Ask Slashdot: How To Track a Skype Account Hijacker?

An anonymous reader writes "My Skype account was hijacked, which I discovered after Skype suspended it for suspicious activity, including a number of paid calls and an attempt to debit my card. Now that I've secured the account again, I can see the call history — there are several numbers called in Senegal, Mali, Benin and Philippines. Obviously I could call them myself and create a bit of havoc in their lives, but ideally I'd like to trace the hijacker himself — perhaps with some kind of 'social engineering' approach. Or is it just a waste of time?" How would you do this, and would you bother?

Comments

Ask Reddit...

[JJJJust]

Reddit seems to be fantastic at finding people on the internet given the flimsiest leads to their identity... sure they may get it wrong now and then, but hey... them's the breaks.

Post numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

1] Post the numbers dialed to 4chan
2] Wait for the onslaught of harassing calls
3] ???
4] Profit

Re:Post numbers

[Gadget_Guy]

Actually your cat IS your personal army.

It may seem like the cat belongs to you, but if it really was your personal army then it would actually have to obey your orders.

In reality, you are more like a squire to your cat; you attend to the cat's personal needs when it isn't off doing heroic battle against a mouse or bug.

Re:Post numbers

[symbolset]

Cats don't belong to people. People belong to cats.

I wouldn't start that journey from here

[realitycheckplease]

Is it possible that the hijacker was selling calls to other people, possibly immigrants, maybe even illegals. If so, the numbers called may have no direct connection to the hijacker, rather each olne of them may know a different someone who knows the hijacker. So you could be looking for the common factor between the people who made the calls to the numbers that you have. I'm not sure that it will be easy to find that common factor. After all, you have Jim and Bill and Fred's numbers; Sue called Jim, Anne called Bill, Jenny called Fred; Sue, Anne and Jenny all know Henry .... so if you have Jim and Bill and Fred's numbers, and don't even know whether Henry exists or not, how do you find Henry?

Re:I wouldn't start that journey from here

[tftp]

Sue called Jim, Anne called Bill, Jenny called Fred; Sue, Anne and Jenny all know Henry .... so if you have Jim and Bill and Fred's numbers, and don't even know whether Henry exists or not, how do you find Henry?

It's pretty much impossible; not mathematically but practically. First, Jim, Bill and Fred live in different foreign countries. They have no obligation to tell you anything, even if you are a police officer in your own country. But if for some reason they choose to endanger their relatives, they may not know where Sue, Anne and Jenny live. But if you manage to find them, those three are not required to tell you anything (if they are in the USA, at least.) But if you manage to make them talk and they point at Henry, Henry can always say that he used his own Skype account, but the OP "hacked" it to "frame him" because he is "raysis." (Well, that story is being tried by the Boston bomber's mother.) The OP may find himself on the receiving end of a counter-suit, if not of a criminal complaint (doesn't matter if it has merit or not - justice is not based on such trivial things.)

The OP should pick better passwords, write the loss off, and take this experience as a valuable lesson.

Let it go.

[six025]

Just let it go. It's not worth the time or the hassle.

Use better logic

[O('_')O_Bush]

You need to use the same kind logic as when buying a used car.

1. Do not assume you can outsmart them or that they have made glaring mistakes
2. Realize they do this professionally, that is, spend years eating and breathing this type of activity
3. Realize if there was some way to retaliate or gain an advantage, they wouldn't be doing this for a living.
4. Re-evaluate your position.

Re:Use better logic

[dkf]

3. Realize if there was some way to retaliate or gain an advantage, they wouldn't be doing this for a living.

I'm waiting for SIFPTP (Simple Internet Face-Punch Transfer Protocol) to be implemented.

Re:Use better logic

[AHuxley]

Yes, in Australia a "Bell" public phone would be taken over and a line of people would form to make at the time very expensive international calls.
This might be the same digital effort - an account with 'cash' is passed/sold around until it fails.

Re:You're a fucking idiot

[macraig]

The last time I checked the Philippines was an island chain, not a territory in Africa. Don't you just sound credible?

Re:What about the IP

[ccguy]

Won't Skype tell you the IP that was used by the thief?

No, they won't. In general companies tell you to contact the police, etc and go out of their way to be useless.

Some months ago I had someone purchase a plane ticket using my credit card. My bank sent me a SMS when the charge was made (usual alert system, they SMS each time there's a charge). I had the phone with me so I could do something instantly. This is what happened:

- The charge was made for a plane ticket on Airchile according to the SMS.
- I called the bank *inmediately* (as the SMS said) to notify them of the charge. Well, guess what, it was a Sunday at 23:00 or so and they were closed. So the bank couldn't help.
- I drove to the airport to talk to Airchile, which happened to be opened at the time because they was a flight leaving from Madrid to Santiago in a couple hours (I was hoping that the bastard was there). They couldn't help.
- I went to the police station in the airport and they couldn't help because I needed a bank statement before they could do anything. Really? I have to wait until the end of the month before I can file a report with the police?

You see - even if you are really willing to track things down and not demand your money back, the other parties involved rarely assist.

Eventually I got my statement, filed the report (useless at the time of course) and got my money. But I great chance to catch the guy was lost.

Call the numbers in Africa and say...

[CaptainOfSpray]

"I am a lawyer representing a senior banking official in Nigeria, who recently died leaving $10 million untraceable... and I am able to pay you to help me find the rightful heir..."

Don't call the numbers

[mysidia]

They're most likely either (1) disconnected numbers, (2) toll numbers that will rack up massive charges, OR (3) Numbers that the thief sold innocent 3rd parties "cheap long distance minutes" to, through fraudulent schemes.

Don't engage yourself in placing international harassing phone calls to "create havoc" in random people's lives; that would be you committing a crime. ,

scamming a scammer

[Tom]

Or is it just a waste of time?

That, at best.

Old saying: There's always a sucker in a game of poker. Look around the table. If you don't see him, it's you.

Never play criminals on their home turf. They are doing this for a living, you don't. Guess who's better at the game?

Re:Their ISP won't care

[Joce640k]

First become fluent at harassing people in African-French and Filipino.

Re:No point

[BrokenHalo]

Sadly there's no point in bothering.

In this instance, I might disagree. Given that those calls were (according to TFS) made to Senegal, Mali, Benin and Philippines, that in itself might be construed as suspicious. You could pass the information on to the FBI and tell them you are concerned your account could have been used for terrorist activity. Let them come down on the perps.

Re:What about the IP

[markus_baertschi]

Your Bank/Credit card company has no 24h service number for such this ?

Time to change credit card company.