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Carderprofit.cc Was FBI Carding Sting, Nets 26 Arrests
tsu doh nimh writes in with news of a major sting operation against carders. From the article: "The U.S. Justice Department today unveiled the results of a two-year international cybercrime sting that culminated in the arrest of 26 people accused of trafficking in hundreds of thousands of stolen credit and debit card accounts. Among those arrested was an alleged core member of 'UGNazi,' a malicious hacking group that has claimed responsibility for a flood of recent attacks on Internet businesses."
The trick: the FBI ran a carding forum as a honeypot.
FBI created some criminals.
Sure they did. Those poor innocents, tricked into doing something they weren't already doing.
The carders they busted are low-life amateurs, not serious criminals. I'm sure the FBI and friends will milk this for all it's worth, but it's the equivalent of nicking a couple of shoplifters while at the same time, Mexican drug lords are burning down the entire city.
Come and wake me up when they bag some REAL criminals, like the big Russian gangsters robbing SMEs out of hundreds of millions per annum.
The real criminals are untouched -- and untouchable.
A quick primer on entrapment:
If you are trolling Drug Dealer Drive for drugs and you happen to ask a undercover agent for drugs, you are guilty.
If a undercover agent posing as a drug dealer comes to you out of the blue and says that you need to buy his drugs so that he can help his sweet grandmother beat cancer, that's entrapment.
The difference is that in the first example, you were already out with the intention of doing something illegal. The second example you were approached by LEO and convinced to do something you normally wouldn't do.
IANAL and I'm sure each jurisdiction has it's own definition of entrapment but this is the jist.
We don't live in Shouldland.
How would you actually detect that a website like this is a honeypot?
The 6:00 AM knock on your door.
Real criminals? If they were actually using credit card information to make illegal purchases, they ARE real criminals! Just because you don't have to mug someone to get his wallet doesn't matter. At least when you are mugged (assuming you don't have to go to the hospital) you know your personal information has been stolen. When your personal information is stolen via the computer, you often don't learn about it until the big bills start to pile up. Also, a mugger usually steals only hundreds (maybe thousands) a credit card thief usually starts at that point and goes up from there. In terms of money lost, we went the FBI to go after them and the thieves running the big banks and Wall Street. Let the local police deal with the muggers.
This is much more of a real crime than "piracy." Good on them for getting some people actually causing harm.
Here's what entrapment is, as explained by a lawyer, in an appropriately visual format to appease the attention span of most Slashdotters.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
That is a very good question. Here are some tips..
If the tcp packets coming back to you are mysteriously lacking in honey ... it might be a honey pot. .... it might be a honey pot.
If their is a slight buzzing comming from your network connection... it might be a honey pot.
If swarms of bees, bears, or badgers appear around your computer
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The Silk Road thing set off my tin foil hat alarm. If I were a TLA, there's no way I'd openly admit that there was a way to be completely out of their reach.
$5 says Tor, or at least Silk Road is compromised, or maybe even a honeypot itself. If you were into the kind of thing they're in to, and a little short on the brain cell front, wouldn't you flock to the "Guaranteed safe by the FBI!" places?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Then it is not illegal.
It's called undercover police work, and undercover police work is perfectly legal, including the commission of various non-violent crimes required to maintain their cover.
The cops weren't out there having TVs shipped to their houses and not documenting them so the victims wouldn't be reimbursed. They were hosting a forum, and made it look like other similar on-line criminal hangouts. When real criminals arrived, they maintained the forum long enough to accumulate enough evidence (IDs of suspects, records of criminal activity), then rolled them up.
They did their jobs, successfully.
John
PROTIP: In Germany, that behavior is illegal for a reason.
The very same reason, the content Mafia canâ(TM)t set up file sharing servers and downloads, and then sue people for downloading that.
It means you are part of the crime. (But hey, the FBI is used to that like no other...)
And that means you can't sue, without incriminating yourself too.
No, while both are illegal, it's for different reasons. One is called "unclean hands", and the other is called "entrapment".
If VISA had set up a site and participated in hacking VISA cards, they would have unclean hands. It would change their status.
If a three letter agency does the same, and it causes people who otherwise would not have done that particular crime to do it, it's called entrapment. It would change the suspect's status.
This is not automatically entrapment. The sting is just like a drugs for sale or prostitution on a street corner. Undercover cop wearing a wire and being videotaped by concealed police sits on stragetic street corner known to be hot with drugs or prostitution. The undercover cop is dressed to bait the individual seeking the drugs/services they believe the undercover is there to provide. When the individual atempts to solicit for purchase the drugs/services they are arrested for that crime.
It is only entrapment if the person is induced to commit a crime "he or she is not previously disposed to commit".
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/entrapment
An important and often argued point.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
$> dig carderprofit.cc
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;carderprofit.cc. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
carderprofit.cc 78003 IN CNAME fbi.gov.
fbi.gov 78003 IN A 72.21.81.85
If a three letter agency does the same, and it causes people who otherwise would not have done that particular crime to do it, it's called entrapment. It would change the suspect's status.
This is a common and incorrect understanding of entrapment. It's entrapment if the FBI tells you to steal credit cards, and then arrests you for it. It is not entrapment if the FBI makes credit cards available to be stolen, and then arrests you for it stealing them, The former is an example of the FBI pressuring you to do something you wouldn't have done. The latter is an example of the FBI facilitating you to do something you would have done, given an opportunity.
Entrapment: You should hire that hitman to kill your wife.
Not entrapment: I'm a hitman. Do you want to kill your wife?
This is a common and incorrect understanding of entrapment.
One shared by the Supreme Court Of The United States.
They incorrectly claim that the prosecution must overcome a "subjective test" by showing the defendant had a predisposition to commit the crime in any event, even if the law enforcement operatives had not been present.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/287/435/case.html
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/503/540/case.html
I think you need to go teach these justices the errors of their ways.
They illustrated that crimes can be solved by normal police work without spying on hundreds of millions of innocent people.