DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [24]
Ironically, given that CarderPlanet and cyber criminals boasted a very different social, cultural and psychological profile from traditional crime syndicates, Script and his collaborators nonetheless chose to designate their membership structure by borrowing the terminology of the Sicilian mafia. Later, carders reflected that it was unwise to use such an obvious criminal metaphor, although in these early days the language also hinted at Script’s specific psychological profile and his future ambition to lead a powerful social movement.
The most senior members (never more than six) belonged, then, to ‘The Family’, whose highest representatives or administrators were each entitled to the honorific ‘Godfather’. Once these Family chiefs granted somebody admission into CarderPlanet, the member could explore the website’s various sections. In one part, for example, he could browse through a whole raft of viruses on sale, which he could later use to launch a specific type of attack against other computer users. Virus writers also offered to write a piece of customised malware, for payment, that could infiltrate specific systems or programs.
Most activity took place on the Carders’ Forum. In this department you could buy and sell stolen credit-card and bank-account data. ‘In the course of his work,’ Script explained, ‘a carder can specialise in one or more areas of carding. But there’s nobody who does everything. Sooner or later that carder will need someone else’s services. That’s why there’s a place for the networks and groups – people exchange numbers and information. That could be bank accounts, complete information on card owners, sometimes even including passport details. Carders can also be part-time hackers, since sometimes you can’t come up with the necessary information (without paying for it) unless you break into a server.’
In another department you could purchase a Western passport or, say, an American driver’s licence. In most instances, the counterfeit documents were of the highest quality. But, as purchaser, how could you be certain of the quality of these fakes? And furthermore how could you be confident that the seller was not going to rip you off? After all, you already knew that the person you were buying from was a criminal! ‘Rippers’ – criminals who rip off criminals – were already an established presence on the Internet.
This was CarderPlanet’s trump card. The Family members were monitoring all the comings and goings. After introducing the vetting system, they further strengthened security by making this a pay site to keep out mischief-makers. There was initially ‘a big influx of amateurs who just cluttered up the forum’, whom Script wanted rid of, but even more damaging was the presence of the rippers, ‘who offer low-quality services or fail to deliver services in exchange for the money they take’.
But CarderPlanet was not just a department store for cyber thieves, for the vetting system enabled administrators to act as guarantors for the business conducted via their website. In exchange, they received adulation, cash and a much bigger and more efficient market for their own products, all in one go.
While a genuine hacker, Script was unusual inasmuch as he was driven primarily by a desire to make money. Although young, he well appreciated the oceans of cash in which the Western world and particularly America was floating. Profit is indubitably a powerful force, but the creative genius behind CarderPlanet was not Script, but his senior collaborator, Boa, for whom money was a secondary consideration.
Boa was a very different character from the rest of the Planet’s inhabitants. In his late thirties when Script first created the Planet, he was a good two decades older than most of his colleagues and vastly more experienced in the ways of the world.
In the 1980s when the Soviet Union still