Underground carders market. Translation of the book "KingPIN". Chapter 22. "Enemies"

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 cyber-pahan, as well as some methods of the work of the special services to catch hackers and carders.

The book translation quest started in the summer in the IT camp for high school students - “ Kingpin: schoolchildren translate a book about hackers ”, then Habrayusers and even a little editorial staff joined the translation.
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MagisterLudi : “I apologize, towards the end of the year the confusion began again with the ready chapters, we lay out what we have, not in order.”

Chapter 22. Enemies

(for the translation thanks to GrizliK )

Jonathan Giannone learned that the loss of privacy is the price for working with Iceman.

He worked with a mysterious hacker for a year, mainly acquiring servers that Iceman used to scan for vulnerabilities, but it was still under the permanent electronic king by Iceman. One day, a hacker sent Giannone a link to the news allegedly on CNN's website about a computer problem at JetBlue, the airline that rebuffed Giannone’s extortion a long time ago. Giannone, without thinking, clicked on the link and then Iceman again got into his computer. The Client-side attack has been triggered.

Giannone began regularly checking his computer for malware, but he still could not keep track of all Iceman's invasions. Max received Giannone's password from the United Airlines bonus system and began tracking his movements around the world. Giannone was an avid traveler who could easily fly, just to earn bonus miles. When he landed at San Francisco International Airport, a text message from Iceman was already in his mobile. "Why are you in San Francisco?"

This might seem funny if it were not for the frightening mood swings of Iceman. He could have changed in a second — one day you would be his best friend, another he would be sure that you were a snitch, a traitor, or worse. He wrote Giannone long spontaneous letters, complaining about Chris or other members of the carders community.

Giannone understood it was envy. While he and Chris were having fun in Vegas and Orange County, the Iceman was locked up in an apartment, working like a dog.

In fact, the hacker’s outbursts of anger often coincided with Giannon’s travels to California. In June 2005, Iceman started a quarrel with Dzhannone, after his landing on an early flight to Orange County, Aisman wanted to bring him to justice, for some kind of oversight in their joint operation.

The first message fell on BlackBerry Giannon at 6 am, in San Francisco it was 3 nights, and after the message rained non-stop for 2500 miles, until the Iceman finally stopped talking after landing the plane. When Giannone later checked his mail, he found dozens of letters from an apologetic hacker. “Sorry, I'm sorry. I lost my temper. ”

Before this was the case in September 2004, Giannone told Iceman about his plan to fly and meet with Chris, to which Max grimly remarked that he could interfere with this trip, if he wanted. Giannone laughed. However, after 1.5 hours of flight, his plane unexpectedly turned around and returned to Chicago. After landing at the O'Hare International Airport, the captain reported that the air traffic control center in Los Angeles had disappeared, because of what had to be changed to the route.

It turned out this was due to a simple error in the computer. It was a well-known bug in a radio control system based on the Windows operating system, the air traffic control center of the city of Los Angeles in Palmdale, which required a technical reset every 49.7 days. They missed the moment of reboot, and the backup system did not start up regularly. As a result of the shutdown, hundreds of aircraft were planted, as well as five incidents were found whereby the aircraft were located at a distance closer than the safety rules allowed. No malicious intent was found, but several years later, when all Max’s opportunities were revealed, Giannone caught himself thinking that Iceman did not crack the computers of the federal aviation administration and did not disable Los Angeles just to prevent him from meeting with Chris.

Giannone finally took drastic measures to try to save his stuff from Iceman. He bought a computer from Apple. Iceman could have gotten anywhere, but Giannone was sure that he could not hack the Mac.

While Max continued to follow his criminal partners, CardersMarket began to fill with rumors, reinforced by the mysterious boast of its founders. Like Iceman and Easylivin, Max and Chris were unknown among their fellow scammers, however experienced carders could feel the confidence and street savvy in their messages.

In Seattle, the name of the new site was given by Dave “El Mariachi” Thomas, a former FBI agent, who, like Max, tried to give the firewall a go-ahead. Thomas has drifted since the feds cut him off from collecting intelligence information, and searched for new things on the net from home.

Fearing, Thomas is registered under a fake nickname. But when Iceman invited CardersMarket to the philosophy and charter for public discussion, Thomas began to speak in detail about the direction that the site should follow in order to perform successful operations, avoiding the fate of ShadowCrew.

At first, Chris and Max thought that Thomas could be a valuable assistant. But they soon discovered that he was one with one of their chosen administrators, Brett "Gollumfun" Johnson.

Rumors have been around Johnson since he returned to the stage. You can not just disappear for two years, and then return to the forum carders as if nothing had happened. In August, the hacker “Manus Dei” added fuel to the fire by breaking into Johnson's mail and published information about his card in a group called FEDwatch. The author of the publication reported the real name of Johnson, his address in Ohio, as well as a large amount of personal information from his mailbox. Among the main revelations: Johnson corresponded with a reporter from the New York Times about the scene of carders and owned a mysterious domain name, Anglerphish.com - perhaps the domain was prepared for its own website.

There was nothing to suggest that Johnson was a traitor, however, that Max, that Chris were alarmed by this information. On the other hand, Thomas convinced the founder of Shadowcrew that he was an informant. In the end, Johnson announced his resignation before the Firewall operation and then returned without explanation.

Last but not least, Chris and Max needed a war between two full-time carders because of the disagreements of the Shadowcrew times. However, obsessed with entrepreneurial pride, Chris wanted a site that would be the best criminal forum. Therefore, he turned to Thomas via ICQ to try to deal with all the problems.

"I will not play the drama about Gollumfun, or others who are a rat, who are not a rat," wrote Chris. "I just want a clean, good site so that we have a safe place to play."

Chris promised to send the same message to Johnson. He followed the advice of the series "How to negotiate with difficult people." He followed the paternal advice, asking Thomas for advice on how to run a successful forum, thus showing his respect for a more experienced card. But, to make sure that his advice was taken seriously, Chris warned him. "We are not kids dude," he wrote. “We are old school. And we are good at what we do. ”

Thomas promised to behave well, and added that he would do everything possible to help make “The Card Market” a forum without dramatic scenes, as everyone wants. But in secret, a lump of suspicion ripened inside him. Why would anyone defend Brett Johnson, who was clearly a snitch?

He noticed that Easylivin used the old version of ICQ, which showed the IP address. Thomas tried to trace the address, and he brought it to Boston, a famous hotbed of federal informants. CardersMarket was hosted in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, another ideal place to launch a secret operation. The phone number listed in the contact information of the domain pointed to the California police department, albeit with a different code. Most likely it was a coincidence, but who knows?

When he finished folding the evidence, he had an unpleasant feeling in his stomach. CardersMarket was a feds stand. Now it was obvious. He promised himself that he would do everything possible to destroy the new site and drop the shitty “old school” of Easylivin and Iceman.

Next Chapter 23. "Anglerphish."

To be continued