Perks & Paintball For Employees At Cybercrime, Inc. 102
Barence writes "Innovative Marketing Ukraine was in the business of churning out some of the world's most pernicious, and profitable, computer viruses. As the company grew, it added a human resources department, hired an internal IT staff and built a call center to dissuade its victims from seeking credit card refunds. Employees were treated to catered holiday parties and picnics with paintball competitions. Top performers got bonuses as young workers turned a blind eye to the harm the software was doing. 'When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics,' said one former Innovative Marketing programmer. 'I had a good salary and I know that most employees also had pretty good salaries.' The firm has been closed down after the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit seeking its disbandment in the federal court. But an examination of the FTC's complaint and documents from a legal dispute among Innovative executives offers a rare glimpse into a dark, expanding — and highly profitable — corner of the internet."
Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Then again, I wasn't a piece of scum.
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Given the number of student protest organisations relative to other age groups, I'd have assumed that 20 was when most people have way too much time on their hands
FTFY ;)
Re: (Score:2)
When I was 20, I was loading trucks in the vegetable markets on 14th Street here in Chicago, and playing in bar bands at night to finance school. I remember getting my first paycheck and thinking I was rich, taking my girlfriend out for a fancy dinner, and falling asleep because I was so bone-tired.
My 21 year old daughter has been so busy and working so hard with school and working as a tutor that I finally had to put her an
Re: (Score:2)
Over here it's standard practice to get a student loan to cover university. Some people still supplement that with a job, but I lived fine off of my loan (and summer jobs) because I didn't waste hundreds of pounds a month drinking like almost all the other students in the UK seem to do.
And it was Counter-Strike and noodles/pasta for me back then, not BC2 and Cheetohs ;)
Re: (Score:1)
Why do people take internet generalizations personally?
I bet if you did a survey at a typical college protest, at least half of the people there would be receiving significant amounts of support from their parents.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's too bad that they, not prick software devs, get most of the attention from serial killers.
Re: (Score:2)
The list can be longer of course but what both groups do not share is looks. Having said this I must note that some of the girls I worked with on software looked better than the ones I paid to for entert
Re: (Score:2)
So - a waitress is a Food Whore since she delivers food for money?
A delivery man is a package whore?
A gas station attendant is a gasoline whore?
Stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the reference is more to the nature of consultancy than to service: it's the short term engagements, as opposed to long-term ones ("marriage.")
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Funny)
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
So did I. The sense of ethics does evolve with aging, but who hasn't developed any by the age of 20 should be considered retarded, both intellectually and emotionally.
Then again, I wasn't a piece of scum.
"Some people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We are talking the Ukraine here. Let's not automatically superimpose American sensibilities on someone that comes from a drastically different culture and lifestyle.
Let's have a little charity for someone who hasn't grown up as extravagantly privileged as us.
Re:Ethics (Score:4, Insightful)
We are talking the Ukraine here. Let's not automatically superimpose American sensibilities on someone that comes from a drastically different culture and lifestyle.
Let's have a little charity for someone who hasn't grown up as extravagantly privileged as us.
I've never understood this rationale. How is theft in the Ukraine any different from theft anywhere else? I'm sure many people make an honest living there, just like every other country. You can't put a "cultural" spin on fraud or theft.
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood this rationale. How is theft in the Ukraine any different from theft anywhere else? I'm sure many people make an honest living there, just like every other country. You can't put a "cultural" spin on fraud or theft.
I don't know about you, but to me, the "context" (not culture) of a theft sometimes makes a difference.
E.g. stealing $10 when your family are starving is and entirely different thing than stealing $10 million when you are filthy rich.
Think about that.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but to me, the "context" (not culture) of a theft sometimes makes a difference.
E.g. stealing $10 when your family are starving is and entirely different thing than stealing $10 million when you are filthy rich.
Think about that.
With as little faith as I have in humanity, I still do feel like there are enough resources out there that you don't have to steal in order to survive. There is enough charity (I don't mean ch
Re: (Score:2)
One word: NIPPLEGATE!
