crack 99. this software had direct military application and the implications are scary because there is no way of restraining the sales. it can go to terrorist organizations, it can go to criminal organizations. the reaction once we realized that the software was legitimate was what else do they have? ultimately our goal in the undercover investigation was to successfully prosecute in a u.s. court of law. we knew we were dealing with a person who was holding himself out as xiang lee, but in addition to not knowing if that was a real person, we didn t know if that was the only person involved. we had a large number of questions about the operation. we needed to figure out a way of getting a viable target. so in january in 2010 i requested authorization to go trap and trace on xiang li s e-mail account. so i can get an understanding of how big his customer base is and
it was almost like it was his crusade to get operational cracked software to as many people as he possibly could. xiang lee had a real capitalist point of view. he was trying to make money. so, lumbar, we concluded he probably was not working for the chinese government or otherwise an agent of the chinese government. and that he was really a privateer. meaning that he was an internet pirate, who was selling stolen software for his own profit. i don t think he knew the retail values of these programs. i think if he did, i think he would have upped his prices a little bit. i don t think he quite understood how much he was giving to people. why was he driving around the island? net enin the end, we actuall determine what was going on. it was not the case that he had become suspicious of us. he wanted to do some sightseeing. he was trying to squeeze a vacation into a business meeting. in other words, he really was mixing business and pleasure.
we were still discussing things, but at that point, i wasn t going to go forward with anything else. i got everything that i wanted to get out of him. so we had set up a phrase that i would use with my cover team. that would show that the meeting was done and that it was time to come in and arrest xiang lee. the phrase was our business is done here in saipan. now that our business is done here in saipan raise your hands! get down! get down! get down! on the ground. police. police. we arrested everybody in the room and separated everybody and this was kind of the moment that i had been preparing for as the case agent, because now i had my questions for xiang lee. read him his rights in chinese and he understood them and signed off and agreed to talk to us. we sat there and we really
remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i m gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. i m telling you, if he looks over here, he s going to see someone sitting here. the meet was going well. xiang lee was talking a lot. and we were getting we were getting some good information. we established that xiang lee was the person that we were talking to through e-mail. we established that xiang lee knew that what he was doing was, in fact, illegal in the united states. we established the fact that he had smuggled now this software into saipan. now pretty much all that was left was to make the arrest.
talked about everything. and he was very cooperative with us, at first. xiang lee denied being the hacker. he said he obtained the software from hackers that he would meet online. he also denied being the cracker. and that s when he explained to me about these fan groups and about hacking groups in these message boards throughout china and russia. all of these programs had been hacked and cracked by other people, and put on numerous online groups, but it would be a site that was disjointed and difficult to navigate. so he would find as many crack software programs as he could find. and he would compile them and post them on his website. and then people could do searches. they could find what they need. and they could get fully functioning copies that they wouldn t be able to find in these chinese language message boards. and at the time, nobody else was doing that. people would say, do you have whatever software program? and he would just keep looking and keep looking.