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An FBI Agent's 3 Years Undercover With Identity Thieves

Posted by timothy on from the doing-my-best-nelson-laugh dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld offers the inside story of how FBI Supervisory Special Agent J. Keith Mularski, aka Master Splynter, penetrated and took over DarkMarket.ws, the infamous underground carding board hacked by Max Butler and later transformed by Mularski into an FBI sting operation. The three-year tour sent Mularski deeper into the world of online computer fraud than any FBI agent before, resulting in 59 arrests and preventing an estimated $70 million in bank fraud before the FBI pulled the plug on the operation in October."

16 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How much more... by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How much more such operations could they conduct if they weren't so clueless by having agents investigate peaceful protesters and non-criminal **HACKERS**

    All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  2. Re:oh lord by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I had heard about this at a law enforcement/fraud analysis/intelligence analysis conference a while back. Basically, ALL the major sites were running in the open. Before all the crackdowns, I guess they thought the anonymity of the web meant they were untouchable. After the FBI cracked down on a bunch, they got wise and went underground.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  3. Re:How much more... by pete-classic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure. But, given finite resources, should there not be some rational priorities set?

    -Peter

  4. Fencing by planckscale · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From an article I read on Wired what seemed to have brought the downfall upon Butler was some of his associates got nabbed for trying to use stolen cards to buy expensive retail items and then fence them on Ebay for cash. Seems to me that old fashioned F**k-ups are the way these guys usually get taken down. Also from the article I read that corrupt retailers and waiters use portable card readers to steal all mag data on the card. How would you protect yourself against that kind of attack?

    --
    Namaste
    1. Re:Fencing by CannonballHead · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't ever buy anything, and never eat out?

    2. Re:Fencing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cash

    3. Re:Fencing by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mod parent +5 insightful. Cash is accepted everywhere and stolen cash can't be used for identity theft.

      1) Tons of places won't accept 50's or 100's anymore. And carrying enough cash to live in 20's gets bulky.

      2) Carrying lots of cash (see above) gets noticed (see below).

      3) If you get robbed of cash its gone. No, phoning your bank to let them know your card was stolen. No contesting the purchases made with your stolen cash. Your insurance company won't even replace stolen cash. Its just gone.

      While having my card lifted is a hassle, it won't actually likely cost me anything, even if my identity is stolen it will most likely be a hassle more than anything else. Getting robbed however is much more permanent.

    4. Re:Fencing by pjt33 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with that system is that it protects the banks and not the customers. Before you could contest the signature: now all they have is a PIN, and there's no way of proving who typed it in. It would be better to use chip, PIN and signature, but people will usually choose convenience over security.

  5. Re:How much more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I think both their salaries are subsidized by my salary.
    If we got rid of the useless investigations that'd be one less resource drain on the good departments.

  6. Re:How much more... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.

    Crimes like peaceful protesting, you mean?

  7. Re:How much more... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.

    Right. Because the FBI is out investigating every single federal crime within their jurisdiction, right?

    No. Because the FBI does have limited resources, cases not specifically brought to their attention by promising, credible leads -- or at least serious media attention -- don't get investigated. Those with credible leads that may not look so promising might sit on the backburner -- often for months or years.

    While the FBI does investigate people who turn out to not have been criminals, that's more the exception than the rule.

    --
    My blog
  8. Re:oh lord by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't you mean all the KNOWN sites were running in the open?

  9. Re:Patience by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sell those things for cash on the street. Don't sell in the same area that you bought the items. Stick to big cities, as the police have way more to deal with than small-time theft. Once you get a big enough stash, use it to start a cash friendly business or find a way to get it to a trusted party in the third world and do the same thing.

    In other words, crime is more work with less reward than just keeping your day job writing Java middleware.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  10. Re:I like the way the government thinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you don't like him why would you want to forget him? If you forget him then you forget all the nasty things that happened under his presidency. If you forget the mistakes of our leaders then there is no lesson learned.

    America must not ever forget.

  11. Re:Reloadable cards. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Your idea of reloading a debit card is something you can do today, granted you need more than one account. Have one account tied to your debit card, while a second account, one that's not tied to your debit card, acts as a repository for your cash. Just transfer money from your secondary account to your primary account when needed. I do this all the time.

  12. Sounds like many jobs I've had... by Klootzak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So Agent Mularski got a taste of what it's like to be a SysAdmin? I think it's a good thing, now he would understand what it's like to work in IT, he'll (hopefully) be more sympathetic to IT staff that he works with... We should get more Law-Enforcement officers into undercover IT "busts"!!!

    Now, if he had a pager that would buzz him in the 6 hours he got "off" from the computer, that would be JUST like being a SysAdmin ;)

    --
    A Man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties -- Albert Einstein