Slashdot Mirror
The Outing of Pranknet
An anonymous reader writes "The Smoking Gun recently published a story on their investigation and outing of Pranknet, an online cabal that aims to take pranks to the next level. Their legacy includes thousands of dollars of damage, and many harassed souls. Many of the pranks have clear criminal implications. Reading their report may send chills down your collective spines." From the linked article: "Coalescing in an online chat room, members of the group, known as Pranknet, use the telephone to carry out cruel and outrageous hoaxes, which they broadcast live around-the-clock on the Internet. Masquerading as hotel employees, emergency service workers, and representatives of fire alarm companies, 'Dex' and his cohorts have successfully prodded unwitting victims to destroy hotel rooms and lobbies, set off sprinkler systems, activate fire alarms, and damage assorted fast food restaurants. But while Pranknet's hoaxes have caused millions of dollars in damages, it is the group's efforts to degrade and frighten targets that makes it even more odious ..."
here we call them FELONIES!
What are you talking about? There is a lot more of a difference between these pranks and movies; For example, the actors' and crews' voluntary participation, and not causing uncompensated damage to someone's property and psyche. I'm sure there are some examples, but they're generally frowned upon. Causing millions of dollars in damages to someone's property and not compensating them for it is not the same as paying a crew millions of dollars to film a movie. Give me a break!
Reading TFA it shows that this kid doesn't go to school and doesn't have a job, he just spends his days and nights mooching off his mom and finding ways to entertain himself.
One of those cases I'd file under "parents enabling the problem". Kick him out on the street where he belongs, force him to get a job and spend some of his time doing something constructive, rather than 100% of his time spent on destructive self-entertainment. There are some cases where the parents bear a significant chunk of the responsibility for their kids' behavior, and this is definitely one of them.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The economy sucks, the rich have destroyed liquidity to keep their dollars valuable... now more than ever we need community. The one thing rich and unethical people hate.
WTF? Yes, all rich people hate community. Just the other day I saw a rich person going all over town setting soup kitchens and churches on fire. When I asked him why he was doing it he just laughed in my face and muttered something about "community sucks" before throwing the armani jacket back on, hopping in his BMW and driving off like a bat out of hell.
I really thought we had moved beyond this class warfare nonsense a long time ago.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...to see how these fine folk reacted once they were outed by TSG. Props to the folk who got the job done.
Tariq Malik calling the cops on reporters standing in a public way outside your flat after having posted numerous episodes of taking advantage of gullible people on youtube has to be the epitome of chutzpah. If the allegations against him and his cohorts are true (and the evidence they collected against themselves seems to back those allegations up), I hope they get to pay restitution to all the folk they tricked and spend a considerable time making up their 'pranks' to society.
Documenting your own crimes and posting them to the internet in the hope of glory seems a bit backwards to me, but hey, to each his/her own.
Pranknet wouldn't exist without an audience to consume it
I don't know if I buy that. I've seen plenty of asshats who are willing to harass people and destroy their property without the benefit of sharing their deeds with a broader audience.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I don't know if I buy that. I've seen plenty of asshats who are willing to harass people and destroy their property without the benefit of sharing their deeds with a broader audience.
True, but when someone picks up a video camera and starts recording their criminal activities in a willful fashion, they've advanced beyond mere asshattery and touch the realm of the sociopathic. It's quite clear that fame was the motivation behind a lot of these so-called "pranks". They wanted popularity and didn't care who suffered for it. That's quite a bit different than the average criminal, which often conducts their activities in an effort to avoid drawing attention to themselves, and the motivation is usually money.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So...I take it you're one of the pranksters on Pranknet?
Malik, of course, expressed no remorse for his stunts. Prank targets, he declared, were "responsible for their own actions." The victims he and his cronies abused and degraded daily were simply "sheep" with "no brains of their own."
I suppose it doesn't bother you either that much of the pranks are also illegal?
Beetle B.
The people who impose such limits invariably exempt themselves.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
You'd be surprised at how much you yourself rely on trusting other people, even if you do speak like a stone cold trust no-one badass. You'd also be surprised at how much society relies on the ability of its people to trust each other. This is what pranksters and scammers rely on.
I'd like a society where we trust and help each other. What these people do is to make us all trust each other a bit less and to look at our fellow man with the attitude that "they're going to screw me over, so I'm going to screw them first, ha!" a bit more.
