Slashdot Mirror
Phishers Arrested In Eastern Europe and US
An anonymous reader writes to let us know about the roundup of a phishing gang by the FBI and authorities in Poland and Romania. 18 arrests were made in what the FBI calls "Operation Cardkeeper." The gang has allegedly been selling stolen identities and information on credit cards and bank accounts since at least 2004. To remind us what a drop in the bucket such international operations are, the article says: "The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry consortium, said more than 10,000 phishing Web sites were active on the Internet in August, about double the number of sites in January."
I see nowhere in the article a mention about Romania. I know we've had our share of online scam artists, but mentioning Romania any time something like this comes along is just plain ridiculous.
We read about these busts quite frequently, but I wonder what percentage of these guys are actually convicted and jailed.
An anonymous reader writes to let us know about the roundup of a phishing gang by the FBI and authorities in Poland and Romania.
Poland and Romania have an FBI?
Have you read my journal today?
...then things are at an all-time high. I can hardly delete fake PayPal, eBay and banking phishing emails fast enough. I do legitimate eBay sales and the phishers get more sophisticated every day -- well, at least their formatting has gotten better.
No, no, no... Everyone knows that Canada is the 51st state.
The Washington Post is slashdotted, so I can't read the article, but I doubt this is just a "drop in the bucket". A group of 18 is likely to have more than a single phishing website. More than likely they'd have over 100. That's still just 1% of the sites out there, but it's at least something. Also, if there were other people in this phishing group, those people would be stongly deterred from phishing in the future. It also serves as a preventative against additional people getting into phishing. At least something is being done about these crimes.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
I read nothing about Romania. The article talks about US and Polish citizens. Maybe anonymous submitters should be scrutinized a tad more by the editors.
keyboard not found! press any key to continue...
One from The Register: http://www.theregister.com/2006/11/03/operation_ca rdkeeper_phishing_arrests/
m l?tw=wn_index_1
And the Wired article sited by The Register:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72064-0.ht
They haven't committed any crime in their own country, for starters. They may not have committed any crime in the USA, either. I am completely unaware of any laws against tricking someone into giving out their banking information.
The Internet is pretty much a consequences-free zone. You can do anything you like there, such as stealing or what would be considered a hate crime in the offline world and never get prosecuted for it. You can see examples of this every day. And just about every "Internet prosecution" you do see is very selectively done or someone stepped way, way over the line.
Phishing and the public awarenesss of it is one way to keep people away from the Internet if they don't believe they can tell the difference between the real Ebay and the fake one.
Who comes up with operation names? And why? Might be a bit offtopic, but seriously. Cardkeeper? What about operation Gone Phishing?
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
beats a good day phishing. At least if you're these guys.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
To remind us what a drop in the bucket such international operations are, the article says: "The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry consortium, said more than 10,000 phishing Web sites were active on the Internet in August, about double the number of sites in January."
..... one web site per person.
Yes, and of course, dont forget the webstandard
Maybe if your own law enforcement could handle the problem, they wouldn't need to ask ours for help.
And stuck-up? Talk about pots and kettles...
Canada is an ice skating rink. It needs more than 12 people to qualify as a state.
If we can count them, why can't we shut them down?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Here in Virginia, you can get a phishing license for like $10 at tons of different places...no need to steal identities to get them, they hand them out to just about anyone. I don't know what these guys were thinking...
Wait, then why is Colorado a state? ;)
In the phishing scenario, the user has to authenticate the server. That is the crux of the problem. The user base is vast and their technical expertise varies significantly. There is an urgent need to let the users spot phishing attacks easily and reliably. All the banks and financial institutions know it is a looming problem, still they dont do anything. Finally some lawyer sues some bank and suddently the pendulam will swing all the way to the other end and the banks will make us ALL jump through hoops of fire just to log in.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You don't even have the balls to respond to *any* of the comment to your ignorant rants, and yet you still whine about the FBI arresting people in your country? I mean, you may not be a native english speaker, do there may be a problem with the translation, but geez dude, answer some of the other comments.
You being stuck up shows when, even after you have been proven wrong in EVERY single thing you have written, you still go on about the same "FBI is in my country, zomg!!!!" garbage. Really, have you even RTFA? I mean really?
OMG, I just realized that I have been feeding a freaking troll. My bad, everyone.
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer
I like that a lot! It could be a SpamAssassin plugin. If the mail server gets a confirmed phish (verified with a phishing DB), it could go to the website and start filling in the form. Again and Again.
The article cited mentions cyber criminals in the U.S.A. and Poland, not Romania.
Everybody seems to be missing a pretty crucial point here:
:)
If I'm a bank, and I am based in the US (say: CitiBank, or Wells Fargo, both of whom have been victims of numerous phishing attacks) and if I am the victim of an international gang who phishes my customers: guess who I have to go to to investigate? Usually the FBI and / or the SEC. If the criminals behind the phishing attack are found to be in a country other than the US, *usually* INTERPOL gets involved so they can then point me (or the FBI / SEC) to the appropriate foreign law enforcement groups.