American “ethics“ is hugely hypocritical. And in fact the most horrible thing, is that people (like you) really believe that it’s not cultural but global, because they heard and parroted it in a “giant monkey, see monkey do”, without thinking about it for themselves for even a microsecond!
Everything is cultural. Fraud. Theft. Murder. Rape. Eating babies! Everything!
You can find a time for each and every thing that you hold true, where the opposite was seen
Re: (Score:2)
...No.
It's called integration. If you're going to participate in a certain society, then you have to follow that society's norms. It doesn't matter what YOUR culture follows, you're participating in a DIFFERENT culture now.
Take your hypothetical island. Would I have legal recourse if someone was murdered, being it's not against the law? Probably not. But, I'm not longer in MY society, where outright murder is illegal. But, you mean to tell me there's still not repercussions and negative consequences to an
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
We are talking the Ukraine here. Let's not automatically superimpose American sensibilities on someone that comes from a drastically different culture and lifestyle.
I do not superimpose American sensibilities. I am not even American, to begin with.
Let's have a little charity for someone who hasn't grown up as extravagantly privileged as us.
Crime is much more often caused by laziness and stupidity than poverty.
Notice, in this particualr case, that one of the sacks of shit said that he didn't "think a lot about ethics". He never said about living in poverty, feeding his siblings or whatever. Sorry, I have absolutely no sympathy for him.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's have a little charity for someone who hasn't grown up as extravagantly privileged as us.
Ethics and morality are not luxury items.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I’m sorry, but mass behavior proves that 99.999% of the population have never ever developed their own ethics or sense of reality.
They simply imitate that of others (“leaders“), parroting it in a giant brainless “monkey see, monkey do”, but still think it’s their own.
Only a tiny subset has ever pondered the core question themselves and built their own feeling for right and wrong.
Hell, one single word would prove that pretty much all people’s ethics have nothing to d
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Yeah... Seems to me that the late teens/early 20's are when most people get all activist and start trying to save the world.
I remember when I was just finishing up highschool and heading into college... Was fairly active in politics and various student organizations. Showed up to rallies, donated time and money, volunteered...
My son is going through that same stage right now. He's obsessed with politics and he's decided he wants to become a journalist.
Maybe that's not as typical as I think it is... But
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Yeah... Seems to me that the late teens/early 20's are when most people get all activist and start trying to save the world.
At that age, the save-the-world types do it because their friends are doing it. Early to late teens are the age when people cheat in school, bully each other, shoplift, vandalize; generally people are at an ethical low point at that age.
Re: (Score:2)
At that age, the save-the-world types do it because their friends are doing it.
And why are their friends doing it?
Early to late teens
I said late teens/early 20s. The article specifically said 20s.
are the age when people cheat in school, bully each other, shoplift, vandalize; generally people are at an ethical low point at that age.
First of all, I never claimed that folks who are in their late teens/early 20s are going to be pillars of the community or moral paragons...
I claimed that the late teens/early 20s is when you frequently see people becoming very active/vocal in their beliefs. I also indicated that it is frequently a time when people are facing real ethical questions for the first time. Regardless of whether they choose to beh
Re: (Score:2)
And why are their friends doing it?
Their friends are doing it because their friends are doing it; that's really what a movement is. The whole notion of social justice encapsulates it neatly: it's a circular reasoning that what you're doing is right because it's justice, which is simply another way of saying it's what's right. (As opposed to legal justice, which derives from the consent of the governed.) It's a bit like your typical corporate drone explaining that they do something because it's policy, in other words, they do that because tha
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I did think about ethics when I was 20.
Then again, I wasn't a piece of scum.
This is exactly what I thought. You should have a sense of moral code and ethics by puberty. If you don't have ethics at 20, you probably won't have ethics at 30, 40, or 50, or until you've somehow been influenced or compelled to change.
Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I remember I was about 18 when I wrote a virus just for curiosity sake. (Yeah, I know, slow learner;)) Just for the reference, back then it meant the kind that copies itself at the end of executables (or for other viruses into the boot sector), rather than the modern day Internet worms.
It probably wasn't the most advanced virus out there, but it was a neat piece of assembly by _my_ standards, and I was pretty proud of it.
I actually considered releasing it into the wild, but basically... I dunno, s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Assholes having fun (Score:4, Interesting)
Well that's a bit odd, I think. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well that's a bit odd, I think. (Score:4, Funny)
Shocking. People still use ICQ?
Re: (Score:2)
Shocking. People still use ICQ?
My wife loves it. Won't use anything else. I'm just glad Pidgin has ICQ support...
Re: (Score:2)
Most people in the malware authoring business probably at least understand the consequences of what they do, even if they don't care.
This I can understand.
You need the money to pay the bills... You don't know and never see the people affected... "It's their own fault... Shouldn't have run that executable... Should be running better antivirus... Stupid users..."
I can see folks either not caring or simply rationalizing it away... People do that for various things on a daily basis...
But not thinking about your actions at all? I can't understand being that oblivious to what I was doing.
Well, that's a scary thought, if it were true? (Score:2)
You know, if 20 year olds were really that irresponsible and didn't even think about the implications of what they're doing, that would be a pretty scary world. In a lot of the world we trust people with a lot of stuff at 18 years old, which is even lower than 20. We trust them to vote for a start. We trust them enough to give them a loaded weapon and let them into the army. Etc.
The thought that we could have millions of 18 year olds with a loaded assault rifle in some guard tower, and unable to even think
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Right, there is no difference between honest business and crime. Everyone's a criminal just trying to steal your money!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And whether you can get your CEO elected vice-president.
The Corporation (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course the real irony here is that in a software development group that was very successful doing work that was not only legal, but benefited the public, we were treated like shit, and these guys were treated great.
Something managemant should think about, but never will.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well of course, if you do something illegal, you have to bribe your employees not to tell on you.
If you do something legal, you are just a slave without leverage.
Corporations are neither evil or good (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Corporations are neither evil or good (Score:4, Insightful)
sounds like a good job (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
"When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics"
Really? I did.
What I suspect this person really means is: He was fully aware that what he was doing was unethical, but he liked the money. Saying that that he "didn't think" about the ethics is an attempt to excuse his behaviour.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I put this in the same category as people who work for telemarketers. They know they are pissing people off left and right because people tell them so on a daily basis. That doesn't stop them, though. They all use the same excuses: "I have to work somewhere." and "Someone else would do it anyway."
This guy just takes it a step further and ignores criminal actions as well as unethical ones.
Re: (Score:2)
When it's the choice between starving and working telemarketing (I've been there), it's pretty easy to toss ethics overboard.
It's also pretty easy to play all high and mighty and ethical when you're not faced with that choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Well the human brain is a rationalization engine. If you're doing something you inherently disagree with and don't have the initiative to move away from it or there are reasons you can't, your brain will come up with a way to rationalize your behavior. That is where these excuses come from. I wonder if they knew what they were being hired into when they got their job.
Re:Ethics (Score:4, Interesting)
I put this in the same category as people who work for telemarketers. They know they are pissing people off left and right because people tell them so on a daily basis. That doesn't stop them, though. They all use the same excuses: "I have to work somewhere." and "Someone else would do it anyway."
This guy just takes it a step further and ignores criminal actions as well as unethical ones.
But, telemarketing isn't unethical, just annoying. As long as they follow the law (Do Not Call List, etc) in both letter and intent, they aren't doing anything either illegal or unethical. You can hang up on their asses any time you like, so do it. Just because they can exploit your kindness to keep you on the line doesn't make them unethical, it just makes you a sucker.
