[asterisk-biz] on the topic of fraud

SIP sip at arcdiv.com
Sun May 17 16:02:04 CDT 2009 

It seems the biggest reason they took everything was actually because 
they have no idea what the hell they're doing.

" "My understanding is that the way these things are hooked up is that 
they’re interconnected to each other," he says. "Company A may be 
involved in some criminal activity and because of the interconnectivity 
of all these things, the information of what company A is doing may be 
sitting on company B or C or D’s equipment." "

i.e. look, it's all got wires going back to this big main switch here in 
the datacenter -- ergo, they're all connected and must all in some way 
be involved.

Anyone with a 3rd-grader's understanding of computer networking knows 
that's not how things work, but the FBI went in there, as they often do, 
without any technical knowledge, and with a righteousness that would 
make an evangelical proud. They made snap decisions based on a complete 
lack of understanding of how computers work or datacenters are operated, 
and lots of companies are now paying the price for it.

If this guy had been defrauding AT&T and Verizon out of money by using 
up their minutes and not paying bills, then fine. I'm assuming AT&T and 
Verizon were smart enough to cut him off at some point. And now the FBI 
is involved. Would it have honestly taken a lot of extra work to hire a 
data forensics team to advise them before they actually went on the 
raid? Would that extra two days of planning have meant a massive 
difference in the back payments?

My experience with the FBI is that their 'cyber' teams know all of jack 
when it comes to cyberactivity or technology. They rely heavily on data 
fed to them by other people. Hell... the cyber fraud department here in 
Georgia is two people. Two. They contract out just about everything, and 
absolutely rely on information given to them about any sort of 
technology because they don't really know anything about it.

If they were to go off half-cocked and conduct a raid like this on their 
own, it would likely end up the same way: botched beyond belief.

N.

ContactTel Business wrote:
> Not how it works...
>
> Data could be on drives that could allow the guys to continue doing what
> they were doing, which is illegal in a way.
>
> You can't leave a loaded gun in a killers hand, and just clone it
>
> One of the reason they took it all, is to stop the hemorrhagic situation,
> then to analyse, 
>
> There are tons of killswitch systems out there 
>
>   
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
>>> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of C F
>>> Sent: May-17-09 12:23 AM
>>> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
>>> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] on the topic of fraud
>>>
>>> I don't know what to tell you, but you can't close down a data center
>>> for the purpose of collecting evidence. How hard is it to just clone
>>> all the machines in there instead of taking them?
>>> I have been by one such raid, they just close you down. Luckily the
>>> place where I was happened on a Monday morning, on the Friday before
>>> that they asked me how important it is to take the backup tapes off
>>> site. I told them very. When I was called on Monday morning the first
>>> thing I asked was if he had taken the tapes, when the answer was yes I
>>> told him go home, I'm assuming they'll be done late afternoon you'll
>>> have your network up and running tomorrow morning.
>>> They left around 2PM, I ran to the wiz (remember them?) and bought
>>> computers to replace the ones they took (4 in total) and he was up and
>>> running around 11AM Tuesday.
>>> My point, this was a small company with around 10 employees shut down
>>> by an investigation. It turns out he was in the clear, but regardless
>>> I don't see this justified when it can all be done with just cloning
>>> the whole office instead of taking it away.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 9:14 PM, ContactTel Business
>>> <lists at contacttel.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Faulkner should rot in jail.. as for the way they (the fbi) handled
>>>>         
>>> things,
>>>       
>>>> it seems they had no choice, and i bet that credit card company was
>>>> faulkners, and he was about to rip poor people's cards off..
>>>>
>>>> "
>>>> Personally after the dealings I have had with Mike Faulkner, where be
>>>> defaulted on $70k of long distance traffic with us under Union
>>>>         
>>> Datacom, and
>>>       
>>>> then tried to open a new account three days later under Premier. When
>>>>         
>>> we
>>>       
>>>> were doing our credit verifications and he answered the phone, he
>>>>         
>>> said "oh
>>>       
>>>> well I guess you caught me". He has burnt more VOIP companies then
>>>>         
>>> anyone I
>>>       
>>>> know"
>>>>
>>>> Nuf said.. this guy is guilty, of defrauding companies.. what's is
>>>>         
>>> kids
>>>       
>>>> doing with 3 xboxes anyhow ? 8 ipods ?
>>>>
>>>> Let build something for that and who cares on stupid defamatory
>>>>         
>>> laws.. let's
>>>       
>>>> host a list on a panama box and lets us all have access to it to
>>>>         
>>> protects
>>>       
>>>> ourselves from repeat fraudsters.
>>>>
>>>> PS lets just hope we don't have the same hosting as he does lol
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-biz-
>>>>>> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Trixter aka Bret McDanel
>>>>>> Sent: May-16-09 8:22 PM
>>>>>> To: asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com
>>>>>> Subject: [asterisk-biz] on the topic of fraud
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/data-centers-ra/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Basically people forged credit references to get credit for
>>>>>>             
>>> telephone
>>>       
>>>>>> service then did not pay the bills.  because it is in essence credit
>>>>>> extended to the companies, it qualifies as criminal fraud if you
>>>>>>             
>>> make
>>>       
>>>>>> misleading or fradulent statements, and that is how the FBI got
>>>>>> involved, that and there are big companies pushing them, if it was a
>>>>>> small provider who made the same claim they would surely push it off
>>>>>> saying "take it to civil court".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
>>>>>> pgp key:
>>>>>>             
>>> http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8AE5C721
>>>       
>>>>>>
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>>>>         
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