Ike at . . . work?

[Ike 1]

So, other than pwning Purple A. posers or participating in oGame nuke-fests, or occasionally writing stuff up or creating .sigs for FDM, what is it exactly that Ike does:) Well, occasionally he speaks in the third person, but for a living he is a federal prosecutor specializing in CyberCrime. They just issued a press release about the most recent skoflaw he brought to justice, third paragraph down, the evil spammer!

 

As with all things Ike, there is a story, or four . . .

 

So this guy dropped out of high school in 1999 and started up a two-person 'company' to send out spam. Eventually he got involved in sending spam for bootleg software and met one of his co-conspirators in this case. This guy got my spammer involved in stock deals where they would issue millions of shares of stock in a shell company (without assets, clients, or offices) and the spammer would send "hot stock" tips to tens of millions of AOL and Google accounts starting on Friday after the markets closed and right up through the opening bell on Monday.

 

Get-rich-quick and easy-money types would purchase shares in these companies for $1-$2 per share, which was pure profit to the conspirators. Eventually the stock would plummet to $0.01 and all of the 'investors' would lose their money. The conspirators would move on to another shell company and do the same thing. They would literally make anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on each of these deals.

 

Unfortunately, the Securities and Exchange Commission caught up with them. The spammer, who had moved to France to avoid prosecution before this all began, seemed relatively secure as the SEC could not easily track him. However, the co-conspirator who had introduced the spammer to the scheme turned and gave us info on the spammer. We got an arrest warrant and sent an extradition request to France (that only took 8-9 months ). Not long after the extradition request made it to France, the spammer and his girlfriend flew to Vancouver, Canada, with the intention of renting a car and slipping across the U.S. border to visit family in California.

 

The Canadians saw the outstanding arrest warrant and deported the spammer back to the U.S. However, just before boarding the plane, the spammer ran for it, broke through a secured door -- setting off alarms -- and hid out for 45 minutes before being detained in a secured baggage facility. He then spent the night in jail and was placed on a plane to San Francisco the following day, where he was arrested.

 

Note to potential crooks, if you are going to get arrested, get arrested in San Francisco. Despite having no U.S. address or valid driver's license, having just attempted to escape incarceration, having previously ignored a court order to stop spamming, being on drugs, and having made millions of dollars spamming and holding that money in easily accessible accounts . . . the judge in San Francisco decided to release the spammer pending his hearing in Virginia. This was on the day before his 26th birthday, and he was to be released on his birthday. Well, we decided to give him a present of a different sort. We had our judge order a stay and overruled the San Francisco judge, who then ordered him transported (3,000 miles by bus in July) to Virginia.

 

The best part as that he had his in-no-way-encrypted laptop with him, which had chats and e-mails about all of his spamming activities. Up to this point, no one had ever met the spammer in person and we were concerned about establishing his identity. Well, no problems now! In fact, there was so much stuff on his laptop that we were able to see all of the other deals he had been spamming for and who else he had been working with.

 

So the spammer has agreed to plead guily and now faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. In fact, his guideline range is in excess of 20 years, so in theory he should actually serve ten years. However, the first two co-defendants who pled guilty to similar charges with 10-year caps only got 5 years each. So perhaps my spammer will get a break as well, but not if I have anything to say about it.

[Schot 407]

Well, occasionally he speaks in the third person...

Yup! lol.

 

...but for a living he is a federal prosecutor specializing in CyberCrime.

Quick! Hide tha bootleg!

 

 

I had a good read of the article you linked Ike. Interesting read and in particular how the defendants feigned "interest" in stocks thereby attracting the general public to get in on the feigned action. Kinda like a fly to fire eh. 20 million dollars worth of burnt bugs. Man. It's amazing how many schemes there are out there and this one sounds like it's a popular one. What did they call this scheme the defendants pulled off again? “pump-and-dump”? *Takes notes*

See you soon! lol

[Blade 1]

Wow, that is totally awesome Ike. I read the whole thing, and I was so excited I read it again!

