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I hate that it kicks off with "DISCLAIMER: This is not my work. I would never and don't condone illegal hacking of scammers" You know what? I do. We all should
by 0xEF 2y ago
I hate that it kicks off with "DISCLAIMER: This is not my work. I would never and don't condone illegal hacking of scammers"
You know what? I do. We all should. These scammers are awful people and deserve to be attacked. I am tired of toothless authorities like CISA and the alphabet agencies in the US doing next to nothing about it unless some YouTube scam baiter does the work for them. Scammers destroy people, not just financially, but emotionally as well, even driving some victims to suicide. As far as I am concerned, any wannabe hacker out there should be using these scammers for target practice.
- peepee1982 2y agoDisclaimers exist for legal reasons, not for moral ones or a personal opinion. I think we all agree that hacking scammers is a net positive for society.
- prepend 2y agoI don’t think disclaimers really work. I think it’s just urban legend that they do. I find it hard to believe if some scammer is hacked and the evidence shows the hacker learned everything from solely this video then this disclaimer won’t mean anything legally. I think disclaimers are just a bit of noise that people put in out of an abundance of caution.
- lolinder 2y agoOut of curiosity, are you a lawyer or is this comment missing the IANAL disclaimer that is customary when opining about legal matters? At least some disclaimers aren't just noise—they add context that would otherwise be missing to help the reader navigate the subtext. The "this is not my work" portion of that disclaimer is highly relevant and useful information for interpreting the blog. The afformentioned IANAL disclaimer helps readers to understand whether your opinion has any stronger basis in law than their own. I also strongly suspect that some disclaimers would have legal value in the event of someone misusing information being dispensed, but IANAL.
- prepend 2y agoI am not a lawyer, but didn’t include the disclaimer because I don’t think it’s relevant to my comment. Even were I a lawyer, it should carry the same weight. Some random, kind internet stranger sharing ideas. I think it distracts from the conversation as I wasn’t giving legal advice but just thinking about how useful and relevant disclaimers are. The comment is more about too much bullshit language used in our lives, so I think minimizing (or at least intending and attempting to) bullshit in my own comments is something I can control.
- thinkmassive 2y agoWhen a lawyer posts on a forum topic related to the law they usually tell you they’re a lawyer, but not your lawyer and it’s not legal advice. Safe to assume everyone else is not a lawyer.
- lolinder 2y agoProbably safe, yes, though it's still polite to leave the marker for other people to follow later. And, to the topic at hand: if lawyers consistently do that, that again speaks to the legal value of at least some disclaimers.
- randomdata 2y agoAppeal to authority is considered a courtesy nowadays? Fascinating. Like the previous commenter points out, actual lawyers are quite clear that their statements in this kind of non-professional capacity hold no more weight than any other random Joe. There is no situation of authority. IANAL/IAAL may have once been a funny meme – albeit one quite tired at this point – but doesn't add anything, and may be a detractor if one falls prey to the logically fallacy it potentially introduces.
- PawgerZ 2y agoDefering to an Expert =/= Appealing to Authority
- bluGill 2y agoDisclaimers can be shown in court if it comes that far. If you seem to be an expert on something but make a mistake you can get into trouble for practicing [law/medicine/...] without a license. By putting in a disclaimer you make it clear that while you seem to know something you are not claiming to be an expert which can protect you. If you actually are an expert it is even more important because someone might take your generic advice as specific even though there is some complex detail about their situation that makes it not apply. Most of the time this won't matter. People and courts generally know advice isn't to be trusted, if this goes to court it will probably be laughed out before they even see your disclaimer. However since there is trusted advice on the internet and courts/the law hasn't figured out where there is always risk and a disclaimer helps protect you against the court deciding you were playing an expert. Of course I'm not a lawyer, I'm only guessing as to what will happen. I'm reasonably sure no lawyer will comment on this for reasons above.
- ipaddr 2y agoUntil we find out later that the scammers masked themselves using someone elses identity and they hacked an innocent person. We have all received email from a legitimate place where a scammer uses your email to spam and then legitimate company thinks your email sent it.
- dredmorbius 2y ago"Joe job": <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job>
- randomdata 2y ago> Disclaimers exist for legal reasons, not for moral ones or a personal opinion. In other words, a scam towards the reader?
