How I blackmailed the trading of game currencies

My first BMW - the result of the hard work of a professional blackmail

Good afternoon, dear Habr!

For more than two years I have been a professional blackmailer for the industry of trading various MMORPG currencies. With the fall in interest in multiplayer sandboxes, almost all my profits have fallen. Therefore, in the end, I decided to start, raise my startup and repent in front of people. In this article I will explain in detail how I started; how easy it is to get a mailbox in the Blizzard.com domain zone; how a stupid confluence of circumstances nearly destroyed more than half a year of my hard work; how mistrustful people are; how to lose $ 10,000 for the sake of anonymity; and simply that it is not at all easy to sit on someone else’s gold vein, while remaining a person.

I am sure many will immediately begin to criticize my way of thinking. However, I ask you to be indulgent - at the end of the story, everything ended well for me, and for the projects for which I profited. I hope after reading you will have a good opinion of me, as a symbiote, but not a parasite. For the sake of justice, it is worth noting that I managed to remove a couple of disproportionate projects from the business, ruining them completely.
')

A little about yourself and your social circle

I was born in a family of two people far from IT in a small village Kadnikovo near Yekaterinburg. The key figure of childhood was my uncle Igor. Up to ten years I called him Igor Andreevich, later he allowed to call him simply Igor or “Bychara”, “Bull”. That was the name of his friends, with whom he protected passing truckers and a couple of stalls in Yekaterinburg. Sometimes I went to work with him, and, at times, they took me to another room while the adults of my uncle “talked”.

Somewhere in 1996, Igor was put under articles 163 (extortion) and 171 (illegal business) for fifteen years. Dad always told me to stay away from his brother, and in order to shield my uncle's friends from exposure, they gave me my first computer. Like most teenagers of the time, I had an unhealthy craving for programming.

Time flew by, I went to school, chatted with friends, begged for money for a new computer. Once a month I traveled with dad to Ekaterinburg, where I spent absolutely all the time in computer clubs. After graduation, my father told me to go to the Ural Mountain State University ^[1] . Having successfully entered the budget, I was not particularly interested in studying. I felt that I came to this world for a reason - I had to succeed. At that time, only money was a success for me, I was young and hot.

I had enough experience in working with computers to get a job at a small computer club in the center of Yekaterinburg - right near my hostel, not far from the Geologicheskaya metro station. I was pleased to maintain the equipment, but I hated people for their ignorance of computer hardware. At night, I rarely appeared in my room: most often I slept in a computer club, completely exhausted by my passionate work on some new C ++ program. Yes, these fun days with C ++. I remember as if it was yesterday.

And then my uncle, thanks to the necessary pull, left the zone for good behavior. The term he cut, but another three years he had to constantly report to the district. He was under the hood.

Carier start

When Igor came out, the first thing he started was a “legal” business. I don’t know exactly what he did for the next three years, but I’m sure that he didn’t move far from his past deeds, and almost all of the district police officers were sold for a good share at that time. While the Bull raised its prey on its horns, I diligently played World of Warcraft ^[2] .

I did not graduate from the university, I was expelled from the third year for an insane amount of tails and my temperament: I directly told the “professors” who lectured on the leaves that they were ignorant. There was one good person at the faculty - an excellent C ++ programmer, but at that time my knowledge base was heavier. And later I switched to Java.

Once Igor invited me to drink with him in one of the bars, which were “due” to him. I just did not know what to do on the weekend, and therefore agreed. The conversation went about "Business" and about our role in the lives of other people. Having fairly collected, we began to argue that there are a lot of idiots around who don’t need their money. While my uncle was making jokes in the direction of the model appearance of a waitress, I thought. I wanted to succeed, but I did not want to go against the law. Of course, you need to take money from those who themselves violate the law, or a license agreement. At the same time, I didn’t want to be found and “revenged” by lads, so I aimed at cyber criminals. Most likely, it was at that moment that I was determined to start anonymously blackmailing programmers who illegally profit from other people's projects. A sort of Batman on the Internet.

I set up a proxy, figured out the Tor system ^[3] , invented myself a sonorous nickname. My victims - the people I began to protect - now only knew my nickname “TheShantazör”. Due to the high rate of anonymity, no one could find me. RBC.ru article about the Elf Trader ^[4] , which traded in different game currencies, came to the fore.

