Underground carders market. Translation of the book "KingPIN". Chapter 13. "Villa Siena"

Kevin Poulsen, editor of the magazine WIRED, and in his childhood blackhat, the hacker Dark Dante, wrote a book about " one of his acquaintances ."

The book shows the path from a teenager-geek (but at the same time pitching), to a seasoned cyberpahan, as well as some methods of the work of special services to catch hackers and carders.

The beginning and the translation plan are here: “ Shkvoren: schoolchildren translate a book about hackers ”.
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The logic of choosing a book for working with schoolchildren is as follows:

• there are few books about hackers in Russian (one and a half)
• There are no books about carding in Russian at all (there was one UPD )
• Kevin Poulsen - WIRED Editor, No Stupid Comrade, Authoritative
• to introduce young people to the translation and creativity on Habré and get feedback from elders
• schoolchildren-students-specialists work in spike very effectively for training and shows the significance of the work
• The text is not very hardcore and is accessible to a wide range, but it touches on issues of information security, vulnerabilities of payment systems, the structure of the carding underground, basic concepts of the Internet infrastructure
• the book illustrates that "feeding" in underground forums - ends badly

Who wants to help with the translation of other chapters write in a personal magisterludi .

(Regarding the order, they ask me many questions and advise me to publish the chapters one by one. I would also like that, but alas, since I work with a lot of people who, for example, have already translated 80% of the chapter, and then they have a force majeure on 2 On the one hand, I don’t want to put pressure on them, on the other hand, postponing the publication of those people who have already translated the next chapter is not entirely fair to them. Therefore, I’m publishing it.)

Read previous Chapter 12. “Free Amex!”

Chapter 13. "Villa Siena"

(Thanks for the translation thanks to the Lorian_Grace )

At the gates of Villa Siena, a vast residential complex in Irvine, half a mile from John Wayne Airport, palm trees were growing. Behind the main entrance, well-groomed European-style fountains splashed around in the well-groomed courtyards, and the four pools shimmered with blue under the sunny sky of southern California. Inhabitants enjoyed the club, relaxed in spas, practiced in one of the three gyms or, perhaps, communicated with the concierge manager, making plans for the evening.

In one of the spacious apartments, Chris Aragon was in charge of his business. The curtains were lowered to conceal the abundance of technology that filled the Ikeev tables and the granite countertops. He turned on his card printer, and he awoke with a howling hum, the wheels curled up, the motors pulled tapes, tight as hospital sheets.

Max now took out the dumps regularly, and when he got the new trophy, it was no longer possible to waste time - the data was stolen twice, and Chris had to deal with them before the scammers who bought or stole the numbers used them first or made mistakes and forced the companies Mark these cards. Chris had to collect the latest savings in order to invest about $ 15,000 in equipment for printing credit cards and an apartment for him.

Now investments began to justify themselves.

He loaded empty PVC cards into a tray of a bulky, oblong machine — a Fargo HDP600 card printer worth $ 5,000, which was used to print corporate IDs. After clicking on the laptop, the car pulled the map into its mouth and snarled something once, another, third, finally, fourth. Each sound marked a new color while the pigment was transferred to a clean printing tape and quickly evaporated by the heating element, melting into the surface of the card. The last clang from Fargo reported that a transparent laminating film had taken its place on the plastic.

Forty-four seconds from start to finish - and the car spat out a map, a brilliant, bright, real work of art. It could be a bald eagle, staring thoughtfully at the Capitol One logo, or a harsh American Express centurion, or a simple sky-blue spot on a white background for Sony's MasterCard card. For elite cards, the process was the same, except that sometimes Chris started with the basics of gold or platinum color, which, like the white ones, were ordered by the hundreds.

Having a pack of freshly printed plastic cards, he went on to the second point of his conveyor: a black and white printer for fine printing on the back of the card. If suddenly a hologram was needed, Chris removed a sheet of Chinese fakes from the pile, carefully placed it under the press and lowered the lever, cutting out an oval or a rounded rectangle the size of a stamp. A Kwikprint Model 55 thermal puncher worth 2000 dollars, resembling a mixture of a drilling machine and a medieval instrument of torture, fused a foil into the surface of the plastic.

The embossing machine carried out the following stage: a huge mechanized wheel with letters and numbers, rustled like an IBM Selectric, when it squeezed a name on a plastic on a name, account number and expiration date, filling them with silver or gold foil. From the Chinese supplier, Chris learned the special security keys for the winged V from Visa and the combined MC MasterCard — two distinctive convex signs that can only be found on credit cards, real and fake.

Verification systems do not verify the name of the owner, which gave Chris the opportunity to choose any for printing on the map; for those that he used himself, he preferred Chris Anderson. On the laptop, Chris edited the dumps received from Max so that the name in the magnetic strip corresponded to what was outside. The name was not used to calculate the CVV, unlike the rest of the data on the strip, so that it could be changed as desired.

