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."
I can sum up the fascinating information about the crackers' socioeconomic conditions and motivations quite easily:
They came from a repressive State where people were State property, and property rights didn't exist, where the Might made Right, where Need justified any excess or brutality, and where a class of "looters by law and criminals by right" was created.
Is it any wonder that they became criminals? Their country was a SOCIETY of criminals.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"Financial Damage" is a tough thing to define though. Some companies will claim millions of dollars lost to recover systems that have been hacked. How much actual financial damage did Kevin Mitnick cause?
I read the internet for the articles.
As one of the Russian authorities pointed out, it basically boils down to "commercial competition" between the two countries. The disparity in our economies is manifested in the lack of law enforcement in Russia. People who have no other options use what they've got, and countries with bigger problems than a couple of their citizens trying to make some money (albeit illegally) have their hands tied. I think the more interesting question is how to resolve the problem in a manner that would help both sides; is the answer simply stamping out these people's skills and livelihoods?
Don't go off on one of the common, "it's all our own fault for causing the rest of the world so much pain."
Wheter or not we (as in the United States, or any group there-in) don't live up to our own standards is irelavant to others actions. *Everyone* must be held accountable for what they do.
The only motavation for terrorism is the will to cause terror.
Some of us are. Realistically speaking, usage dictates meaning. If everyone else in the world is going to think of hackers as malicious intruders, then so be it. Languages change over time, and computer jargon should be no different.
I'm sure some people will fight for using the "correct terms." They are probably also zealots for their favorite text editor or Linux distro. I don't mind that they do it, but I won't do it myself.
Fight the battles worth fighting for. Leave the H/Cr battle for someone else.
--
"Extra Anus Kills Four-Legged Chick" -- Headline
Yeah, that's crazy! :-?
Hey, lets look to the backgrounds of people who walked on the moon, except Americans, they have such a large portion of the dataset....
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
If by "True Patriot" you are satirically indicting the "great patriots" of recent Russian history (ie communists) as most responsible for my nation's current economic difficulties then I salute you for astuteness. Otherwise, I shall just assume that like most of your Western ilk, you are simply naive, spoilt, and underinformed.
The Washington Post calls them hackers and their activities hacking, while /. rightfully used the word cracker?
I emailed them a slightly different version of RMS' letter you can find in the Jargon file (Appendix C). I've got no illusions about how effective it'll be, but I still feel it's something we should do more.
If you trust an online shop based entirely on the OS the server is running then.. err.. can I sell you stuff please?
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Computer security is really a joke. Instead of venting your rage on MSFT, even though that might have been the platform of choice, the time to root on a lot of linux distros and Solaris boxes is pretty appalling too. I think the CC companies will hit the breaking point of paying up on all of these fraud claims and begin to demand better of the software industry.
When I was growing up, a "cracker" was a person who wrote code to "crack" copyright protection on (Amiga) computer games. A "hacker" was a close kin of the phreaker, and bypassed security on computer systems.
Considering that "crackers" are still around (though they've moved from the Amiga to the PC it seems), what do you call crackers if hackers are called crackers?
This is just plain stupid. Connecting hacking with economical situation in any country is going nowhere. There are some countries, where You have to know what's going on before You start a company. And a bunch of guys living in such conditions should know about it.
Just a rule of thumb: running a small family bussines in Eastern Europe means keeping it low. If You don't want to, just be sure You are big enough to face consequences.
terrorism spawns where political goals can't be met by other means (trying to get something into the public knoweledge or trying to force the majority into something else by terror, or by fighting the oppressing force using unconventional means that cause terror).
common criminals spawn of poverty and possibilities, much like in usa too.
however theres a very thin line between criminal and legal person russia.. chances are that to do ordinary business you will have to be at least partly criminal(bribe & etc).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This comes up every time this kinda story gets posted.
Even if you break into a machine and touch nothing, even logfiles, you are costing that company money.
how? well that company has to do something about the hacked server (lots don't, they should) such as re-install, spend time fixing it, check logs, run extra checks on any other servers on the network. This all takes someones time and costs someone money.
Think about it from a personal point of view, you start a webhosting company and your server gets owned...you have to fix it, and since you don't know to what extent it has been owned that either means at least a few hours of investigating or more likely a complete re-install from backups. This all costs time/money. Whether that server should have been more secure in the first place is a whole other argument.
This company should then be able to prosecute you for the money you have cost it. There is nothing unfair about that. Their business is selling a service which you have interfered with.
If that company then goes and charges $20million for 3 hours of admin time re-installing I certainly wouldn't think that fair.
But at the end of the day if you don't wanna get burnt don't play with matches..... If you don't wanna risk getting sued for millions of dollars then don't break into corporate networks.
I hope these guys get the chair. Seriously. My wife and I are *very* careful online, and in all purchases - even so far as shredding all information before it goes into the trash.
The last two weeks we've had identity/credit theft again.. the second time within a year. Let me tell you first hand, this is NO fun. I spoke with our Credit Union representative about this - she stated that members are being hit with this almost nonstop, and it only shows signs of getting worse. Even better, now (she stated) they have perfected forging other things like money orders and the like, which is on the rise as well.
This hacking sounds "interesting" up to the point you've lived through it first hand. Now, I just want these guys caught and put away. However, the responsibility doesn't simply rest on their shoulders. Visa and other Banks should have the pants sued off them for giving the public such a laugh of security in the form of credit cards. Why lawsuits? Because once you hit their precious pocketbooks, they will finally take this stuff seriously. If the public truly understood the depth of how laughable the security is, I think they would experience mass account closures almost overnight.
The ease of use of these things is apalling. Heck, once they have a number, how hard is it to get the rest of the data like address and phone? What a laugh.
People - protect yourselves. I'm looking more into this: [Private Payments]
as a method of protecting my primary cards. If anyone else has suggestions, please let me know.
No one deserves to be raped. Shame on you for suggesting it.
What kind of a barberous place has America turned into, when people getting raped as part of their imprisonment is considered not only acceptable (a ha-ha-ha standing joke for Letterman and Leno) but desireable?
What other humiliating physical violence do we think criminals should be subjected to? Should the women get raped as well? Maybe this should be institutionalized, so we can be sure that all inmates get raped and violated in equal measure?
Funny, I haven't seen any evidence that Fyodor did anything more than connect to an open X server on the public internet, that some poor troll left open. Where's the proof that he ever did anything that was actually illegal? (Actually, I haven't seen proof of him even doing anything at all.)
When you're accusing someone of a crime you typically want to have proof.
You also don't want to be someone that goes around posting fraudulent information.
Since this whole thing starts off with the troll admitting the he lied about who he was, he's destroyed his own credibility. I mean what's to say all these accusations aren't a troll as well?
You have provided no (functional) links to anything but a couple of troll's journals. Where the hell are the links to where Fyodor brags about all this?
Sounds like bullshit to me.
Life is too short to proofread.
And what would be so wrong with that?
All the Russians I've ever met have been educated, cultured, friendly people. *
They're not the bumbling, devious, drunken idiots that Hollywood films frequently make them out to be.
* Disclaimer. I haven't met every Russian in the world.
(Na rodina, tovarishi.)
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