- nerdawson 2y agoHow so? They inform the reader not to misinterpret the information as advice specific to their situation.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 2y agoBad readers will misinterpret anyway and good readers won't. It's more about establishing author importance than serving the reader.
- chii 2y agovigilantism can spiral out of control. While it makes sense in this scenario, it's because the scammer is obviously breaking some law and is criminal. What happens if it wasn't so obvious?
- newsclues 2y agoI’m fine with a war on scammers getting out of control to the point where bombs are being dropped on scammers call centres. They are the modern Hostis humani generis
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y agoReally, really sounds like you don’t have many real problems in your life and don’t know who to blame for societal issues. People here will lament about the exploited H1Bs causing literal genocides at Meta until the cows come home, but literally other any person working a job they don’t necessarily like and in a living situation that’s undoubtedly worse deserve to be literally bombed because they sent you a text message. Jesus Christ.
- dumpsterdiver 2y agoDo you… know what the word literally means?
- cutemonster 2y agoSeems you didn't know that lots of people in scam call centers aren't there voluntarily. Trafficking and threats > ... lured to countries through fake job adverts but are instead forced to work in scam call centers, pushing cryptocurrency investments, as well as work-from-home, lottery, romance, and online gambling scams. All this, while being subject to "abject abuse." > A report from Interpol from earlier this year said victims are also subjected to extortion via debt bondage, beatings, sexual exploitation ... https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/08/human_trafficking_for_cyber_scam/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/08/human_trafficking_for... and: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-thousands-trafficked-into-se-asia-scam-centres-un-2023-08-29/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/hundreds-thousand...
- loopdoend 2y agoAh yes the classic SWIM defence.
- gadders 2y agoFor people that ransomware hospitals, I want Navy Seals (or equivalent) falling out of the sky and renditioning back to the appropriate country to stand trial.
- Waterluvian 2y agoThere’s a demonstrated inhumanity in attacking hospitals and children that really should earn special attention.
- theGnuMe 2y agoSo what about crowdstrike?
- gadders 2y agoGrey area. I reckon Navy Seals fall out of the sky and give the CEO an atomic wedgie.
- noworriesnate 2y agoThis violates the constitution because it is unusual (the constitution bans cruel and unusual punishments). So, we'll have to normalize this punishment.
- gadders 2y agoMaybe do the board of directors as well?
- x3n0ph3n3 2y agoIt can be unusual as long as it is not cruel. It bans "cruel and unusual" not "cruel or unusual." That's why a judge can order, as punishment for shoplifting, that the perpetrator stands in front of the store with a sign saying "I shoplifted here."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sheepscreek 2y agoWhy is the author afraid of getting sued by scammers? I think there should be some legal protections for people like them. Better yet - a licensing program to allow them to do this without legal repercussions as long as it’s done within the guardrails of the framework.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoBecause, believe it or not, the system is better at inflicting pain at someone honest than someone crooked.
- capnsalty 2y ago[flagged]
- coldpie 2y ago> Why is the author afraid of getting sued by scammers? Being civilly sued by scammers isn't the fear, it's being prosecuted by the state for committing CFAA (or similar) crimes.
- delfinom 2y agoAs far as I can tell, these scammers were in China. Nothing illegal until they sign an extradition treaty with the US. Which they won't, lmao.
- lesuorac 2y agoIsn't it? Like if I fly from China to US and offer you a bridge in exchange for $20 and take the $20 and don't give you a bridge, it's a scam. What's the difference between that and doing it online? The offer is still posed on US soil; if anything it should expose you to the legality of both countries.
- bluGill 2y agoThe difference is if I'm still in the US the US police will arrest me. If I'm in China the US police has to ask China to arrest me - if China refuses to arrest me than no crime was committed as far as I'm concerned since my government let me get away with it. Technically the US can start a war with China, which could reach the point of the US military capturing me and bringing me to the US thus ensuring I don't get away wit it. Realistically that isn't happening though. There are also trade-war options which sometimes happen in high profile cases, but often they are seen as losing more than gained. Note that most countries will arrest me and send me to the US if presented evidence. If you used France as your example country and so I'm exposed the the legality of both countries. Russia and North Korea are most well noted as protecting their own people against crimes like this committed elsewhere, so if you can get protection from those countries for this crime it isn't a crime because nothing will happen (war of course is an option but it seems unlikely). China is a grey area - they sometimes protect their own, but often they will not, in general for this scam I'd expect they would arrest you for this scam, but not all of them.
