Slashdot Mirror
The Story of the tech.net.ru Crackers
tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post is running a three-part story (Part 1,
Part 2, and Part 3) detailing the events of the arrest of the two Russian crackers, Vasiliy Gorshkov and Alexey Ivanov, from a couple of years ago (See also Previous Slashdot Story 1 and 2). The writeup is light on technical details, but includes fascinating information about the crackers' socioeconomic conditions and motivations, as well as the competence and effectiveness of the FBI in combatting cybercrime."
This is an interesting paper from Feb 2002 on which countries originate the most malicious attacks. (Russia doesn't even make the list)
Google cached HTML version of the paper.
Suicide Booth: You are now dead! Thank you for using Stop and Drop, America's favorite since 2008.
Just wondering. Thought we gave up on this a while ago, but it appears some are still hanging onto this notion.
I know I get blank, "deer in the headlights" look from co-workers and friends when I try to explain the difference of a hacker and a cracker. Finally I just gave up.
I think they're moving toward "white hat" and "black hat" hacker terms now. But it's hard to keep up on this stuff. I mean, I still use the term "groovy"...so what do I know.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Don't use Windows for mission critical applications where money changes hanges. Although these articles only mention it in passing, either in an attempt to remove technical "jargon" or due to a wish to defer to MSFT, it does mention that these guys exploited vulns in NT, and fails to mention that they exploited any other OS. Maybe it's blaming the victim, but why were these CIOs astonished when they were hacked? Best case is that it was lack of research on their part. Worst case it was plain stupidity. Nevertheless, MSFT isn't held accountable.
On a related note, I was an indirect victim when they targeted an online shop that I purchased some stuff from (www.thenerds.net). Although I didn't lose cc info, the shop told me that my account was being held hostage unless they paid up. My response: I won't do business with them again, for depending on MSFT to secure their e-biz. I've also gone to a disposable Credit Card, which I recommend: www.mbnashopsafe.com.
Bottom line: any "CIO" that depends on MSFT for e-biz security gets what's coming to him.
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$tar -xvf
Read up. You can think of this as the "Fyodor cap", i.e., the threshold of damages under which Fyodor can attack your computer while immune to prosecution.
This is the first time I've ever heard a /. editor offer such praise for the FBI...ever.
Could this possibly be a Slashvertisement for the FBI?
-Turkey
There's absolutely NO PROBLEM getting a decent computer job in Russia, if you're any good. Decent programming skills will earn you enough to live on in virtually any city that's not small (Chelyabinsk is big). I'm a Russian, so I guess I know what I'm talking about.
There's just that kind of people who are reasonably smart, but with ambitions far outweighting their creative abilities. These often become crackers. Living conditions just don't matter here.
As to mafia demanding "protection money" - I really don't see it happening to a company that is barely afloat and works fully within the law. There're just lots of better targes. So I guess this was a consequence, not the cause.
I agree with Botzi. Just the idea of giving someone the chair over something like this is insane. Thats the problem with America anymore, many here are too eager to murder another person.
No other country has as severe penalties as we do for crime. Its more like the land of Injustice. Even the Bible says "Thou shall not kill". It can't be any plainer than that.
The punishments in America are the reason why our jails are so overcrowded. Instead of getting people help, we just lock them up.
As someone whos friend received a VD while spending only a few years in prison for a relatively minor crime, a painful disease that HE HAS TO LIVE WITH FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, I agree wholeheartedly with the parent poster. That prison rape is considered acceptable or funny is truly disgusting.
I beg to differ. Russia and Ukraine are very different in terms of economic and political situations. Ukraine has been totally looted by their political elite. There is no infrastructure left to mention at all. Ukraine is also a primarily agricultural country that has little industial presence at all (what there is is mostly located along the Polish border). Russia has been looted as well, but has (to a large degree) begun to return to a steady footing. They still have their infrastructure, and have an enormous industrial base. They also have an extremely educated populace.
None of this addresses your main points, but it is also important to note that Ukraine has varying amounts of criminal presence depending upon which cities you examine. The western cities have a large criminal populace as they have made their livelihood for decades off of smuggling goods from Europe through Poland (well, for centuries depending on how loosely you interpret history). This has, of course, engendered an enormous black market. Same goes for the black sea areas (especially Odessa) that smuggle goods to and from Turkey (notable quantities of drugs and prostitutes). Odessa also has been a traditional center of organized crime, even before the break up of the Soviet Union.
"I think we should tax people who stand in water! " - Mr. Gumby