Finally, having swiped the card through the correct MSR206 twice to program the dump, Chris received a fake credit card, which was almost no different from those in American pockets and wallets.

But it was not the end.

A driver's license was necessary for orders with a high credit limit, and here again the “assembly line” of Chris and the lessons of Shadowcrew did their work. For a driver's license, he switched from PVC to Teslin, a thinner and more flexible plastic sold in sheets of 8x11 inches. One sheet on the face, the second on the wrong side, and ten IDs per sheet.

The California version of the rights had two security elements that required additional tricks. The first was a translucent print image of the state of California, repeated on the front side of the laminate. For counterfeiting, Chris used Pearl Ex, a fine, multi-colored powder that was sold at art stores for less than three dollars a bank. The trick was to sprinkle a laminate sheet with a mixture of gold and silver powder, feed it to a printer with a transparent ink cartridge, and print a mirror image of the pattern with that ink. The fact that the seal was invisible did not matter, it was the heat of the print head that was needed. The sheet came out with a pattern fused to the surface, and the excess powder was easily washed off in cold water.

The UV print on the front was no more difficult. A conventional inkjet printer did the job easily if you empty the cartridges and fill them with multi-colored UV inks purchased in tubes.

After all these procedures, Chris had four sheets of material in his hands. He then folded two sheets of Teslin between the pieces of laminate and passed the sandwich through the laminator. After the card was cut, you could admire an impressive result: hold your fingers on the ID and feel the smooth silky surface, turn around in your hands and see the ghostly seals of the state, put under the UV lamp and see the ominously glowing flag: the red words "California Republic", above them is a brown bear on a yellow hilltop.

When the cards and IDs were ready, Chris picked up the phone and called his girls. He found that attractive girls age college students best suited for cashing. There was Nancy, a girl of Latin origin, with a love tattoo on her wrist, Lindsay, a pale brunette with brown eyes, Adrianna, a young Italian, Jamie, who worked as a waitress at Hooters in Newport Beach.
In addition to them, Chris met two dark-haired twins, Liz and Michel Esquer at the villa of Siena, where they lived.

Michelle simply revolved around the group, but Liz was invaluable: she worked in the mortgage industry, had a sharp mind, a good education and was responsible enough to entrust her with some administrative tasks, such as running a pay table, other than the usual shopping in stores.

Chris had a talent for picking people up. He could meet a new candidate in a restaurant and invite her to a party with his friends. Then she joined them in clubs, on expensive dinners, went to expensive rented limousines, when one of them celebrated his birthday. She saw money everywhere. When it was time, maybe when it was several months, maybe when the girl confessed that she had unpaid bills or rent, Chris casually mentioned that she knew how to make money easily and quickly. He told how it works, explaining that this crime does not have a victim. Otherwise, the girls would tie this thing to the man. None of them knew where Chris got the credit card details. When Chris talked about Max, he called him “Whistle,” and it was the mysterious superhacker they would never see.

Chris's code name was "Bro." Now that the operation was in full swing, Bro paid Whistle about $ 10,000 a month for dumps, transferring money through the Green Dot prepaid debit card.

Green Dot from Visa or MasterCard was designed specifically for students and consumers with poor wealth, it was a credit card without a loan. The person paid for the card in advance, by bank transfer, salary, cash. The latter made such a card an ideal way to transfer money from Chris in Orange and Max in San Francisco. Chris looked into nearby 7-Eleven or Walgreens and ordered a Green Dot payment number, called MoneyPack, for any amount up to $ 500. He sent Max the number via IM or email, and he used it for one of the cards on the company's website. Max could even use the card for daily purchases or withdraw money from San Francisco ATMs.

As soon as his team was complete, ready to go, Chris distributed them their cards, divided into classic ones, with a low credit limit, and gold or platinum, with a high one. He recalled that with the classic should follow small purchases, about $ 500. Those who got the gold, had to make purchases larger, from 1000 to 10,000 dollars. The girls were young, but under the influence of Orange's stylish youth they could hold so that they easily entered Nordstorm's and took a pair of Coach bags without lifting an eyebrow, then crossed the store and repeated the same in Bloomingdale's.

The newcomers were nervous at first, but after the first fake card worked at the checkout, they were hooked. Soon the girls already sent Chris enthusiastic messages from their shopping trips: “Can I use Amex in the new Bloomingdale's?”, Or “I made 7000 on a mastercard! Hooray!"

At the end of the day, they met in the parking lot and transferred purchases from the trunk to the trunk.

He paid them on the spot, 30 percent of the retail price, and carefully recorded each payment, like a real businessman. “Elegant fabric and sparkling buckles” of the bags ended up in boxes until Chris’s wife, Clara, sold them on eBay.
Night fell on the villa of Siena, lanterns turned on over the tennis courts, and outdoor fires were lit. Miles away, the team celebrated success with a good dinner and a bottle of wine. As always, Chris paid.

To be continued