An FBI Agent's 3 Years Undercover With Identity Thieves

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."

Comments

I like the way the government thinks

[jollyreaper]

Cool hacker name = geek culture reference + creative misspellings/capitalizations

Sample names:
Dark JedEYE
FeloniouS MonK
POPP3R SMRF
TERRORByTE
G\/\/B

I predict you will hear of these handles in future busts.

Re:I like the way the government thinks

[Abreu]

Those are also the initials for George W. Bush, a former president of the USA.

Since we all are already trying very hard to forget him, I guess you get a pass

Re:I like the way the government thinks

[Dark JedEYE]

Oh fuck.

Re:How much more...

[morgan_greywolf]

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.

Reloadable cards.

[khasim]

I'm still wondering why the various banks don't offer reloadable cards for their customers. Why wander around with your ENTIRE credit limit in your wallet?

And for debit cards, your ENTIRE checking account balance.

Instead, allow the user to transfer the amount that he thinks he will need to a secondary card. That way, if anything compromises that card, the MOST they can get is whatever he put on that card.

As for online purchases, how about one-use card numbers? Just go to the bank site, put in how much you want to pay and the bank will give you a one use number for that amount. Then the maximum you lose if the online site is fake is that specific amount. They never get the real numbers to your real accounts.

Re:Reloadable cards.

[kb9vcr]

For online purchases one-use card numbers already are available.

Bank of America has them, it's called 'Shopsafe' and it's a free feature if you have a card with them. I've used it for every web purchase now for years and it works great. You set your limit & expiration date, generate a number and your set. Easy and it limits your exposure.

(MBNA developed shopsafe and then Bank of America got it when they bought them out. Probably other companies have something similar)

Re:Patience

[Otter]

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.

Re:How much more...

[beav007]

FBI does do some drug crimes I guess, but usually by accident. They're more into the "cool" crimes like Murder, Sex, and Cyber.

This post is so much entertaining (and possibly accurate) when read without context...