Underground carders market. Translation of the book "KingPIN". Chapter 20. “The Starlight Room”

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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(The long-awaited translation of the 20th chapter)

Chapter 20. “The Starlight Room”

(thanks for the translation thanks to Artem Nedrya aka Translation Designer)



Nine vintage chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, right above the luxurious sofas of the Starlight Room club, owned by Harry Denton; rays of a hundred kilogram mirror ball ran across the surface of the dance floor. Huge dark red curtains hung on either side of the wide panoramic windows, like stage curtains, behind which the lights of the San Francisco skyscrapers could be seen.



Located on the twenty-first floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, the Starlight Room was one of the most expensive nightclubs in the city and an integral part of its vibrant nightlife with a 1930s-style interior decorated with dark red damask fabric and silk Handmade. Rather screaming than a stylish club, it was possible to attract customers only through regular theme nights. That Wednesday the club organized the “Russian Party”, so music from the Motherland thundered around, and the waiters in tuxedos poured vodka to visitors crowding around the bar.



In the ladies' room, someone kissed Tsengeltsetseg Tssetsdendelger. Having already had a drink that evening, the young Mongolian immigrant did not remember how it happened, or why, that the long-legged brunette wanted to kiss her. After a moment, Tsengeltsetseg's eyes widened in surprise. Nearby was another brunette, an exact copy of the first.



Michelle and Liz introduced themselves, and a wide, unfeigned smile appeared on Tsengeltsetseg's face. She told Eskera twins that they could just call her "T", after the first letter of her last name.



Ty regularly attended Russian parties at this club and spoke without problems in Russian and English. Hailing from northern Mongolia, she still found times when the country was under the influence of the Soviet Union. She taught Russian at school until the Soviet empire collapsed and the Mongolian prime minister declared English the second official language - and this is in a landlocked country ...





Anticipating a great adventure and the notorious "better life", in 2001 she was able to get a student visa and emigrate to the United States. Her first thought after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport was that the Americans were really terribly fat. But later, once in the city, her impression changed for the better: Los Angeles was full of wonderful people.



After studying one semester at a two-year college in Torrance, she moved to San Francisco, where she received a green card. Now she studied at Peralta College in Auckland and worked as an ice-cream clerk at Fenton's Creamery cafe, thanks to which she could pay for an apartment and study.



Liz was particularly interested in the fact that Ti knew Russian. The twins brought Ti a drink from the bar, after which they offered to continue the party with their friends in a hotel near by. It was already past midnight when they came to the room of their friend, Chris Aragon, at the Clift Hotel near Union Square. Chris, who rested there with friends, immediately charmed Ti with his appearance. He also seemed to show interest in Ti, which intensified when the twins mentioned that she knew Russian. In the company of two more employees of Chris, they opened several bottles of alcohol and walked until the early morning hours. When the other girls went to their rooms, Ti stayed overnight in Chris's room.



The next morning, when Ti was still seeing her last dream, active movement began in the room. Liz and several other pretty girls — all animated and cleaned up, without a trace of night festivities — ran into the room in turn and ran out of it with envelopes and encrypted messages from Chris. *



The whole day went on in the same vein: the girls took the envelopes, brought the bags, sometimes stayed in the room for a while, then left again. The idle atmosphere of the previous evening was felt in the air, but a note of nervousness or excitement was added to it, which caused Ti to be perplexed - but not so strong that she began to ask questions.



In the evening, when it was already dark and the company gathered in the room, Ti said that she was leaving. She needed to go home to East Bay to be on time at work at a cafe the next morning.



Chris offered her something better. He recently launched a website with one of his business colleagues, Sam, and just needed a Russian full-time translator. She would earn more than she paid in a cafe for feeding chocolate ice cream with nuts to young businessmen.



“Don't go,” Liz said. - You will earn more with us.



Ty looked at her newly acquired friends. They reminded her of new Russians, who, after the collapse of the Soviet regime, stuffed their wallets with money acquired in dubious ways, and devoured everything and everyone with great greed and little sense of taste.



But she liked Chris; he seemed different to her. In addition, by making translations for a website, she would have the freedom and flexible schedule, she could concentrate on her studies. Ty agreed.



The next day, Chris ordered his team to assemble and announced that their next destination would be Las Vegas. He told Ti to meet them there, it would be fun. She should have gotten an email at Yahoo. She collected the bag and went to the airport.



Chris helped T to move closer to the area where he lived, and paid for renting an apartment in Dana Point, a coastal town in Orange County, which he rented to her real name. Standing at the end of a quiet, winding alley, painted in the orange color of Italian houses and with a roof of Spanish tiles, the Tea House, as he baptized him, was like a different world, compared to Mongolia, where Tee grew up.



They made love on her new bed, after which Chris left $ 40 on the bedside table so she went to the nail salon. Ty offended by this. She's not some kind of prostitute. She loved him.



Chris and his team transported their equipment for making cards from Villa-Siena to the apartment's garage at Dana Point - Tea House will now be its new base, party venue and 24-hour Ti site at Carders Market. Her duties are to find online forums for enthusiasts from Eastern European countries involved in counterfeiting payment cards, such as Mazafaka and Cardingworld, and to summarize what is happening there for use in the Russian section of Carders Market.



She will need a nickname, Chris explained the name or nickname for her alter ego in the online world. She chose the nickname "Alenka", the name of the famous Russian chocolate.



Alenka immediately rushed into work, sitting day and night in front of a computer monitor, sincerely trying to find influential Russians and lure them to the website of Chris and “Sam”, also known as “the Whiz”.



* Liz was one of Chris Aragon's cash assistants; There is no information about the participation of her sister Michelle.



To be continued