that orinoco gold cards were the shiz.

No, it was that kitty treats antenna, and the fact that my 'esoteric' (laugh) knowlege of networks was maybe a bit threatening to someone. Could this be the case with you?

I understand. Luckily they didn't ever call big brother to me because they were always afraid big brother would take their servers again without leaving them a backup.

I always did my best to play as dumb as I could and stay hidden, and only come out railing about security issues - read AGAINST this or that -when I felt the network was REALLY threatened.

Good luck. Keep cool, play dumb, find out who the fragile ego is.