 

I am glad that you are helping to stop the spammers, props for that!

 

Three Cheers to Ike!

Edited September 7, 2007 by Blade

[myles 2]

I will ask noob question, what kind of prison will they go to then? How do cyber crime get categorized in other words?

 

I'm always curious about how these types of new era crime are handled in the system.

 

p.s. Keep up the work, I hope you catch all the spammers that flood my e-mails hehe.

[Ike 1]

I will ask noob question, what kind of prison will they go to then? How do cyber crime get categorized in other words?

 

Anyone convicted of a federal crime in a federal court is sent to a federal prison. They come in different levels of security, and probably for a non-violent crime, he would be going to a reasonably low-level prison. Other factors come into play, but probably he is going someplace that is not too hellish. Some of teh state prisons are pretty harsh, especially the maximum security ones.

 

CyberCrime and Fraud are related departments in our U.S. Attorney Office. There is some overlap between our cases, but essentially anything where the means or object of a crime is a computer [e.g. means: using a computer to access child pornography; object: hacking into a computer] falls under CyberCrime. It may also fall under some other group and then we decide who prosecutes it. I handle computer hacking, IP violations [large scale sale and distribution of copyrighted works], child exploitation, spam, phishing, Internet auction fraud, etc.

 

I'm always curious about how these types of new era crime are handled in the system.

 

To some extent, much like more traditional crimes. A lot of the crimes themselves have not changed, they are simply adapated to the Internet. The nigerian scams used to come by mail, now they come by e-mail. Pump-and-dump stock scams used to come back fax, now they come by e-mail. Bank fraud, phishing, etc. now just using new methods of reaching victims.

 

p.s. Keep up the work, I hope you catch all the spammers that flood my e-mails hehe.

 

I'm tryin'!

[Blade 1]

My father is convinced this is not your real job. (He says they would never say they were a cyber cop on the internet to protect themselves.)

 

But I'm pretty sure you are a cyber cop, I think!

 

Once again, great work!

Edited March 4, 2008 by Blade

[Ike 1]

Well, I'm not a Cyber "Cop" per se, as cops are law enforcement (investigate crime, arrest people), while I am a prosecutor (file charges, prosecute cases in court). So if I were to see people trading child pornography via oGame, I would not investigate but would instead notify the FBI, Postal Inspection Service, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They would investigate and once they had sufficient evidence that a crime was being committed, they would notify me. I would open a case and help them to get subpoenas, search warrants, pen registers/trap-and-trace devices (phone taps), etc. Once we had sufficient evidence to bring a case against someone, we would seek to get an indictment from a grand jury, or a criminal complaint from a magistrate judge. These would be accompanied by either an arrest warrant or a summons to appear in court.

 

- Ike

[Blade 1]

Well yes that is what I meant.

 

He was doubting you worked on http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae/Pressrelease...30medlinnr.html <--- this thing.

 

 

We heard a story on the radio about all this cyber crime and how they are fighting to stop it, spam, etc, etc and a long discussion ensued. Interesting stuff.

Edited March 4, 2008 by Blade

[locutus 1]

Whoa, I missed this thread the first go around. Ike...you pwn them in real life too:) WELLLLL congrats on a nice hit, glotr of your life defender, at least he had some massive profits before he was crashed

[masteff 64]

I got out of advertising for online payday loan businesses when my buddies wanted to take the profits and switch to being lenders ourselves. In order to keep places like Yahoo and AOL from blacklisting us, we made sure to comply w/ the rules. But I dealt w/ some people that were offshore and didn't care. When the guy you're selling for says they don't care if you spam, just so you tell them ahead of time so they can monitor the volume... it's a pandora's box of temptation.

