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Hacking Ring Nabbed By US Authorities
Slatterz writes "The members of a hacking ring responsible for stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from retail organizations in the US have been caught and charged. The case before the US Department of Justice is believed to be the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted. The criminals allegedly obtained bank details by hacking into the retailers' computer networks and then installing 'sniffer' programs to capture card numbers and password details as the customers moved through the retailers' credit and debit processing networks."
There used to be a time when you read tech-news first on slashdot. Nowadays I read it in my (Dutch) newspaper first (yep, the paper one that they actually have to print and deliver first) end a few days later it appears in /.
What the hell is wrong?
whoever setup the hardware in these places needs to be held for criminal negligence
IANA(legal scholar), but this doesn't seem to fit the definition of criminal negligence for two reasons:
1) Doing a bad job at something and allowing others to come to harm isn't enough. Essentially, you must be aware of the risk of your actions (or inaction), or you must intentionally allow yourself too little information to make a proper decision.
2) I'm pretty sure that once you commit a negligent act, it has to be nature that takes something "the rest of the way." If your act simply allows someone else to commit a crime, then the crime falls the perpetrator, not you.
Keep in mind too, that I'm talking about criminal negligence. You can sue in civil courts on a much broader basis.
In fact, I find your entire comment rather ironic, since you imply that the recent crimes will be an excuse for some 1984-state to implement "MORE draconian measures," but then go on to suggest criminalizing what is essentially poor job performance.
Dear hackers,
You can't own a word. Get over it.
are security measures going to be changed with this revelation to the public?
If they secured credit cards so that there was no fraud, then how would the providers justify their exorbitant fees?
More
ALL of this could be ended if visa and mastercard changed to single use CC numbers. if they gave me a token that created a new CC number with each transaction it might actually justify that annual fee the assholes charge me.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
So, who foots the bill for this? The retailer, the credit card comany / debit card issuer, or the customer?
The credit card company raises my rates to cover their expenses, the government uses my taxes to pay for the investigation and prosecution, looks like I'm paying for it!
Dude, the customer pays for everything one way or another -- haven't you figured that out by now?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The people arrested were in several nations. What is unusual and a bit frightening is that it seems like they were able to get arrest warrants or whatever was needed crossing international lines really quickly. It almost seems like some uber government organization was at work on this affair.