DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [26]
The Planet was on top of the world. Its users raved about its moneymaking properties while hundreds of hackers, crackers and spammers waited nervously to see if the Cupola would grant them the precious privilege of membership.
Script prefaced the gathering by giving the first ever public interview by a major carder. Xakep.ru (Hacker magazine), which still publishes today, is the bible of the Russian underground, but even its readers were shocked to see Script reveal the secrets of the Planet in March 2002. ‘What motivates someone to become a carder?’ the magazine asked Script, pointing out that Russia’s notorious Department R was created to hunt down carders and their ilk.
Script: They’re motivated by what their hearts and minds tell them. Science has shown that people who take risks experience a rush of the so-called happiness hormone. That hormone, multiplied by whatever quantity of rustling dollar bills, plays the fundamental, decisive part in motivating someone to keep working in this not entirely honest industry.
Hacker: Guilt-free?
Script: Guilt-free. Not only because anyone can cancel any payment even after a long period of time has elapsed just by sending the bank a statement to that effect, but also because carding isn’t as heinous an occupation as it might seem. It’s a lot less shameful than robbery. We don’t cause card owners any problems; they’ll get back everything from the banks, right down to the last penny if they ask for it. Instead, our government should feel guilty about the fact that teenagers are becoming embezzlers at such a young age.
Golubov was rationalising the trade as most carders do: the banks will always pick up the tab, and so ordinary people remain unaffected. Such sentimental, populist twaddle conveniently overlooks how banks pass on the costs of fraud to their customers, and so the carders are having a direct and negative effect on the ordinary people for whom Script showed apparent concern.
Nonetheless, his point regarding the government not giving a damn about how large numbers of teenagers were turning to crime is near the mark. Ukraine was little more than a mafia state and its leading politicians and businessmen were setting an appalling example, one that Script proved adept at following.
Set against this backdrop, Script believed that CarderPlanet would be able to furnish him with sufficient funds to enter into the bigger league of Ukrainian business. He was nothing if not ambitious.
What could possibly go wrong?
7
BOA CONSTRICTED
Around the time that Script was launching CarderPlanet in Odessa, researchers at the software giant Autodesk in San Rafael, California, decided it was time to contact the FBI. The largest global manufacturer of 2D and 3D modelling software, Autodesk sell its products across the world to architects, designers, town planners, model-makers, mortgage brokers, vehicle manufacturers – well, they are even the chosen suppliers of software to Scunthorpe’s firm of chemical engineers, Grimley Smith Associates.
Specialist software like this does not come cheap. Single licences for Autodesk’s professional CAD programs range between $3,000 and $7,000, reflecting the huge amounts invested in the research and development of the product.
In 2002 the company’s Piracy Protection Unit noticed that a seller in the Ukraine was offering brand-new versions of one of Autodesk’s design programs on eBay for a bargain $200, when in the shops exactly the same product was retailing at $3,500. ‘Hmm,’ they thought, ‘something’s not right here!’
Silicon Valley suffers from the same problem as the Hollywood studios. The making of motion pictures often involves resources comparable to those required in the development of complex software programs. As production costs rise, the emergence of a global network of counterfeit DVD manufacturers, frequently linked to organised-crime syndicates, has reduced revenues from movies. This is especially true in a recession – if you have a choice