Pranknet are scum, quite simply.
Eh I wouldn't say sociopathic. When /i/nsurgents raid something they do it because they're anonymous and they're invincible and they can do whatever they want without consequences- so they do.
Doing something for no other reason than because you can, without regard for the consequences, ethical implications etc., is pretty much the definition of sociopathic.
Seems like one of the Pranknet guys (Markle) was jailed for two years for raping a five-year-old. He "warned the girl that he would kill her parents if she did not comply with him".
The people who impose such limits invariably exempt themselves.
Now where have we ever seen that before? Surely our system is better than that, right?
"Also, a check of Pistol License records shows that Senator Schumer possesses an "unrestricted" pistol permit, a rarity in New York City. Licenses are distributed in different categories in the Big Apple: Target Permits allow only use of a firearm at a licensed firing range; Premises Permits allow weapons to be kept in a home or apartment; Restricted Permits allow the gunowner to carry their firearms concealed but only within the purview of their job (security, jewelers, armored car guards, etc.). So it's evident that Senator Schumer has two sets of rules -- one for Americans and one for himself."
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others......
The free market sees taxation as damage and routes around it.
Best sig ever :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The Criminal Code of Canada states (emphasis mine):
22. (1) Where a person counsels another person to be a party to an offence and that other person is afterwards a party to that offence, the person who counselled is a party to that offence, notwithstanding that the offence was committed in a way different from that which was counselled.
(2) Every one who counsels another person to be a party to an offence is a party to every offence that the other commits in consequence of the counselling that the person who counselled knew or ought to have known was likely to be committed in consequence of the counselling.
(3) For the purposes of this Act, "counsel" includes procure, solicit or incite. [R.S., c.C-34, s.22; R.S.C. 1985, c.27 (1st Supp.), s.7(1).]
Given that Malik and at least one other pranknetter are Canadians, I bet that would apply nicely.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Maybe people shouldn't be so stupid as to listen to anything someone tells them on the phone and demand to see someone in person if it's as serious as they are being told? I sure as hell would tell anyone calling me on a phone to go fuck themselves if they even hinted at wanting me to do anything which I could be held liable for.
The whole reason this works is that everyone thinks they're smarter than that. But as someone's already said here, it's the supposed urgency of the call that breaks down the barriers. Add to that the voice of authority, and you've got a clear recipe for people being abused. The idiots at PrankNet have probably never even heard of the Milgram experiment, though. As unethical as I think the experiment was, at least it was done for scientific reasons, and not sadistic pseudosexual gratification.
If somebody burst into your home at night claiming to be police, would you be a "dumb dimwit" and believe them, or maintain your cocksure skepticism and wind up like this woman?
And remember, it's not just the people that make idiots of themselves that suffer. The people that owned the motel had to put up with broken windows and smashed TVs. The victims own stupidity doesn't make the Pranknet lot any less culpable.
If I were the motel owner and one of my guests did this, my response would NOT be, "Oh.. let's put our Sherlock Holmes hats on and find out who that mean prankster was!" It would be, "You better find a good lawyer, because my insurance company will be calling."
I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise.
That's called selection/observation bias. You're looking at only one side of the coin.
I've lived in countries where there's a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there's a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers, but the system works overall). In some countries I've been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer.
When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I've always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it's because they're worried about cops. It's about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I've lived in.
I've had neighbors whom I don't know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don't think they're afraid of me beating them up.
There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust.
Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person.
Beetle B.
If you see little difference between the two, then quite frankly you scare the fuck out of me and I'd feel about as comfortable trapped alone in a room with you as the guy in TFA.
The only operational difference is that one stayed mostly within the bounds of the law, and the other didn't.
The goal of both was to profit (financially or otherwise) by fooling others, and poking fun at them. Both strive for bigger audiences.
The morality of it is the same in much the same way as the morality of slapping someone and repeatedly stabbing them are the same; which is to say, not at all.
Actually, if both were done maliciously for similar reasons, then the morality aspect is the same. One may incur a greater punishment because the damage done was greater.
By saying the morality is the same, I'm not suggesting the crimes are of equal magnitudes. Just that they are on the same "scale", with one being much further along that scale.
Beetle B.
