An FBI Agent's 3 Years Undercover With Identity Thieves 196
snydeq writes "InfoWorld offers the inside story of how FBI Supervisory Special Agent J. Keith Mularski, aka Master Splynter, penetrated and took over DarkMarket.ws, the infamous underground carding board hacked by Max Butler and later transformed by Mularski into an FBI sting operation. The three-year tour sent Mularski deeper into the world of online computer fraud than any FBI agent before, resulting in 59 arrests and preventing an estimated $70 million in bank fraud before the FBI pulled the plug on the operation in October."
Re:How much more... (Score:3, Insightful)
All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.
Re:oh lord (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How much more... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. But, given finite resources, should there not be some rational priorities set?
-Peter
Fencing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fencing (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't ever buy anything, and never eat out?
Re:Fencing (Score:3, Insightful)
Cash
Re:How much more... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think both their salaries are subsidized by my salary.
If we got rid of the useless investigations that'd be one less resource drain on the good departments.
Re:How much more... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.
Crimes like peaceful protesting, you mean?
Re:How much more... (Score:5, Insightful)
All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.
Right. Because the FBI is out investigating every single federal crime within their jurisdiction, right?
No. Because the FBI does have limited resources, cases not specifically brought to their attention by promising, credible leads -- or at least serious media attention -- don't get investigated. Those with credible leads that may not look so promising might sit on the backburner -- often for months or years.
While the FBI does investigate people who turn out to not have been criminals, that's more the exception than the rule.
Re:oh lord (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't you mean all the KNOWN sites were running in the open?
Re:Fencing (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent +5 insightful. Cash is accepted everywhere and stolen cash can't be used for identity theft.
1) Tons of places won't accept 50's or 100's anymore. And carrying enough cash to live in 20's gets bulky.
2) Carrying lots of cash (see above) gets noticed (see below).
3) If you get robbed of cash its gone. No, phoning your bank to let them know your card was stolen. No contesting the purchases made with your stolen cash. Your insurance company won't even replace stolen cash. Its just gone.
While having my card lifted is a hassle, it won't actually likely cost me anything, even if my identity is stolen it will most likely be a hassle more than anything else. Getting robbed however is much more permanent.
Re:Patience (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, crime is more work with less reward than just keeping your day job writing Java middleware.
Re:I like the way the government thinks (Score:1, Insightful)
If you don't like him why would you want to forget him? If you forget him then you forget all the nasty things that happened under his presidency. If you forget the mistakes of our leaders then there is no lesson learned.
America must not ever forget.
Re:Reloadable cards. (Score:1, Insightful)
Your idea of reloading a debit card is something you can do today, granted you need more than one account. Have one account tied to your debit card, while a second account, one that's not tied to your debit card, acts as a repository for your cash. Just transfer money from your secondary account to your primary account when needed. I do this all the time.
Re:Fencing (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with that system is that it protects the banks and not the customers. Before you could contest the signature: now all they have is a PIN, and there's no way of proving who typed it in. It would be better to use chip, PIN and signature, but people will usually choose convenience over security.
Sounds like many jobs I've had... (Score:3, Insightful)
So Agent Mularski got a taste of what it's like to be a SysAdmin? I think it's a good thing, now he would understand what it's like to work in IT, he'll (hopefully) be more sympathetic to IT staff that he works with... We should get more Law-Enforcement officers into undercover IT "busts"!!!
;)
Now, if he had a pager that would buzz him in the 6 hours he got "off" from the computer, that would be JUST like being a SysAdmin