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Hacker Resells VOIP For Profit
uncleO writes "The New York Times tells the story of today's arrest of Edwin Andres Pena, 23, who 'hacked into computers run by an unsuspecting investment company in Rye Brook, N.Y., commandeered its unprotected servers, and re-routed his phone traffic through them,' then 'used more than $1 million he received from his customers to go on a spending spree, buying real estate in south Florida, a 40-foot Sea Ray Mercruiser motor boat, and luxury cars including a BMW and a Cadillac Escalade.'"
Too bad he wasn't smart enough to put it away in the Cayman Islands or a Swiss account!
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
I'm never gonna get used to VOIP. Caffineated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? ADMIRAL Crunch?
Here's reference for you young whipper snappers
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
in this story is that he went and bought a Cadillac...
WHO CARES...... VOIP is the devil, I had one but then I had an anureism in my left temporal lobe that exploded and blew out my eyeball causing me to stumble and fall down some stairs and cracked open my leg and got gangrene and then had ot have it amputated below the knee. So now I am known as the anti-VOIP pirate. when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro - figure it out
He should've taken the money and run... high-tail it to India or some such, maybe get a low-stress McJob, and then, live the good life off of whatever's left of that $1M.
Yeah, like buying all those luxury items was most definately not a red flag that something was up. He should have high-tailed it out of the country while he had the chance but he got greedy and decided to live it up. Hope he enjoys absolute poverty in his jail cell.
Thats the only explanation i can think off, No one that smart should or could act so stupidly.
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http://akurl.com/ Chunky urls beware
Why is it that most thieves have no taste? The BMW is okay, but most of that is tacky sh*t you could win on The Price is Right.
Schwab
Elitist Scum
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
If you can't trust the internet why do you have to trust voip? yeah its cheaper but its definitely not as safe for investors.
...allowed one phone call when arrested!!
AT&ROFLMAO
This article sounds like a HOWTO! -click-
The above is most likely humour. Slashdot foot icon goes here.
If he was in the Government, he would have gotten a medal of freedom, and a nice no-bid contract after this was done.
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When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
When will they learn? If you ever find a get rich quick scheme that ACTUALLY WORKS and makes you millions you should spend it slowly. Don't go for the Escalade and McLaren. Don't buy a home on the coast of Florida. Do learn about banks in Switzerland.
Funnypics
1: Set up VoIP web site
2: Get customers to pay for VoIP
3: Connect customers at someone else's expense.
4: Profit$$$$
Sounds like a clever business model to me.
I used to work in the VoIP business writing software a few years ago. There's A LOT of illegal activity that goes on. Much more than you think. Espically in wholesale. These guys do this stuff all the time. I guess the real story is that it happened in the US. Mostly it happens outside of the US. But trust me, it happens all the time. The shitty thing is, you have to pay for minutes you were ripped off. It's one of the few businesses that you can have stolen more than you have. If I have a warehouse ripped off, I am only out the equipment in that warehouse. With tollfraud, I can be out 300,000 dollars more than my whole business is worth.
It's bound to happen. A lot of these guys just buy a cheap-o softswitch and throw it in a noc. Some of them do their billing in MS Access.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Disconnect! Disconnect! The Gig is up!
If the Escalade is on stock rims I really don't think you can call it a luxury automobile. I kinda symphathize with this guy. He starts his own business, buys a cadi, and his rims don't even spin. You can't live in Florida with stock rims! So he cuts a few corners but still provides for his customers. Then ya know you gotta have a boat too and you don't want a flounder boat so he gets the 40 foot Mercury. Being environmentally conscious as he is it occurred to him to save gas and bought a beamer. At no point did he upgrade any rims or purchase any HKS parts. I think this guy is a shining example of how Republicans are leading us in the right directions. Enron forevers!!!
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
How could you expect to get away with this? Like a little bandwith here and a little there is not going to show up on someone's radar...
Jeez, what an idiot. All he had to do to stay out of trouble was to split all the traffic off to the NSA so they could eavesdrop on it all. They'd have leaned on the FBI to keep him out of the lockup. Probably would've gotten a medal from W even...
Why is it that so many corrupt enterprises are based in Florida? Everytime you hear about something like this some or all of the people involved are in Florida.
TFA says that his operation cost the real VOIP guys about $300,000. He received $1,000,000 in revenue. If he had just done the same thing, but legitimately, there would have been $600,000 profit. If he had only does things the right way....
Crime can pay--for a short while. But real innovation and hard work can *really* pay, and you don't have to be looking over your back the whole time.
Hacker Resells VOIP For "Fun" and Profit
Caution: Contents under pressure
A Caddilac.
A Caddilac Escalade.
Has the man no taste?
I live in Rye Brook. That is some weird stuff right there.
in this little tale is man by the name of Robert Moore(RTFA), who did all the hacking.
But in order to do this, new accounts with the SIP registrar servers had to be created, so how the hell did those go undetected? Also, there seems to be a misunderstanding about the Invesment company. In the end you HAVE to have real IPs even if you use proxy servers because that's how you communicate.
I dont think it's possible to use port forwarding with current protocols. Or am I wrong?
Come on, this is America.. They're not gonna saw your hands off here, all right? The worst thing they'd ever do is to put you for a couple of months into a white-collar minimum security resort! Shit, we should be so lucky! Do you know they have conjugal visits there?
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Greed is what gets criminals. Ego makes them believe they can't be caught.
Well.. I, for one, never really bought into the myth that kids today are unmotivated. It is good to see someone with ambition and drive. I am, like many others, sadly noting the use he put his money to.