It's particularly disturbing that people who my own security and well-being depends on--hotel and restaurant staff--are stupid enough to fall for these kinds of pranks.
Are you genuinely surprised that there are stupid people in the world? Or that stupid people would work menial jobs? If so, there's a word for people like you.
I rather think that stupid people, by definition, will always be with us. And I also believe that one part of being a good citizen is not taking undue advantage of other people's weakness. This kind of rule is helpful on the inevitable day that one meets someone smarter or stronger than oneself.
If pranknet causes these people to be more careful in the future (or to just gather a couple of Darwin awards), I'd feel safer.
If your feeling of security requires normal people losing what little trust in others they still have, or stupid people being tricked into killing themselves, then I hope to god you never feel safe.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
There are a lot of comments here suggesting that the victims should take most of the blame.
As food for thought, I'd recommend those commenters watch this fascinating TED talk.
He gives a number of examples where we feel that we're in control of our decisions, but the designer of the systems/situations have measurably a greater influence in what you'll do than you yourself may. His point at the end is (paraphrased):
When it comes to the physical world, we're acutely aware of our limitations, and we build systems to overcome them (e.g. stairs to climb vertically, wheels for easy transport, etc). When it comes to the mental world, we have this unreasonable view of ourselves as supermen. We think we are always in control, and that we are always responsible. We need to understand our mental limitations so that we can design systems (e.g. public/company policy, transportation systems, etc) to overcome them (and make the world a better place).
Beetle B.
Wow, I think I'd find your neighborhood kind of eerily idyllic. We lock and bolt our doors at night, and if your package gets delivered to your neighbor's house by accident... let it go, man because it's gone. And the few remaining stores that actually have return policies get taken advantage of mercilessly.
And because of it, your neighborhood sucks, and mine doesn't.
I didn't mean to suggest the whole US was the way I described, but much of where I've lived in it is. Suggesting people become mistrustful will likely turn my neighborhood into one like yours.
Beetle B.
There used to be ways and means of dealing with humans who exhibited this sort of destructive uncivilised behaviour.
If they were lucky they'd just be Shanghai'd, if they were unlucky they would be lynched and if they really pissed a community off they'd be tarred and feathered.
It's fortunate for the likes of these individuals that western society has bound itself so tight with law and regulation that it's now unable to deter the parasitic members with any sort of finality.
I dont think so. I think once the phone calls start involving transfers of money and other stuff that sets off the alarm bells in people's minds then there's going to an escalation or at least some kind of authorization. Sure, not all the time, but weird stuff like "put your pee in a cup and bring it downstairs" most people just say screw it and do it, but once you start involving credit cards, IDs, and cash they start to get suspicious.
I suspect pranknet's success was largly based on the bizarreness of the requests. The ones that werent bizarre were presented as emergencies (gas leak), so people took the voice on the phone as an authority out of fear. I doubt they are able to do much more than that. While social engineering is always going to be an effective attack, especially against low level service personnel, I doubt that SE alone can do that much damage as the employees themselves have very limited powers.
What I find interesting about all of this is that its like the Milgram experiment from the 60s with a modern spin. We see the corporate guy on the phone or the emergency guy on the phone as a real authority and pretty much do what he wants, even if it sounds 100% crazy. Perhaps this is a side-effect of what happens when an economy moves towards a service job model. Regardless, Im sure many companies are reviewing their policies.
Frankly, its always bugged me that we have such a double standard with telephones. If I want to set off a command in a computer system I can expect at least one level of security, say username/password. On the phone we can use our social skills and say things like "Its Joe from corporate and I need you to do this ASAP" or "The boss wants this done now or someone is getting fired." I think phone calls should have some level of authentication, be it callerID or passwords. The way we do it now is straight from the 20s and 30s and is pretty ridiculous.
Well, the Government is taking 6.2% of my money for social "security", which will be bankrupt by the time I reach retirement age
Actually it's 12.4%. You have 6.2% withheld from your paycheck for Social Security (up to the Social Security wage base limit, which gets increased every year and most people's salaries never reach it, it's well over $100,000 now), but your employer also pays another 6.2% on top of it. Although the employer's so-called "contribution" does not count towards your "official" salary, this is what it costs your employer to keep you on the payroll. It's really your money, except that you never see it.
