"High-tech" business or a fairy tale about shtetl Themis

In the south of Ukraine, in the place where the Ingul River flows into the Southern Bug River, the district town of Nikolaev is spread. The city is very small (about 500 thousand inhabitants) and quiet. But there was one sad story in it about which I would like to tell you. Very much it is typical for this country (and not for this , I think, too).

I found it in a note on the local news site. First things first.

On February 16, the Court of Appeal in the Nikolaev region dismissed the lawsuit of the administration of the International Club Breeze for illegal interference with the work of Nikolayev’s telephone networks.

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Initially, everything was presented as a heroic operation, carried out by our valiant Security Service of Ukraine, together almost with the Interplanetary Police of the Milky Way Association.

Violators arrested, the court was swift and fair.

Both defendants were convicted, according to Part 2 of Art. 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, for three years imprisonment with exemption from serving a sentence and probation for 1.5 years.

What kind of article is this, you ask. In order not to search for a long time - here it is, consider these words:

the commission of unauthorized interference with telecommunications networks, which led to a change in the routing of information and a distortion of the information processing process.

Well, I drew a terrible picture of hacking Ukrtelecom servers and evil hackers greedily rubbing their hands?

This tale of the victory of good over evil only darkens the knowledge that the defendants actually committed.



In fact, this “international club” simply helped people to call abroad via Skype Out. The mind of any IT person starts to build logical chains in this place, including different words like “SIP”, “billing”, “digital PBX”, etc. But the scheme was involved quite different.

The scheme was banal to tears. Wishing to call relatives cheaply, joined the club and made a very small monthly fee. If you need to call, he dialed the usual landline number, on the other end of which he took the phone ... a live operator! The operator was dictated by the number, then dialed on Skype, and using a super-high-tech device “wire-with-two-jacks-to-the-ends”, the phone and computer were switched, after which the caller spoke at his pleasure.
UPD : I was corrected here in comments: even the wire was not used. The handset just went to the stand with a microphone and speaker. So there was no talk of any violation of routing at all.

He worked this club for a very short time, and did not bring much money to its creators: everything went to pay the provider’s bills, Ukrtelecom and advertising (it should be noted that the organizers of the club paid all taxes regularly). But he has helped some people significantly reduce their international communication costs.

The only one who did not enjoy it was Ukrtelecom, the favorite state monopolist. From whose filing the authors of this crime of the century were arrested and convicted.

Here is such a sad tale, and I think everyone will make the conclusions himself.

PS I took the picture here , I hope the owners will forgive me. Very much it is suitable for the occasion.
PPS And what blog would this post?