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.
Say, instead of stealing credit card number or anything at all, they just left evidence on the computer that they were there (like they did).
:)).
Could they still have been prosequted, or would anyone ever have bothered to bring it this far?
Sounds like these guys could have made a business out of it, if only it was done right (not that im suggesting my suggestion was right
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
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
I like this snippet:
Unbeknownst to Gorshkov and Ivanov, the agents had installed onto the "company's" computers a program that logged the young men's keystrokes as they were accessing the tech.net.ru systems in Russia. That allowed U.S. law enforcement to obtain the hackers' passwords.
0wned by FBI's keylogger, har har!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
2. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1989. After 1989 there was no USSR, no repressive govt, no torture chambers for subversives or whatever else you might be implying.
...
The repressive state they were 'a product of' ceased to exist when these boys were 13 and 8.
While the USSR no longer exists, it would be silly to think that everything that it had done was magically undone the day it ceased to be.
I suggest you take a trip to Berlin, stand at Checkpoint Charlie (or anywhere else along the wall), look left and look right.
I did this last Spring, on Spring Break. It's a very powerful experience. I was too young to understand the full implications of what was happening when the wall fell, but today I realize that the effects of the USSR live on and will for quite some time.
Whether or not the grandparent post was trolling, it's resonable to consider the USSR's effects on the people it controlled. It made a lasting impression on many societies.
Think about this one: How long did it take after abolition for the status of blacks in America to change? Where those born 20 years after abolition, able to live their lives blissfully unware that it had ever happened?
Maybe societies don't change instantly, even if you'd like to think so. If you want an example of this in relation to the topic at hand, I suggest you do a search on the word "propiska."
Here's a link from about a month ago.
Life is too short to proofread.
U.S.-based attacks triggered nearly half (49%) of all the events in the 4th quarter. The U.S.-based events were not included in this study because they constituted such a large portion of the dataset and because the main focus of the study was on socioeconomic, political, and geographic patterns in the data. In order to better understand and predict the sources and nature of future attacks, data was col- lected and parsed for non-U.S. originating events.
In other word, if you want to stop piracy and hacking, shut down the most [cyber]terrorist country : ther U.S.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I've been reading this story with interest, since I'm American, currently living in Prague, and recently visited Ukraine (OK, not Russia, but economically similar). The mafia is all over that place, and I have no doubt that these kids were being hassled for "protection money". Many homes in Russia do not even have hot water, so you can't think of this place as you would a western democracy - the people do anything to survive. Now, of course, this is no excuse for criminal behavior. However, I keep thinking - isn't it better that these guys are finding the cracks in your system and telling you about them, instead of just stealing all the credit card info and causing much more damage to your business in bad publicity and pissing off customers? This is really a catch-22. As a business owner, of course I don't want to encourage blackmail. But having vulnerabilities on your business site is YOUR problem and its better that you're told about them before someone else takes advantage. I would rather pay someone and find out about vulnerabilities than have someone else steal all my info and ruin my business reputation. Of course, these guys could just keep coming back for more money every month if they already have my CC#s and info. In that case, your server's vulnerability has cost you big time. Sorry, I don't have a good answer to this, but let's not let the business owners off the hook because they are being blackmailed from people who found mistakes in THEIR OWN servers. To sum up: Blackmail=BAD, businesses that don't secure their systems=ALSO BAD.
"The prohibition will be strongest when the group is nervous." - Paul Graham
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.
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?