That said, I have a friend who spent some time telemarketing. He would bring a book with him and hope that someone would put him on hold as a way to 'get back' at him for interrupting their dinner or whatever. He couldn't hang up, so he would just read the book until they did. He made only pennies less, so he didn't particularly care
Re: (Score:2)
Illegal and unethical have nothing to do with each other.
And just because you think harassing people isn't unethical doesn't make it so.
Re: (Score:2)
And just because you think harassing people isn't unethical doesn't make it so.
I'd like to hear your reasoning for thinking simply cold-calling someone is unethical. I'd like to know how you find it to be harassment, even.
It's only unethical when you start sidestepping the law, collect the phone number by illicit means, or continue to harass the person by calling repeatedly.
Re: (Score:2)
My phone is for -my- usage, not yours. If you are using it for your own purposes while I am the one paying for it, that's unethical.
Also, using my time for your purposes without compensation is also unethical.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't want people calling you, why have an incoming number to dial? Otherwise, you must think everyone is violating ethics by 'using your time without compensation'. More specifically, do you claim all other forms of advertising are equally unethical? They all use your stuff (internet, TV, newspaper, magazine, etc) for their own purposes without compensation.
Like I said, simply tell them you aren't interested and hang up. The ethics violation occurs after you inform them that you do not want the
Re: (Score:2)
Telemarketing isn't really a great comparison, because it's NOT a well paying job, it' shitty work for shitty pay, which people generally take because they can't find anything else at the moment.
Call Center (Score:2)
[operator, thick east European accent] Good morning! This is Vladamir from Innovative Marketing. We know who you are, we have stolen your identity. We trust you will do the right thing, and not report us. We kno
good quote (Score:5, Interesting)
"When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics"
of equal validity:
"When you are just 30, you don't think a lot about ethics"
"When you are just 40, you don't think a lot about ethics"
"When you are just 50, you don't think a lot about ethics"
etc...
people are ethical or they are not. age has nothing to do with it. but its a nice rationalization on his part. people usually blame the evil media, the evil liberals, the evil conservatives, their evil parents, etc.: age old tired variations on the theme "the devil made me do it"
everyone has rationalizations for why their own poor personal choices are actually not their fault. which is of course pure unadulterated bullshit: if you did, it's your fault. end of fucking story. as soon as you break that thought, the whole idea of personal responsibility and morality is nullified
so this guy is saying is just a phase he'll outgrow, no big deal. nice one, asshole
Re: (Score:1)
we're talking about WHAT somebody does (Score:2)
not WHY
if i shoot you in the head, an observer can certainly fall into the trap you've described in imagining WHY i've shot you in the head. however, who cares WHY i shot you in the head: there's a hole in your head, regardless. and therefore i can be judged, for shooting you in the head, as committing a crime, no matter WHY i did itt
likewise, WHY this asshole engages in cybercrime may be a complex and nuanced subject matter. and its important to explore that. however, the bottom line is, he engaged in cybe
Re: (Score:2)
people are ethical or they are not. age has nothing to do with it.
Tell that to your average 4 year old.
Hear is a new game for them Don't drop the soap! (Score:1)
Hear is a new game for them Don't drop the soap!
Downside of narrowing "digital divide" (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why should they use their own bootstraps when there's so many bootstraps lying around that are attached to dumb Americans?
?Ethics? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope they learn a valuable lesson (Score:2)
Meta comment on the comments (Score:3, Insightful)
It's fascinating how many people have latched onto the ethics issue... It would be interesting to see how many of them have nothing but fully paid for or legally free software and music on their computers.
Re:Meta comment on the comments (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Murdering your neighbor or stealing his lawnmower aren't quite the same thing either, but that doesn't mean they aren't both unethical.
Re: (Score:2)
__________
(--[
(_______o__)
Re: (Score:2)
These guys made money by assisting what is effectively digital pickpocketing. Myself, I consider ignoring copyright for personal use about as unethical as throwing a candy wrapper on the street. A million people ignoring copyright for personal use may make certain parts of the arts unviable as career choices, globally, but you cannot place that burden on any one of the infringers. These peop
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, you're unethical but you've created a convoluted justification as to how it can't be possibly unethical. It's just not your fault.