In addition, you pay 1.45% of your salary as Medicare tax, and your employer also pays another 1.45% on top of it. In the end, over 15% of your real salary gets confiscated by the government, before you even get to regular income taxes, on the promise of you supposedly getting it back later down the road, in some form or other, when you retire. So, don't you worry your little head over the money still being there when you retire.
To say nothing of those companies, that just can't stand the idea of paying taxes like we all have to...
You just don't understand do you? If you charge a corporation taxes then the corporation is going to pass that cost along to it's customers. In the end it's still the people that wind up paying the tax. All you've done is to put a middle man between them and the government and allowed some jackass leftist to claim that he's fighting for the "little guy" when in fact it's the little guy who is paying for the new tax. He's just paying it on his automobile insurance/gasoline/grocery bill/electric bill/etc instead of paying it on his tax bill.
That isn't true in all cases. While it may work for Inelastic goods such as medicines that people absolutely need to survive and will pay almost anything for, it won't work for more elastic goods. If the government puts a huge tax on something like sugar, corporations which make sugar will need to "eat" some of the tax. You probably wouldn't pay $100 for a bag of sugar because you could easily switch to sugar substitutes. Although the corporations may pass some of the tax along to the consumers, they often won't be able to pass all of it on.
Well, the Government is taking 6.2% of my money for social "security", which will be bankrupt by the time I reach retirement age and from which I'll be lucky to recoup the money I've put in, let alone any extra monies above and beyond that. If I had invested the money that's been taken from in FICA taxes over the last ten years into bonds and equities I'd have about 110% of what I started with. You'll forgive my skepticism that they are going to do any better with health care.
A better comparison for healthcare would be Medicare, which is indeed a government-run medical insurance program. Medicare boasts around 2-3% administrative overhead, whereas private insurers span 20-25% administrative overhead.
As much as people like to bemoan the concept of "a bureaucrat between the patient and their doctor", the numbers seem to indicate that a shareholder between a patient and a doctor is even worse.
It is no mystery why: the corporate shareholder's best interests run in direct contrast to that of the patient. It is more profitable to deny treatment whenever possible.
Yes, they will. Ever heard the expression 'caveat emptor'? The difference between your friendly mega-corp and the government is that nobody is forcing you to do business with the mega-corp. The mega-corp can't come and take your money at gunpoint. You have to decide to do business with them.
Let's at least pretend to have an honest discussion.
You simply cannot get by without insurance, and in many cases, your only choice is to take whatever plan your employer has, because you are subject to far more strict acceptance requirements if you try to get an individual plan. Most people do not have the choice to take their business elsewhere.
Yes, they will. Ever heard the expression 'caveat emptor'? The difference between your friendly mega-corp and the government is that nobody is forcing you to do business with the mega-corp. The mega-corp can't come and take your money at gunpoint. You have to decide to do business with them.
Technically this is true, however, since the alternative to not doing business with health care companies is a likely early death. You are in a way forced to do business with them, if you want to stay alive.
No, the main difference is that one guy got people to break windows and throw TVs out of them and drive cars into building and and strip naked and redirects the phone numbers of businesses to his number and caused actual significant harm. The other, not so much.
My friend has misplaced the keys to his car. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He has to take a taxi home.
Another friend has misplaced $10,000 in cash. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He gets evicted from his house.
Morally, they're pretty much equivalent. Both times I'm lying to cause problems for someone else. One just happens to be more extreme than the other, and were it illegal, would secure a greater punishment.
The fact that Borat did not produce much physical harm is fairly insignificant with regards to morality.
And if you're suggesting that Borat did not produce harm, you have a fairly poor understanding of psychology. A number of his victims in the movie were harmed psychologically. And I'm sure a number of them would be willing to pay quite a bit of money to undo that harm.
Nice try there. You said "morality" in your original post, not "morality aspect" or any such thing. Subtly changing your wording to significantly change your stance and hoping nobody will notice is not a valid argument tactic.
You're arguing about a non-difference. If it makes you feel better, replace "morality aspect" with morality. What I meant is still the same.
This wasn't just done for the attention (and it certainly wasn't done for money), (and it certainly wasn't done for money), things like his claim that he thinks he's doing a "public service" by his actions
I beg to differ. This was probably almost entirely about getting attention. The "public service" comments were just his being defensive. If he was sincere about doing a public service, he could do it in a much more effective manner, with little criminal elements. And that money had little to do with it is relevant, how?
demonstrate a maliciousness to this case that significantly sets it apart from a fucking comedy movie that lied to some people to make fun of them.