 

The poison of the internet is: if we can make a little money with 100 emails, then how much more could we make w/ 10,000 emails or 10 million. And the marginal effort is so small. There's no effort to sending junk emails. You load a list and the program does it for you. It took as much time to send 100 emails as it did 1,000 or 10,000.

 

I tell you where one gold mine is right now (and hence some of the worst crooks): "how to get rich off the internet". That's one of my biggest concern right now. My dad saw me make money on the internet and he's not savvy enough to see the snake oil that's being offered. The point of fraud in some of those is that they post copies of checks they claim are proof of alledged profits. The point of fraud is the lack of disclaimer that results are not typical. The point of fraud is monthly fees for services that provide nothing. (Sorry, venting a point of personal frustration. When your own Dad won't listen to you, what do you do? My step-mother says he's spending $50-100 a month on his credit card on this junk; it's lining other peoples' pockets. [/vent] )

 

If someone tells you that making money on the internet doesn't take work, ask them why everyone hasn't done it already and then run the other way. Real adverstising takes work to write and design. Real email lists require you to purge databases with opt-out suppression lists. Real websites don't come prepackaged for one low price that goes up if you don't buy it on the day of the seminar.

[myles 2]

I like the old Chinese theory of life, going like this:

 

There is life (your birthright), which you cannot change.

Then there's geography(your surrounding), which you cannot change but changes on its own. (not referring to where ones live, so don't say you can just move lol)

Then there's luck/mathematic (opportunities), which changes and can be changed.

Then there's seed (your cumulative achievement/hardwork), which determines your ability to seize the opportunities.

Finally there's fruit (the sum of your past doing), which dictates how your surrounding will react to/treat you.

 

So yeah my point is simple, things seem to have changed. Really the principles have not changed at all, just the methods.

 

Ok, feel free to shoo me out now.

[Blade 1]

glotr of your life defender, at least he had some massive profits before he was crashed

 

I LOL'd! GLOTR to defender...

 

Chinese theory of life - very true. =)

 

Great story Masteff - just curious: what happened to your "buddies" who wanted to become lenders themselves?

 

I get spam emails all of the time - I have read up on them, and see how they make their money, and I have gotten some spam emails exactly like the example they show. Amazing how brazen these spammers are, even if a few of them are found out, new ones will take up the same text and keep working the same trick. At least it is only a temporary victory.

[masteff 64]

Great story Masteff - just curious: what happened to your "buddies" who wanted to become lenders themselves?

Hate to admit I've lost track of them; one had been a good pal, we'd go to the horse races together after work (but he was also the type to take it personally when I quit the partnership). And after a job relocation or two, we're geographically out of touch. Last word I heard from them was they'd finished getting licensed in New Mexico and Nevada and were starting to take loan applications online. Seems like they were having a little trouble on the collections side of it all (people taking payday loans are not good credit risks, hence the 15% fees for a two-week loan). Their websites are still up, but that may just mean they haven't expired.

[Borg 0]

Hey Ike I just won this lottery in some foreign country for billions. Can you send me a few thousand dollars to pay the taxes?

( I was all was amazed at how many fell for that scam )

 

I was just scanning thru the threads and saw Ike working? I had to check that out

Edited March 17, 2008 by Borg

[DreDBanGeR 32]

ohh I never knew u were into that stuff ike

 

does this mean I can Forward all my spam to your email now:) you'll look into it right:) right...

 

( starts to empty his spambox )

[Llama8 8]

So much more interesting than my job.

And that's after I've bugged my manager for some more work. Though I should get some interesting stuff to do next week, re-designing some reports due to a re-organisation in a related team to more closely align it with the business.

[Ike 1]

So much more interesting than my job.

And that's after I've bugged my manager for some more work. Though I should get some interesting stuff to do next week, re-designing some reports due to a re-organisation in a related team to more closely align it with the business.

 

Well, at least you don't have to deal with people like this lovely individual from this morning. And more importantly, you don't have to check out all those images and videos on their twenty-five harddrives, three laptops, two thumb drives, . . .