In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decided to spend a lot of money and go out and buy one copy of every GURPS book that I could find at my friendly local gaming store (FLGS).
I had a copy of GURPS CyberPunk, and didn’t think very much of it. I was already in a CyberPunk game, and the GURPS version was a pale imitation. But there was another book that drew my attention. It was oriented towards espionage, and among other things it gave a very accurate description of how satellite surveillance worked. It also happened to use an actual classified military code word in the context of explaining what a classified military code word was and how they were used.
The latter was a clear violation of the law, and as soon as I saw it, I reported it to my security officer. He confirmed that this was a legitimate leak of a classified military code word, and he said he would report it further up the chain of command.
I never heard anything more about it from inside the government, but I have to believe that the SS and the FBI would use a coverup like pointing at a different book, if this was the actual reason that they were doing a raid on SJG.
So, there you go — almost 30 years later, yet another clue as to what might have been the real reason for the raid.
NB: When a classified military code word is leaked, they have to go through a huge process to reclassify all the documents that were covered under the old code word. This is a massive undertaking, and would cost millions or possibly even billions of dollars. And then there is the cost of the damage to National Security by all the documents which might already be in enemy hands but where they didn’t know what the code word covered or what compartment those documents were in. So, a leak of this type would be ... a really big deal.
The actual chronology is closer to something like this: feds target a bunch of hackers, one such hacker is also working on a game for SJG, during raid on his house feds notice all of the galley drafts and docs for GURPS Cyberpunk (some of which may have been internal phone company docs and manuals that would look very suspicious to a non-technical agent who signed up to look cool standing next to the president and has no idea about most of this stuff) and so they ask him about it, he happens to mention all of the other docs are just down the road at the SJG office, some fed gets a bright idea and a bunch of them head over to SJG to make a very big mistake...
Source: Straight from the mouths of Steve and Loyd. I was hired by Steve to start Austin's first real ISP with the money he won in this case and my future brother-in-law worked for SJG at the time of the raid.
But your story could be the reason behind the raid.
I don’t have first hand knowledge of any such cases, but I can certainly conceive of them.
Second, I believe it's a matter of record that SJG got caught in "operation sundevil" - a massive crackdown driven by a couple of high profile hacks, mixed in with paranoia driven by such authorative sources as the fictional move "war games"...
[ed: whops, no - that's one of the top ten false facts; apparently sundevil was limited to credit card fraud]
See also: Bruce Sterling, hacker crackdown.
Was the true meaning of the code word described, or might it just have been a coincidence? Like, if I used the words "CASE NIGHTMARE PINK" as an example of a military code word, and it just so happened to be a real military code word? Because stuff like that is probably bound to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Day_Daily_Telegraph_crosswor...
Also, making names secret under threat of criminal punishment sounds quite problematic. A name itself after all doesn't convey information, and you have to be able to name something to, for example, contest its secret status through legal channels available to a citizen.
like, see the list of WWII operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_military_...
Operation Menace - Corkscrew - Dracula - it's extremely likely to have a name collision if anyone where to come up with secret operation names.
Sadly, no one got the joke when I asked if anyone had warned the Steve Jackson Games crew.
It's not like he funneled his Lotus gains into the EFF. A foundation is also a money raising endeavor and there were likely many people who contributed a great deal in their early years (and now).
Your statement could just as easily be applied to Wozniak, as in "the money made from Apple (a game changing computer company) eventually went on the found the EFF". It's a fun fact, but not all that accurate.
You know, this really sounds like a "win" only in the sense it's the "win" we're "allowed" to have.
Everyone's lives were ruined for years. They almost lost their business. They lost a product they had poured countless hours into. They had to pay up front for attorney's fees (even though they were completely in the right), and spent years in court.
And all the Secret Service lost was some "sharply worded comments" and a tear-drop amount of taxpayer money that wouldn't even register on their budget and had zero affect on their future budgets.
The only brightsides were indirect ones. The EFF was founded, and their case law would likely be used for future cases and possibly future government actions (before they act) since they know they wouldn't be able to get away with it.