I guess the difference between you and me is that I feel putting people in positions that they do not want to be seen by the world, filming it, and then embarrassing the guy by showing it to the world just to make money, is malicious. I do believe Cohen was being malicious in his goals.
Beetle B.
I really don't like this argument that if you financially penalize a corporation they'll just pass the cost to their consumers. If a corp is selling service, for example, at $45 per month, and they get a $900-billion slap from the EU, and they increase costs to $60 per month, why weren't they selling service for $60/month earlier?. Corporations don't set a profit goal and toe that line exactly, they charge what will get them the most profit. A penalty is a sunk cost, and is completely irrelevant when making future profit optimization analyses.
There's a very strong norm against publishing phone numbers, addresses, etc in journalism (esp. criminal and political journalism). I readily agree with this norm -- it seems that publishing such information can invite vigilantism and generate life-long problems for the accused without the benefit of a fair trial. I would generally expect journalists to abide this norm in news reports on robbery, drug trafficking, arson, embezzlement, etc.
Never-the-less, I felt a twinge of satisfaction while reading phone numbers and street addresses in TSG's article. I wouldn't mind if these serial harassers received a series of harassing phone calls.
Then again, TSG accuses Pranknet of systematically violating the informal norms that their victims rely on; is it proper for TSG to turn around and break an informal norm of journalism?
I'd like to better understand the ethical question here. Perhaps TSG's approach is the only way to deal with Pranknet? Perhaps it's poetic justice? Has TSG made a special ethical judgement regarding Pranknet? On what basis? Does TSG habitually violate journalistic ethics? Do the participants in Pranknet deserve worse treatment than anyone else accused of crime? How would our opinion change if TSG had presented the story differently?
The agriculture companies can't forbid you from purchasing or using their products. An insurance company can.
I, like many, lost my job. Thankfully, I have a very marketable service and have been able to strike out on my own very successfully after having a very difficult time trying to find a "regular job". When I had insurance, I went to the doctor like I'm encouraged to do, and I was diagnosed with heart disease.
Now, I'm on my own. My insurance is gone, and I no longer qualify for insurance under the 'pre-existing condition' clauses. So, even though I'm a productive, contributing, and tax-paying member of society, I am not entitled to stay alive.
If you're so jaded as to not see how that is wrong, then I hope with all my being that you end up in my position someday.
Are you kidding? So far the majority of stories involving someone acting like a sociopathic prick online, have attracted a number of wannabe sociopathic pricks that lionized the perp on one or more of the following grounds:
- muahahaha, now we're the ones with the power. Phear us! Payback time for the former school bully... and the cheerleader who didn't want to be my GF... and the jock who got her as a GF... and that geography teacher who got me bored to death... (Basically as if having been a victim once is all the reason and rationalization needed for victimizing others in turn. Newsflash: if anyone wasn't a bully just because they lacked the power and/or balls, but turns into one as soon as they can, they never had a moral high ground to start with.)
- OMG, if they were too stupid to defend themselves, they deserved it. (A.k.a., "might makes right.")
- more generally, if it's high tech and not everyone can do it, then it's right to do it if you can. (A.k.a., "might makes right.")
- It's just bits and bytes, and information wants to be free!! (Especially when said information is someone else's credit card number;))
- if it slips through some loophole of an existing law, despite being blatantly against its spirit, then it's morally right. The proposed new amendment against it is blatantly an attempt to control more people by criminalizing something as benign as terrorizing others. Cue quotes out of context from Richelieu and Ayn Rand.
- if it's already illegal, that law is blatantly an attempt to control more people by criminalizing something as benign as terrorizing others. Cue quotes out of context from Richelieu and Ayn Rand.
Etc.
In fact, my best guess is that now the majority opinion is against it only because it was _social_ engineering, and we don't relate that well to that. It involves talking to people and... eew ;) If it were about slipping someone a trojan to terrorize them via their computer, you'd see 200+ posts just defending the perp and blaming the victims.
So maybe it is stuff that matters. Reminding more wannabe sociopaths that doing it over the internet is no shield, is a good thing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.