How to get soap on Blizzard.com and stay anonymous

Having developed a detailed blackmailing scheme, I decided to get e-mail in the blizzard domain zone. At that time, it was possible to get a job either as a programmer or as a tech support for this company. Since programmers obviously have to work, I chose the path of technical support. Igor helped me get a scan of a stolen passport in the name of Ivan Brong, I wrote a short summary, described my life situation and that I could not come for an interview because I was paralyzed below the belt - which was not true, but it was officially documented.

After about a hundred letters with tasks for the knowledge of the world of World of Warcraft and the Blizzard system of work — I had to read documentation here for a couple of weeks — I was accepted for a trial period, and even sent an audio headset to a non-existent registration address. Probably, the person who received a small gift was very happy. Not a single call to technical support, I certainly did not answer - I'm sorry if at that time you were trying to reach Blizzard. I was officially fired due to the fact that I did not pass the trial tests. But for me the job has already been done: I received an e-mail in the domain zone of a large company, and having tinker with the databases a little bit, I staked it behind me. The script on the server checked the workers once a day and deleted the addresses of those who had already been fired - I managed to “quit” bypassing the script and the address was mine: bronga.ivan@blizzard.com. About a month it took me to get full access to e-mail. It's time to have fun with the owners of sites that violate the license agreement.

First blood

I decided to start my career from small sites and the Night Money service was the first on the list ^[5] . In those days, he had just started to develop, there was no one to “protect” the service, there were no investors, but the income was already decent. Thanks to a couple of simple phone calls to the host of their site, I learned the name of the owner. Without thinking twice, I went through Tor and a couple of proxies to a dedicated server in Singapore, from where I connected to the mail and wrote my first letter with the requirements of the share:

Good afternoon, Anton!

On your site - www.night-money.ru - you, as far as I understand, are trading in World of Warcraft gold.

According to the user agreement (http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/legal/wow_tou.html), which is signed by all users of our products, paragraph III.2.5, you are not entitled to perform any in-game actions for real currency reward.

Moreover, in the event that your service is discovered by other employees of Blizzard, prosecution will begin under articles 159, 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and 11.1 of the Administrative Code, which obviously will not work for you at all.

However, there is another way out of such a deplorable situation: I offer you help for a modest reward. Thanks to access to the Blizzard corporate network, I can add a site to the filter blacklist; that is, while I work at Blizzard, and as long as our contract is in force, you will never be tormented by my colleagues.

I look forward to hearing.

TheShantazör, Blizzard Ltd.

The deed was done. Despite the strong excitement inside, I kept very restrained. Everything went according to plan, like clockwork. A couple of days later I received a reply from Anton:

Hello, TheShantazör.

What kind of deal is this? How much do you ask? Who are you anyway? How do you know my name and my email?

Anton Chuvarov

Of course, not quite the answer that I expected; but a step to success was made. Thoughtfully continued the conversation:

Anton,

About the deal, everything is beautifully described in the previous email. I ask for 1% of the profits. We not only know who you are, but where you live. We are aware of the situation of your father and your wife, Angelina, with two drives to the police for 2005. You're under the hood.

TheShantazör

After this letter I had to wait. Day, three, a week. I lost patience - I already knew what to do. Just like that, with letters, of course, it was impossible to achieve anything. I called Igor, already having a network of cafes in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. He knew why I called and whose contact I needed to give. Igor was already in the subject and was proud of me. He quickly agreed with the corrupt policeman on the phone and after an hour and a half an email came to me:

Do not touch us. Tell me where to send the money.

Anton Chuvarov

We picked up the fish! My uncle called his friend who, wearing a uniform, came to the client's house. At this time, Anton was not at home, there was only his wife. She called 02 and clarified the information - the district officer was indeed sent to their home.

After Anton returned home from work, he had a close conversation with a representative of law enforcement agencies. Anton was clearly told what he was accused of, a fake subpoena was issued, and a repeated proposal put forward by me was made.

Anton,

Waiting for 5000 BTC in a week to the account: 167XfWL7JWzYjbs46xH46fNDBmE4FmfMBS - for refusing to cooperate.

