Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/03/man-spies-on-scammers-through.html
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Honestly, at this point it should just be flat out legal to hack these foreign scammers, and also to scam them back. It’s estimated that 50% of all calls are scams - at this point it’s no longer a nuisance, it’s war. And if it’s war they want, it’s unfair that our governments prevent us from fighting back.
The same should also apply to state sponsored hackers. Russia, China, and North Korea are known to be hacking government systems in the US, UK, etc. and interfering in elections. If they’re going to do that, I say it’s time to unleash all of our hackers and script kiddies to wreak havoc upon them in kind.
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There was a big reveal from a whistleblower about Ukrainian scammers published recently:
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Holy shit that is like Hollywood hacking! “I’ll backhack them through their uplink and tap into the CCTV system! Just gotta keep him talking!”
I used to scoff at writing like that, but here someone actually pulled it off.
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i love the ones where the scammer hangs up on him, and he calls them right back. really blows their minds. good on him – i hope he takes them ALL down.
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He even does a better job than the movies of zooming in.
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This is really impressive, but I can’t help but think this is creepy and wrong to go that far.
He does not give the full names on YouTube but he apparently does on Patreon.
What he’s doing isn’t all that sophisticated, and neither are the scammers apparently. He explains it in another video. He has a couple of files sitting around. BankingDetails.exe and Passwords.exe. If the scammer downloads and opens them, he has a backdoor to their PC. They fall for their own tricks.
Mind you, what he’s doing is illegal in the UK and India. I’m surprised YouTube hasn’t nuked his channel.
There was a great episode on the Reply All tech podcast about call centers. They went a bit further, traveling to India to physically locate and confront these guys.
Call centers were forced to scramble to new locations with hours notice. Eventually the investigation led to organized crime threatening and attacking the reporters.
The biggest hurdle in getting the Police to do anything about it was not difficulty in building cases, but their own fear of organized crime.
Even after they were handed all the evidence, the reporters were encouraged to forget everything and escape India with their lives.
Comes pretty close to being “state sponsored”, at least “state condoned”.
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Update from Jim’s Patreon - the head of the scamming org has, indeed been arrested:
I support Jim’s activities uncovering these scammers on Patreon, and strongly suggest you do, too, if you have the means - his work here is almost unprecedented, and clearly deserves support!
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These scammers are inflicting misery on people worldwide, in numbers that must be in the millions, and continue to do so, I feel there should be no limits on the retribution dished out, in whatever form it takes, with the possible exception of dusting off and nuking from space, although it’s the only way to be certain.
This is the old debate, does the end justifies the means ? I don’t think so.
It is unnecessary to give the names of those guys. If it’s really organised crime they maybe don’t have any choice and are in big trouble now.
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