Alleged Yahoo Hacker Will Be Extradited To The US (tucson.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the AP: A Canadian man accused in a massive hack of Yahoo emails agreed Friday to forgo his extradition hearing and go face the charges in the United States. Karim Baratov was arrested in Hamilton, Ontario, in March under the Extradition Act after U.S. authorities indicted him and three others, including two alleged officers of Russia's Federal Security Service. They are accused of computer hacking, economic espionage and other crimes.

An extradition hearing for the 22-year-old Baratov had been scheduled for early September, but he signed documents before a Canadian judge Friday agreeing to waive it. His lawyer, Amedeo DiCarlo, said that does not amount to an admission of guilt... U.S. law enforcement officials call Baratov a "hacker-for-hire" paid by members of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, considered the successor to the KGB of the former Soviet Union.
Yahoo also believes that attack -- which breached at least 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014 -- was perpetrated by "a state-sponsored actor." The CBC reports that Baratov lives alone in a large, new house in an expensive subdivision. "His parents either bought him the house," one neighbor told the CBC, "or he's getting money somewhere else, because he doesn't seem to work all day; he just drives up and down the street."

The CBC also reports that Baratov's Facebook page links to a Russian-language site "which claims to offer a number of services, including servers for rent in Russia, protection from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and domain names in China."

Comments

Maybe a deal?

[chispito]

Perhaps he is looking to make some kind of deal, or maybe Russia is looking to make some kind of exchange with the US. Although, if it's a deal he's looking to make, I'd be careful what I drink if I were him.

Re:Maybe a deal?

[usuallylost]

If he was really working for the Russians perhaps he is afraid his former employers are going to try and clean house to cover their tracks? Wouldn't be the first myserious death invovling them. That might be a powerful motivator for him to play ball with the US to try and get a deal and some protection.

He just drives up and down the street.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that doesn't sound like made up BS does it... The media is really scraping the barrel here. Just because someone has a nice house it does not equal criminal activity.

Re:He just drives up and down the street.

[MightyMartian]

A guy with no significant source of income brags online about how loaded he is. Yeah, that never raises a red flag.

Re: He just drives up and down the street.

[Dog-Cow]

People from rich families have a known source of funding. Shit-wads living alone in large houses, don't.

Re:He just drives up and down the street.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just a "nice house" it's a house worth over a million dollar. Multiple 100k+ cars. He would eat at $600 steak joints and the list goes on. All that when he's only 22yo and has no significant sources of income. Any one of what I just mentioned would raise a red flag. All of those things combined, even more so.

Re:He just drives up and down the street.

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

A guy with no significant source of income brags online about how loaded he is. Yeah, that never raises a red flag.

That might work in the USA though. The CIA apparently didn't pay a lot of attention when (now convicted spy) Aldrich Ames suddenly was rolling in money and living a pretty extravagant lifestyle way beyond his pay grade. He said that his wife's family basically gave them the money but still it took years before anybody in the CIA could be bothered to look into it and even once they started looking, there were various other delays in the process.

Re:He just drives up and down the street.

[MightyMartian]

The Canadian government will know, seeing as everyone with income has to report that on their tax return.

Re: He just drives up and down the street.

[MightyMartian]

My understanding is that the guy had few if any signs of any employment or investment income, or a trust fund or any other legitimate source of income, and yet was on social media frequently bragging about how all his dope stuff, not to mention his brilliant skills as a hacker. Now obviously he's going to put up a vigorous defense in court, and the prosecution will present its evidence of his alleged nefarious deeds, so it's still "innocent until proven guilty". But I do have to say, in general, anyone who has a lot of expensive stuff and no obvious means to pay for it will eventually have to explain how they managed to obtain their evident material wealth, particularly if they're dumb enough to brag to the entire world how loaded they are. In this case, it's the US government that are making an alleged link between his apparent wealth and hacking attacks on Yahoo, but he was eventually going to run afoul of the Canadian Revenue Agency (our version of the IRS), because, of course, the greatest sin of them all is to not pay your taxes.

Re:Jelly?

[Ryanrule]

yeah ok ivan

Re:Well, he's dead

[quonset]

It's still far better than the Russian "justice" system which allows the government to violate its contracts with Siemens with impunity so it can send turbines to the occupied Crimea in violation of international sanctions.

Then again, with all the blackouts Crimea keeps experiencing due to the ineptitude and incompetence of its Russian occupiers, it's no wonder the court didn't intervene. Wouldn't want to incur the wrath of Putin and have its judges end up like Boris Nemtsov, killed in front of the Kremlin by the orders of Putin.

Re: YET ANOTHER PUTIN PATSY!

[MightyMartian]

Learn your Brownshirt history:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re:Jelly?

[cavreader]

The US was certainly capable of identifying him and have him detained in another country. Evidently he wasn't smart enough to conduct business while remaining anonymous so why would the FBI want him?

Re:Well, he's dead

[schleimkeim]

killed in front of the Kremlin by the orders of Putin.

Don't you mean: "had a deadly accident in front of the Kremlin, that had nothing to do with the people in power."

Re:Well, he's dead

[dunkelfalke]

So let me get this straight. When domestic terrorists disrupt the electrical network by cutting down power lines that lead from mainland to Crimea, it is Russian ineptitude and incompetence. When Russians actually try to build a new power plant in Crimea - after decades of neglect of Ukrainian government no less - it is also wrong and must not be allowed. When a country does not abide sanctions imposed on itself by a third party it is wrong again and a sign of a corrupt justice system.
It is almost like arabs blaming jews for everything bad happening to them.

Free man in a few weeks.

[LeftCoastThinker]

He will be charged, plead guilty, sit in jail for a week and be quietly traded to Russia for some poor bastard US citizen or diplomat that the FSB scoops off the street in Moscow. He knows this and would rather not draw out the process...