Slashdot Mirror
Mafia Tech Support
Mzilikazi writes "A story from Wired about performing tech support for the mob, mainly focusing on gambling. Some interesting information is presented about P2P applications. Frankly it sounds like fiction to me (you can already imagine the movie being made -- 'I Was a Hacker for The Mob'), but the story is interesting nonetheless and shows that if you're skilled and determined but have a flexible moral compass, there's a lot of job opportunities out there." I started reading it for the mob references, but kept on reading for the details of how to run an illegal gambling organization.
Wasn't that what the baddie from Sneakers did?
(you can already imagine the movie being made -- 'I Was a Hacker for The Mob')
I prefer the title "Sneakers".
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
...then he has a pretty overinflated opinion of himself. He's like, "oh, I took a bunch of math and physics courses, but I forgot to my humanities!" He tries to romanticize "the life of a mob hacker," but he fails it.
Look at it carefully, and it won't look like some stealthy hacker but some dropout loser nerd.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
This article is as fake as a letter to Miss Manners or a WWW match...
The fact remains that I could be pulling in $150,000 as a programmer on the open market. But I make a third of that. So why am I risking a prison sentence or the potential of a lifetime in witness protection for a job that doesn't make me all that rich? Simple: When you start making a lot of money, you get noticed by the biggest bullies on the block - the cops and the IRS - and I don't want that. I like living below the radar.
Ah if you are working in the "open market" than you do not have to worry about "living below the radar".
The next juicy part
I don't fork over any taxes. When you get right down to it, I'm an idealist. I don't condone the actions of the US government. By refusing to pay taxes, I withhold my financial support. And, truth be told, I like mobsters. They're more willing to accept you at face value.
There you have it a moral mobster. Someone who does not condone the actions of the US government but overlooks the actions of the mob.
`The fact remains that I could be pulling in $150,000 as a programmer on the open market.' Yeah. Right. He must be a much better coder than he sounds if he could be making that right now with no college degree and no formal training. Maybe during the dotcoms, but now? And even if he could, I find it hard to imagine he'd give that all up because he `like[s] living below the radar.' Kudos to the poster for seeing through this self-aggrandizing fabrication.
I'm kind of suspect of this story. The guy claims he could be making $150,000 above ground as a programmer? Where exactly are these $150k programming jobs, in 2003?
you make a good point, drugs should be legal.
I'm not going to nag you about morals; I'd just like to point out that stealing calculators isn't all that geeky. It's merely illegal. But anyone can steal stuff from someone's backpack. In fact, students make better targets than most.
No, a *genuinely* illegal geeky thing to do would be to make peoples' calculators appear broken, and offer to buy the "broken" calcs from them. Then take the calcs to another school to sell them. Maybe find a combination of buttons, or a weakness in the design that was easy to break and easy to repair.
The fact remains that I could be pulling in $150,000 as a programmer on the open market. But I make a third of that. So why am I risking a prison sentence or the potential of a lifetime in witness protection for a job that doesn't make me all that rich? Simple: When you start making a lot of money, you get noticed by the biggest bullies on the block - the cops and the IRS - and I don't want that. I like living below the radar. I sublet a friend's apartment and pay his utility bills with money orders that I purchase at the post office or at one of those check-cashing storefronts. Because I get paid entirely in cash, I don't fork over any taxes. When you get right down to it, I'm an idealist. I don't condone the actions of the US government. By refusing to pay taxes, I withhold my financial support. And, truth be told, I like mobsters. They're more willing to accept you at face value. They aren't hung up on college degrees, or where you live, or how many criminal convictions you have.
/. bit.
So if we buy the subtext, he's your typical, semi-educated loser (precisely the profile of mob eggheads and enemy moles throughout history), who wouldn't be making $50k/year in a legit job, much less $50K take-home, justifying his criminal activity (and his inability to make any money at it) by saying he doesn't approve of the people who would--gladly and by all that is legally and morally right--put him in orange jumpsuits for the rest of his life.
Or, as I suspect, he's an invention of some half-inventive writer who's looking to run a nice Internet troll, maybe get a little play in the major news media.
I'm sure he's thrilled that
Cabbies in vegas can make a killing.
:P
I know someone that was in the Navy, and was on shore leave down there on frequent occasion. This was maybe 5 or 6 years back.
He and a buddy would chip in and rent a car together. Then they'd cruise the strip and pick up drunks. Every time they passed a cassino, they'd charge the drunk a quarter - that's what the fare was, they'd say. Of course, the smallest denominator that some of these people had was probably something like a 10, 20, 50 or even a 100$ bill. Being drunk, they would often be quite of of it.... so it was not uncommon for them to make 2 grand a night from a $100 vehicle rental.
Granted, his stories could have been a hoax, but if not... well, I can see why cabbie business there is so cut throat.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That's why barber shops are good, because they don't need much in the way of supplies. Many many barber shops in London launder drug money.
Another way I heard of for laundering a lump sum quickly was to go to a casino, turn it all into chips, place a few small bets, and at the end of the night take all your remaining chips to a diffferent cashier and say "whooo! Big win! Can I have a cheque please?" The nice thing about this is that the Casino is actually making money out of your scam, so it's far more likely to go "unnoticed".
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
but the story is interesting nonetheless and shows that if you're skilled and determined but have a flexible moral compass, there's a lot of job opportunities out there.
"Flexible moral compass"? Sounds like just about every Slashdot geek.
My personal pet peeve: Why can't banks get these coin counters? Are they reluctant to invest in "them thar newfangled coin counter thingies"? Why do I have to spend an hour rolling 33.75 in coins? Why Every casino I've been in has at least a dozen [which I belive actually count each coin, rather than relying on the weight].
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
"...if you're skilled and determined but have a flexible moral compass, there's a lot of job opportunities out there."
/. should be vanishingly close to zero.
So unemployment on
Any technology distinguishable from magic is not suficiently advanced.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
The whole point of the PATRIOT Act was to apply RICO-syle tactics of enforcement (which have already been used against the mob for years now) against suspected terrorists. You've got it exactly backwards.
Uh, No.
That was how it was sold, but some of the new patriot powers ARE being used against "regular" criminals, much to the surprise of many of those in the house and congress who naively assumed that it would be otherwise. I guess they didn't have time to read the fine print in the couple of hours they had to read it before they voted on it.
Where have you been? This isn't exactly news; I'm constantly amazed at how little notice this has gotten. One problem may be that the abuses against the public are so blatant and egregious that there isn't much anyone can offer as criticism that doesn't come off as cliche. (Although surprisingly in the case of eavesdropping over OnStar, they have met some resistance in the courts... so far.)
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target