If the company was based in the UK, the process would be exactly the same: Scotland Yard + INTERPOL + foreign law enforcement = arrest someone in Poland, usually with links to Romania / Russia / Ukraine.
This should be shocking to precisely nobody. What are we supposed to do: ignore it? "Oh well they're all the way over in Poland, now we'll NEVER find out who did it."
Don't be so hair-trigger about what is and is not appropriate. If you're getting defrauded, there are tons of international avenues available for the investigation of this crime.
Please note that when the issue is the creation or sales of weapons of mass destruction, all of the above seems to go right out the window (history has at least two examples now.)
ad
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
And Wyoming is a blank square.
Here is one of the problems. We do have capital punishment, and I can see why some people are against it. HOWEVER, in the extradition treaty, it is specifically stated that if one country has capital punishment, and the other does not, an agreement can be made that the person being extradited will not be executed. That would be up to your government. In fact, we had the same thing with France. Ira Einhorn killed his girlfriend, and then moved to France. France would not extradite them without the assurance that he would not be executed. So the capital punishment thing will not matter in this case or any other.
As far as Guantamo, again, that has NOTHING to do with this argument. Do you think that the phishers are going to be put there? If not, it's not an issue, if you think they will, then you have the issue.
quoting directly from TFA "assisted in the arrests" (note: not in tracking down, finding, etc but in actual arrests!)
"Assisting in arrests" can be anything from giving the addresses to actually going in with handcuffs. However, I really, really doubt that your government would allow our FBI to arrest anyone in your country. Besides, the FBI has no jurisdiction there, so it can't anyway.
And what your government has been willing to do to it's OWN citizens to stop "bad" viewpoints from spreading? Free speech zones anyone?
You know, I hate hearing this kind of stuff, I really do. If you had *any* idea of the different viewpoints in this country, and how vociferously they are argued, you would never doubt that this is one of the most open places or political debate on earth. We have a professor at a college that wished for "A million Mogodishus". Still works at the college. Another that said "All the little Eichmans in the Twin Towers deserved it". He also still works at the college. We can say whatever we want with *very* little trouble. You are not allowed to say certain things, like yell "fire" in a crowded theater, due to public safety, but other than those kinds of examples, you are free to say whatever you want. Want proof? Look up "Loose Change". That guy is still alive, and not being tortured in some off-shore Gulag, and he's pretty vehement about Bush being behind 9/11.
A demand is not saying he expects to be obeyed, it's merely a strong show of displeasure. Like how Russia, France and Germany demanded that we not invade Iraq. Now, the invasion itself notwithstanding, we did not at all get pissed that they "demanded" something of us; we merely laughed and ignored it. Just like your country should when we demand something.
it's nigh impossible to have US citizen extradited to Poland for his crimes in Poland
Please give me some examples, as I was not aware of this at all.
And don't you think that "FBI is in my country, zomg!!!!" is a kind of proper reaction considering what they have been doing in the USA? You might be used to threat of being tortured, held indefinietly without charges, being paid "friendly visits" for having dissenting opinion, sentenced to death, but most of the civilized world isn't used to that and IS going to freak out when they learn that may no longer be the case. Would YOU like it if police force from North Korea showed up in your country and assisted in arrests of people allegedly commiting online crimes against North Korean citizens?
Absolutely not. Remember, North Korea is not an Ally of the US. However, if the British, French, Polish Russian or Canadian unit of international crime were allowed into my country to assist our officers, I would not have a problem with it. You are making it seem like the FBI came in and just flat out TOLD everyone there that they were going to do this. I mean, you do
A Haiku: my language choices/assembler pascal lisp c/old school programmer
I don't know this, and I would like to. Could you provide a link to any information on this?
~Rebecca
It's MUCH easier to name the major media organizations that aren't overtly hostile to Rebublicans (real conservative Republicans, not RINOs).
You want examples of a leftward bias in the American media? Watch CNN for an hour and listen not only to what is reported, but how it is reported. Read a New York Times from front to back and see if you can differentiate between the political news and the editorials.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
Where's Romania in this article? I can't seem to find any reference to it...
There is no mention of Romania in the article.
It's pretty easy to be to the left of the Bush administration; but that's not evidence that they "want them out of office in a BIG way". Show me where they're promoting the election fraud information, show me the cries for impeachment, something that qualifies as actually trying to get them out of office.
I haven't seen it yet. The simple fact is, the Bush administration is FAR right, much farther to the right than the democrats have ever been to the left. Compared to the rest of the world the democrats are the right. Your reply just sounds like the same old "Clinton News Network" vs "Faux News" party spew.
~Rebecca (yea, I got trolled)
Yeah, I know this is redundant, but you shouldn't tarnish Romania's reputation. It's bad enough that we have to use only European online banking sites for legitimate money transfers, cause the Americans have us classified as "card-stealing plague". I know we've had to deal with our share of malicious people, but we're pretty much out of the Middle Ages now, you know... It's really annoying when you try to buy/sell stuff through E-bay and you want to sign up for a Paypal account, only to notice that your country is "misteriously" missing from the drop-down list. Save for Moneybookers and a couple of other European sites maybe, the rest of the internet banking world has us blacklisted, and that's just wrong.