Dude, its not Swiss bank accounts or the Cayman Islands. Its Vegas Baby.. Alcohol, women, drugs, gambling... In my day, we did not give a damn about the future as we knew we could always steal more. They can take your possessions away, but never your memories. In my day, we created companies that sold nothing and listed money invested by venture capitalists as "sales" and gave ourselves huge bonuses.. This plan would have really worked, if you have followed the 1990's model and not actually provided any services...
On the serious side tho.. Doesn't this raise some fundamental questions about VOIP security? If I am reading this correctly, they did not hack the VOIP software itself, but a computer on which they resided, then ran the software normally. That opens a lot of systems worldwide to this sort of scheme.
Majority of the comments here tells what-he-should-have-done-to-not=get-caught. He is a cheat, he got caught. Serves him right. And with the amount he would have siphoned off, there will be enogh lawyers with snake oil to let him out. I do not think he need any sympathies and advice from /. crowd
he bought a cadilac - what do you expect?
I'm glad they listed the optinal Gangway since my first concern with a Sea Ray would be disembarking as soon as possible.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I agree. For cruising arond South Beach, he should stop fucking around with Sea pRay and get a Donzi [Donzimarine.com]. Fast and stylish.
I read that they pledged 21 million dollars, but did they ever get any of that money? Pledging and
producing the goods are two separate matters entirely. I can freakin pledge all day, but nobody
will ever see a dime as I don't actually have any money. I though t they didn't actually have the
21 million and it was just part of the whole scam...
music lover since 1969
That's socialism, right there in a nut-shell. That is totally Venezuela. Rob from the rich, give to the poor, while enriching yourself and buying luxury items with their money. Chavez, Chairman Mao, and Stalin just took it one step further and used the army to murder anyone who stood in their way (communism) of enforcing socialism.
Capitalism has you rob from the poor, then use the money for a Bridge-to-Nowhere and building Crescent-of-Embrace monuments to Islamic terrorists who just flew planes into a couple of your skyscrapers.
Not sure which way is better, but this guy is 100% Venezuelan. That's awesome. Viva le Che!
In my day, we resold VOIP for fun. The profit was just a nice side benefit.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It's one of the best shows I've ever watched. Intelligent, and wait till you see what this guy invests in. Start watching it from the first season, as everything builds on everything prior.
I hate people to lazy to steal.
When do people realize that they are commonly using word "hacker". In this case cracker should be used instead!!!
First you set up an offshore legal entity. It should raise the invoices and receive the payments. There should be no visible link between the entity and you and the entity should not be registered/domiciled in a country of increased risk for money laundering.
Forget Swiss accounts, they are passe and the numbered accounts (anonymous) are no more. Useful for avoiding a bit of income tax but that is about it. Even then, if you are high-profile (i.e., involved in illegal activities), the Swiss won't want your money.
Even a lesser known friend, Austria is trying to phase out the bearer savings-accounts, i.e., he who has the savings-book has account access, without giving a name.
Lichtenstein is slightly more positive but even there beneficiaries aren't totally anonymous. The Caribbean is definitely out because even if you find a neutral risk country there, the transactions are watched closely because of drugs. Forget shell-banks, they aren't considered acceptable at all.
Although the money involved with financing 9/11 was minuscule, this has been used as an excuse to force through anti-money-laundering legislation so large cash transactions and international payments are monitored closely. If you are in the US or the UK, it is quite hard now but not totally impossible. The easiest is to live outside either country if you want to enjoy your criminal gains.
Note anyone taking the above seriously must remember that you can launder money and get away with it, but you may find the places that will take you are not the places you want to live!!!!
See my journal, I write things there
They are so plebian its untrue.
Spending sprees are just so cliché these days anyway.
It is a cliché to go on a spending spree with your ill-gotten gains.
Spending sprees are just so clichéd.
Serves Him right for getting caught. Serves them right because someone stupid enough to get caught managed to break them. Haha (in that annoying voice that kid from the simpsons does...)
g00p.
...is that it makes the case for Net Neutrality that much harder.
The references to "unregulated networks' says it all.
Buttons aren't toys.
A lot of modern cinema has got us cheering for the bad guys. I love a good diamond robbery tale.
And look at the NOKAS robbery here in Norway. If they hadn't shot that police officer and been caught, they'd be somewhat heroic. It's because we all like to see major, titan systems exploited by one cunning little thief. We like the idea of hacking.
Now they even may make a series about the robbery.
It's just horrible when it ends in death, tho. Just my 2 cents.
Mor about the robbery: Aftenposten English ed
Defining Statistics and Social Research
In my mind, there is no substitute for a Viking. Every feature you could imagine, and they'll do any customizations you want. Dock it at Atlantis in the Bahamas...
What if he told these companies that their networks were insecure, don't you think they'd pay him for this information?? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be a millionaire in just a few months!
...am I supposed to put something here?
Someone who illicitly breaks into computer systems is a "cracker", not a "hacker". (Haven't we spent the last twenty years trying to explain that to the suits? If Slashdot can't get it right....)
Someone who sells stolen property is a "fence", not a "reseller".
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
OK then tell us .
What can VOIP customers do to protect themselves?
What failings?
the ISP? . the VOIP system? the user ? All three?
What factors were at play here that let the bad asses in?
SIMPLY PUT
HOW CAN WE KEEP THEM OUT ? WHAT SETTINGS ON OUR FIREWALLS OR WHAT CAN WE USE TO PROTECT ourselves ?
Should we be hounding our ISPs to keep us safe?
What are they doing?
Please start telling us how to protect ourselves from the potential problem , What are the issues ? please list them so we can prevent this. Lets turn this thread constructive
Robert is a great man who loves his family.
=> http://freerobert.com/