Teen Bought Google Ad for His Scam Website and Made 48 Bitcoins Duping UK Online Shoppers (theregister.com) 37
A "sophisticated" teenager has had $2.88m in cryptocurrency confiscated after he set up a phishing site and advertised it on Google, duping consumers into handing over gift voucher redemption codes. From a report: The schoolboy set up a website impersonating gift voucher site Love2Shop. Having done that he then bought Google ads which resulted in his fake site appearing above the real one in search results, Lincoln Crown Court was told. Crown prosecutor Sam Skinner told Her Honour Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight that the boy, whose identity is protected by a court order, harvested $8,931 worth of vouchers in the week his site was active. Love2shop began investigating in April 2020 after a customer complained, at which point the boy took down his fake site. The stolen vouchers were converted into Love2Shop vouchers on the A-level student's own account. A later police investigation discovered 12,000 credit card numbers on his computer along with details for 197 Paypal accounts. On top of that, he had 48 Bitcoins: when police arrested him in August last year these were worth $275,000 but their value has risen tenfold since. Sentencing the boy earlier this week, HHJ Knight commented in court: "If he was an adult he would be going inside."
The Internet tools remain morally neutral, but... (Score:2)
[What was that brain fart about? Was it supposed to be a joke?]
Interesting story, but sad and not sure what to think about it. My main questions are about motivations:
Was the perp seriously trying to get rich? Maybe it just started as a big joke that worked too well?
Was his age a motivating factor? Maybe he was counting on protection from his juvenile status?
Was he fronting for a professional criminal? Maybe the real crook got away with some of the loot? If the kid did devise the scam on his own, then he de
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Geez gramps, almost as if you were never a teenager yourself. Teens make bad decisions, its part of growing up and relates to how our brains develop. I'd be much more concerned if this person was 30.
https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Fa... [aacap.org]
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Geez gramps, almost as if you were never a teenager yourself. Teens make bad decisions
I sure didn't harvest people's credit card numbers when I was a teenager. This guy was either very stupid or a crook, and is likely to remain whichever it is.
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I don't know, but I believe it's easier for young people to change in major ways. Old timers tend to be too good at excuses.
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You are so perfect that you cannot even use a fake name for your post?
Everyone makes mistakes. If you read the link I provided you might understand why teens might make particularly bad choices. This is one episode in a short life and you have limited information. You really do not have enough information to judge whether this kid is morally bankrupt or not. This issue does provide this kid a choice in how to move forward from here, unless the family is morally bankrupt its probably more like a nudge in
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Is John Carmack morally bankrupt?
Check out his background
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If he was an adult... (Score:2)
I doubt he could set up his own hosting server complete with DNS etc. Unless he did!
Re:If he was an adult... (Score:4, Interesting)
That only means the contracts aren't valid. And the website host would have difficulty getting paid. That's a very different from making the website operate liable for the felonies committed by a minor.
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Responsibility falls upon the child first, parents second. Any responsibility by the store owner depends on their diligence (or failure thereof) to prevent a mi
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Actually, it falls on the parent first on the theory that it was the parent's job to keep the child from dumping the marbles on the floor or failing that, clean up the mess before someone slipped.
Definitely not the web host's responsibility. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. A teen filling out a form and using Dad's credit card is indistinguishable from Dad.
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It's complicated. If a contract is one sided, in that one party has no duty, expectation, or consideration then it's not really a contract. This general principle applies to US and UK law. But the exceptions are why we hire legal council rather than base important decisions on a few sentences that I write on a random technical forum. ;)
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bitcoins source? (Score:2)
so no mention of where the bitcoin came from. He scammed ~$9000, but had a quarter million worth of bitcoin, along with and a bunch of stolen credit card and paypal accounts. A+B doesnt equal D but it gets you awfully close.
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Usually these gift voucher scams function something like this: We'll give you a 50$ gift certificate to for example PF Chang's (or redeemable at a bunch of other places), but you give us 5$ for shipping and handling. Of course to pay for shipping you have to give us your credit card info/name/address and other billing details. And that's the real goal, is to get your billing info. Then scammers do something with that billing info, like make some sort of purchase somewhere that can't easily be traced back to
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If he were an American... (Score:3, Funny)
"If he was an adult he would be going inside."
If he were an American he'd be hired by Wall Street.
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In 10 years, on his release day...
Or wait, in 13 years, at the end of his post-release supervision and "no computer use" clause.
self incriminating (Score:3)
> The stolen vouchers were converted into Love2Shop vouchers on the A-level student's own account
How did a seemingly smart kid miss the part where it all points to himself? This was an impulsive adventure.
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You don't have to be smart to be an A-level student, you just have to care.
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> The stolen vouchers were converted into Love2Shop vouchers on the A-level student's own account
How did a seemingly smart kid miss the part where it all points to himself? This was an impulsive adventure.
Hubris.
He knew the people he was ripping off were both dumb and greedy. People who "buy" vouchers typically aren't the smarted bunch and love to fool themselves into thinking they're "saving" when you can usually get the same deals sans coupons (or the coupons are cheap to get you in the door but you get charged for every little extra).
He was also greedy and this is likely what got him caught.
Obviously not smart enough (Score:2)
He should have known that the site would pick up on the fake vouchers, which is presumably why so many cards and vouchers are laundered on the dark interwebs. And with $2.8 million, he could have retired in luxury in countries that considered him an adult.
This illustrates a claim often made by police - that most crooks are stupid and the ones that are caught are the stupidest of all. Mind you, it doesn't exactly speak highly of those who were duped.
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This illustrates a claim often made by police - that most crooks are stupid and the ones that are caught are the stupidest of all.
My first thought was that they could only have good information about the ones who were caught - speculating that all the ones you didn't catch were idiots doesn't seem helpful. I suppose though that they might also have information regarding criminal associates of theirs, such as people bribing them to look the other way, who they know haven't been caught despite being none too bright.
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That's fair comment, and I'd have to agree with it. Well, unless the police were also commenting on their own intelligence. To not be caught, you'd only have to be brighter than the ones chasing.
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If they're catching most of the crooks, then it's a valid statement, regardless of how smart the ones they don't catch are.
If you've never done anything illegal as a minor.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why not?
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What if you did something that was just a minor infraction of the rules at the time but would be treated as a felony now?
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I did quite a few illegal things as a minor. It's not at all clear to me what they had to do with being a computer expert. They mostly involved beer. On the other hand I'm considered (at least professionally) to be a bit an expert in areas of high speed networking and petascale filesystems so maybe you're on to something.
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When we (those above 40 now) were kids, there were less regulations about IT related things,less knowledge about computers, less cameras around (now everyone is a potential camera, with mobile phones everywhere), less monitoring, etc.
And oh yeah, no social media, no decent internet and so on.
Now, a kid does something crazy / stupid / weird, he/she is forever marked with it, a simple online search away. Unless the kid changes name, maybe get plastic surgery, moves far away, and so on, which makes it harder
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The internet has always been indecent anway.. so nothing has been gained.
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Silly kid, every time you use a computer, you're breaking the law. Even just looking at the computer funny is breaking some law, somewhere. If the feds really want to bust you for something, they'll allege you did something bad, and then use "wire fraud" to prosecute you.