And do not forget to throw on top of 1% for this month. We monitor your accounts and website.

TheShantazör

The deed was done. Over the next year, everything went great with Night Money. After I had to take more serious measures: a couple of times, the people of the Bull visited the house of Anton. In 2012, he had a daughter, and we decided to let him go. It is terrible to imagine how fierce the world would be without concepts.

Goldmine turned to the forest in front

A similar situation occurred with Yaroslav "Elf Trader" Andreev. I will not add correspondence, because, I think, you have familiarized yourself with the basic principles of my blackmail strategy. About six months of the contract with Elf, we were absolutely satisfied. He unfastened the percentage to me, I unfastened Igor. But then we wanted 5%, we were killed by our greed. At that time I already had a great car, but my apartment did not suit me. Then Elf began to dig under us.

I don’t understand how we missed it, but our client enlisted the support of one official, the new Thief in Law. Organs visited me. They took all the equipment, described the property, and most importantly - they had all this permission. Of course, no one did anything to me, but the payments from the Elf stopped - we understood where everything leads. Someone wanted to scare us.

My uncle has the best rules, so he knew a similar situation in the distant zero. His friend then went to live in London, where he is still unsuccessfully looking for Interpol at the request of the Government of the Russian Federation. “The main thing is the family,” Igor told me. “Vali from the country, until I got a bluff, and I’ll figure it out.” I collected all the necessary, good, all the money was on the exchanges of bitcoins. Next week I was already in London. I had to stay in a hotel for a couple of weeks, and then I rented a house from a Russian pensioner. It was possible to breathe deeply - no one was looking for me. From a hunter I turned into prey, and the prey should be able to hide.

Deanonimization as it is

While I basked in the mist of Albion, Igor worked. Involuntarily, I remembered the moment when he was at the fullest relaxing at that bar, and I was talking about profit to myself. Today everything was exactly the opposite. Soon they wrote an article about me on Lenta ^[6] , which greatly influenced my career.

They got to the most precious, to what I did not trust any of my clients - to my name. The tape published my name. It would seem that nothing terrible - you can change the nickname, but in narrow circles of currency traders, I was already someone legendary, from a kind of fiction. It is necessary to ensure that my name is removed. It is necessary to ensure that it does not go to the masses. You need to reach the admins Tapes. And where does the news go from Ribbons? They creep away on the Internet, like mold on wet plaster.

The bull called me. He wanted to help and has already found a person ready for ten kilos of evergreens to remove all information about me from the Internet. Well, this is a reasonable investment. So I paid. My name disappeared from the archives of Yandex, RBC, Tapes, Google and all other sites. Honestly, earlier I did not even think that such an operation was possible. You can change your appearance under the hand of an experienced surgeon - but it’s almost impossible to remove the informational trail. But we succeeded. Nobody is looking for me anymore. No one else knows me.

There is no good and evil - only evil is better

In the meantime, the official who “freed” Elf from the “Tatar-Mongol Yoke” wanted a share of the project. And this time he demanded not 1%, and not 5%, but 70%. This is how business is done in Russia - eat or be eaten. I think my uncle would have let everything off, if that servant of the people had not begun to put pressure on his restaurants. On something that Igor really treasured, on his only island of legal happiness, which remained in the petrified soul. What happened next with that politician, keep silence. Elf no one else interfered.

My name is Victor Semenov - this is who I have always been. This is my real life.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading to the end! Today I live in London and I have a small start-up called Moon Connection . We are engaged in the delivery of various goods to orbit and other planets - whether it is your favorite toy or the ashes of a grandfather, they may be in outer space.

We no longer had problems with the law, Igor is still engaged in the restaurant business, and our former “clients” are blooming and smelling.

The only thing left to note is: never forget the true purpose of your existence. "Family is the main thing," and the money ... and the money will be.

Sources

1. Ural State Mountain University
2. World of Warcraft
3. Tor project
4. “The Turnover of the Elf Trader raised 1,000,000,000 gold coins” - RBC.ru
5. Night Money
6. “Revelations of the Trader Elf:“ I have been blackmailed for more than a year ”” - Lenta.ru