While I didn’t see whoever came by our office from the FBI, it didn’t sound like they were in a playful mood. That afternoon, I caught up with the Packet Storm guys in their natural habitat: in a dark lab, disco ball spinning.

“How’d it go?” I asked. All four of them were there.

Shawn looked at Lineman. “They want Mixter,” said Lineman. “They think he did it.”

“Did he?”

“No way,” Shawn said. “But the Feds want his personal information. I mean, we sent him ten grand, so we know his real name, where he lives. Phil’s asked if they’ll be okay with him calling them instead, just to talk.

“And they wanted all our logs,” Lineman said. “We told them we don’t keep logs.”

“You don’t keep logs? All these attack-tool downloads, and you don’t—” I thought about it. They had been awfully busy that morning. “—keep anything?”

“Not anymore,” Johnny said. Shawn threw a pen at him.

Lineman turned back to his keyboard. “We showed them how we don’t log anything.” He threw a look at Johnny. “We make things available, but we don’t need to know who everybody is.”

“Huh,” I said. Everyone turned back to their keyboards.

“What about the German hacker guy, Mixter?” I asked.

Shawn swung back around. “I emailed him and he said he’d talk to them.”

“Huh,” I said.

A few days later, a U.S. Senator visited the office, under invitation by or with introduction through Kroll, our corporate masters. I forget which one. He specifically wanted to speak with the Packet Storm crew, who seemed at the same time flattered and terrified by the attention.

Mixter’s $10K DDoS papers were posted on Packet Storm not too long afterwards. You can read them here, and here. They basically say, “There’s pretty much nothing you can do, sorry,” albeit in an extremely well-informed way. I don’t think anyone was comforted.

When the FBI talked to Mixter, they claimed to have been convinced that he hadn’t done it. Which was good. But they still had to pin it on someone, and after some snooping it seemed they suddenly knew a lot more about the Packet Storm gang. Which was bad.

I got a late night knock at my door. It was Shawn and Lineman.

“Did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said, ‘Dead hacker storage’?” I said. “Cause it ain’t there.” This was a twist on a quote from Pulp Fiction, meant to be funny.

Shawn chuckled softly, then his face settled into a low sort of grimace. Lineman was unreadable.

“The FBI arrested Johnny’s father, back in Chicago,” Lineman said. “The ATF, actually.”

“What?”

“Said he was a domestic terrorist or a cop killer or something,” Shawn said. “Some other stuff. Totally bogus charges.”

We sat down. “How’d that happen?” I asked.

Lineman took a deep breath, then looked at Shawn  He glanced around my apartment and then in a low voice, he said, “Let’s go for a walk.” He pulled a baseball cap down tight, his eyes barely showing under the brim. “No reason.”