Slashdot Mirror
College Student Who Stole More Than $5 Million in Cryptocurrency By SIM Swapping Gets 10 Years in Prison -- First Person To Be Sentenced For the Crime (vice.com)
A 20-year-old college student who was accused of stealing more than $5 million in cryptocurrency in a slew of SIM hijacking attacks is the first person to be sentenced for the crime. From a report: A college student who stole more than $5 million in cryptocurrency by hijacking the phone numbers of around 40 victims pleaded guilty and accepted a plea deal of 10 years in prison, Motherboard has learned. Joel Ortiz accepted the plea deal last week, Erin West, the Deputy District Attorney in Santa Clara County, California, told Motherboard during a meeting on Thursday. The authorities believe Ortiz is the first person to be convicted of a crime for SIM swapping, an increasingly popular and damaging hack.
The prosecutors and agents who have been investigating these hacks celebrated the conviction, and said they hope that this will serve as an example for the other alleged criminals who have already been arrested, as well as the ones who have yet to be caught. "We think justice has been served. And hopefully this is a strong message to that community," Samy Tarazi, one of the agents who investigated the Ortiz case, told me. Ortiz is one af a handful of SIM swappers who have been arrested in the last year for hijacking phone numbers and using them to then hack into emails, social media accounts, and online Bitcoin wallets.
The prosecutors and agents who have been investigating these hacks celebrated the conviction, and said they hope that this will serve as an example for the other alleged criminals who have already been arrested, as well as the ones who have yet to be caught. "We think justice has been served. And hopefully this is a strong message to that community," Samy Tarazi, one of the agents who investigated the Ortiz case, told me. Ortiz is one af a handful of SIM swappers who have been arrested in the last year for hijacking phone numbers and using them to then hack into emails, social media accounts, and online Bitcoin wallets.
On July 12, police in California arrested a college student accused of being part of a group of criminals who hacked dozens of cellphone numbers to steal more than $5 million in cryptocurrency. Joel Ortiz, a 20-year-old from Boston, allegedly hacked around 40 victims with the help of still unnamed accomplices, according to court documents obtained by Motherboard.
https://motherboard.vice.com/e...
Which sounds a bit more likely but still seems to be missing quite a bit.
... because he is a "college kid"?
A thieve is a thieve regardless of the level of education he/she has.
Laws don't solve problems, they create them. Technology solves problems.
As such, what would be a good solution for this problem? Abandon SIM cards entirely? Is IMEI falsifiable?
I think, therefore you are.
Again, three times the same thing before starting to get some background.
msmash, you fail editing. Get your useless butt back^Wto editing school.
heyyyyyyy bitconneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
He'd be better off pulling a Swartz and corpseifying himself. Supposing he lasts 10 hours, let alone 10 years, in prison without dying as a result of brutalization, he will end up a human toilet. Out of prison the human toilet will never find a job and will have to exist in abject poverty. Better off swartzed.
Just yesterday I was reading an article about a man in Washington, DC who violently sexually assaulted unknown women on the street. He was finally caught moments after one red-handed with the scratches on his face from his fighting back and her phone in his possession. He confessed to the other crimes. Zero question of his guilt.
He got 10 DAYS in jail. Which they let him serve in 2 day stints so that he wouldn't lose his job as a chef.
10 years in prison is just long enough for this kid to get a Ph.D. in telecommunications technology, and spend a few years working on and patenting a method for allowing phone calls without being so hilariously insecure and vulnerable to tampering. Capitalism at its finest. Guard the kingdom with a wooden fence, and make it a capital crime for approaching the fence.
This guy is a thief, no doubt about that; but if I was going to invest millions into something I would make sure it wasn't something that a college kid could steal with a "SIM hack". Just saying. A fool and his money are soon parted.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So what do we get by putting this young man in prison for ten years? Maybe he will find Jesus and come out of prison with a glowing and honest personality. Well don't bet on that ! a man put away for ten years is much more likely to come out of prison with a serious does of rage and anger and a single minded dedication to destroying the system. Now we can make it worse very easily by using boredom, menial labor assignments and rather nasty and threatening living conditions to make certain that when he is not hacking away in the future he doesn't also slit a throat now and then to release his rage. Seriously ! Think about it. The American justice system is a ruptured duck supported by idiots.
Nobody holding their private keys had this problem. Nobody using cryptographically-secure 2FA had this problem.
He's obviously a thief but I do wish centralized exchanges were obsolete already.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
But seriously, you need both laws and security. One without the other is useless.
When data is not an option, loud optics about "messaging" are a flatfoot's best friend.
Messaging in law enforcement is the body language of professional sports.
The prosecutors and agents who have been investigating these hacks celebrated the conviction, and said they hope that this will serve as an example for the other alleged criminals who have already been arrested ....
Seems to me it's a bit late to deter people from committing crimes after they've already been arrested. But surely the "prosecutors and agents" know what they're doing.
If this had been a federal rap, he'd do almost all of the ten years, but being California, it'll end up being a fraction of that, especially since it's a "non-violent" crime.
Come on, now! Bitcoin is a computer game at best. No one holding it has any intention of ever using it as a currency, it's been pure speculation for years now. I have all the sympathy for a Bitcoin hack victim as I do a kid whose Minecraft castle got attacked by his neighbors.
Yes he is a thieve and deserves a punishment. 10 years however is insane. It may fit with the other extremely harsh sentencing culture in the US, but that doesn't make it right. In the Netherlands, he would get 1 year, at most. Yet the crime rate is much lower, the prisons are emtpy, and the whole prison system is much cheaper and mainly directed towards rehabilitation. A system that locks away people for so long is sick IMHO.