Re: (Score:2)
Time for a re-org (Score:2)
That's why it's called organized crime. Anotehr example is the architypical Sicilian Mafia. They had accountants, caporegimes (aka 'executive managers'), and even compliance control officers (aka 'button men').
And in an odd twist (Score:1)
p.s. Just joking... but only about one part.
Same story different twist [allvoices.com]
Where's the RICO prosecution? (Score:2)
I'm so sick of these slaps on the hand.
A few high profile individuals get long jail sentences, but larger organizations don't get prosecuted well if at all. In many cases its a fine that is largely built into their cost structure or executive compensation packages.
We need these organizations prosecuted under RICO laws, treating them as what they are: organized crime. Not only will this result in severe punishment, we can drag into the prosecution these otherwise "legal" entities supplying services and o
Re: (Score:2)
FTA (I know, I know):
Police have had limited success in cracking down on the scareware industry. Like Innovative Marketing, most rogue internet companies tend to be based in countries where laws permit such activities or officials look the other way.
Considering they weren't in the US I don't think there's much else that could be done directly. From what I can tell, the US Federal Trade Commission asked a foreign government to shut down a corrupt corporation within the borders of said foreign government.
Any criminal charges would have to be from within the country of origin unless we have a treaty allowing extradition. (I'm sure I'm not quite right on what'd be required as IANAL.)
Were this a US corporation I'm sure the legal action
Re: (Score:2)
Were this a US corporation I'm sure the legal action taken would have been drastically different.
Except that it generally hasn't, even when there have been prosecutions they've been very narrowly focused on individuals, not looking at the larger ecosystem which supports the behavior.
damn government (Score:1)
What we didn't nuke these people from orbit? U.S. didn't have them killed in a covert operation? Or even corporate America send a private army in to eliminate the competition? Figures slimeballs protect slimeballs.
Interesting reference to data loss (Score:2)
This may be a bit nit-picky but this bit in the article rubs me the wrong way:
"It's sort of a plague," said Kent Woerner, a network administrator for a public school district in Beloit, Kansas, some 5,500 miles away from Innovative Marketing's offices in Kiev. He ran into one of its products, Advanced Cleaner, when a teacher called to report that pornographic photos were popping up on a student's screen. A message falsely claimed the images were stored on the school's computer.
"When I have a sixth-grader seeing that kind of garbage, that's offensive," said Woerner. He fixed the machine by deleting all data from the hard drive and installing a fresh copy of Windows. All stored data was lost.
Stephen Layton, who knows his way around technology, ended up junking his PC, losing a week's worth of data that he had yet to back up from his hard drive, after an attack from an Innovative Marketing program dubbed Windows XP Antivirus. The president of a home-based software company in Stevensville, Maryland, Layton says he is unsure how he contracted the malware.
But he was certain of its deleterious effect. "I work eight-to-12 hours a day," he said. "You lose a week of that and you're ready to jump off the roof."
Here we have 2 supposedly technically proficient individuals who apparently had no clue how to recover data from the hard drives of computers before reinstalling the OS. Hell, even if you don't have a second computer on which to mount the infected drive in order to simply copy the data (absurd for a school admin, let alone a software developer) you could do a parallel install onto the same drive.
Let's get this right, folks: reco
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Copying a lot of data from an infected drive onto a clean drive is typically considered a bad idea.
Sorry but that's complete crap. This type of malware doesn't infect data that I have seen and that can be scanned as needed. I regularly see systems infected with this crap from clients I image the drives then extract the actual data from the image and have yet to see an infected file. I've dealt with a dozen instances of this in just the past 2 months or so. As long as you're even halfway competent you're not going to transfer the infection across.
The hallmark of scareware is the easiest method to get
Super villians, or mafioso? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)