- lesuorac 2y agoSure, the US might not be able to arrest you if you're not within it's territory. But that's still the same as selling you a bridge for $20 and just hoping on a flight to China. It doesn't make it legal though; it just means you aren't arrested. The DoJ may still issue indictments [1]. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=doj+warrents+for+russian+hacker https://www.google.com/search?q=doj+warrents+for+russian+hac...
- bluGill 2y agoI don't because some scammers will find ways to frame their enemies. If you attack the person/organizations doing the scam fine - but don't attack an innocent organization. Most of vigilantes are not careful to tell the difference.
- codetrotter 2y agoExactly! People are not trained in gathering and interpreting evidence. And when they are “investigating” something that is personally affecting them there is probably even greater chance of them jumping to conclusions and acting rashly. Emotions will cloud judgement. And judgement was lacking in the first place because they are not trained in how to investigate matters and they are not familiar with tactics that criminals use to make it appear like they are someone else. Several years ago when I still had a Facebook account there was a guy that DMed me yelling at me and accusing me of trying to “hack him”. His evidence? The reverse DNS record for a server was pointing to a domain I owned. I replied and told him the reverse record was out of date. I had previously rented a VPS with that IP address and I had had the reverse record point to my domain. I had since cancelled the rental of that VPS and now the hosting company had assigned the IP to someone else. Apparently the hosting company had not bothered to remove the reverse DNS record from their systems so it was still pointing to my domain. The guy that was yelling at me was of course too stupid to understand this when I explained it to him so I gave up on trying to educate him and blocked him from being able to send me any more DMs. Now imagine if this guy had started a full-on retaliation campaign based on his misguided “evidence”. Luckily for me I never heard or seen from him again. But yeah, that kind of thing is exactly why “vigilante justice” is such an incredibly dangerous and stupid idea.
- indigodaddy 2y agoOne could also say that you did not bother to remove or request your host to remove, the PTR record prior to your cancellation.
- codetrotter 2y agoYes, that is true as well. I wrongly assumed that just like how I expect the VPS host to safely overwrite storage of when the VPS is deleted/decommissioned that they would automatically remove PTR records from their DNS servers relating to that VPS. There is, after all, absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t delete the PTR records that a customer created for an IP address when that IP address is no longer in control of the customer. But indeed the whole ordeal would have been avoided had I myself gone and deleted the PTR before I removed the VPS.
- jsbisviewtiful 2y ago> These scammers are awful people and deserve to be attacked. Some of them are being held prisoner and are being forced to run these scams under threat of torture. There was a Search Engine episode about this in the last year.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoJohn Oliver did a great segment on it. I won't link to it, because he seems to piss some of the folks, hereabouts, off.
- jsbisviewtiful 2y ago[flagged]
- gosub100 2y agosince he only pokes fun at one side, it's hard to tell what the truth is.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoThis was 100% apolitical. A lot of his stuff is, and his team really does their homework. The stuff he says before the main story, tends to be quite political, but the main story, itself, is often apolitical.
- capnsalty 2y ago[flagged]
- Take8435 2y agoThis is anecdotal and not at all representative. He points out issues on both sides. It's not his fault "one side" tends to warrant that kind of scrutiny so often lately.
- CyberDildonics 2y agoWhat is the 'other side' to people being scammed that you think he should have covered?
- EricE 2y agoThey have to or they may get in trouble due to our stupid laws. From the article: "Initially, Smith says, he was wary about going public with his research, as this kind of “hacking back” falls into a “gray area”: It may be breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a sweeping US computer-crimes law, but he’s doing it against foreign-based criminals."
- blacklion 2y agoSame could be said for self-defense, though it is effectively banned in most "civilized" countries.
- lupire 2y agoI don't no which countries you're referring to, but the US is not one of them.
- vkou 2y agoSelf-defense isn't banned anywhere, the kind of 'self-defense' murder that some people in the US occasionally get away with is, though. (For example, if your idea of self-defense starts with 'I'll be following someone around in my truck...', most other countries would let you hang.)
- blacklion 2y agoI've said "most", not "all". In most EU countries you cannot use "more offensive" force than robber/raper uses. And you cannot use firearms in any case. It is bizarre concept for me: I need to fight with bare hands better than robber, as I cannot use knife if robber doesn't have a knife. Same for knife-to-knife fight, as firearm is no-no in any case. I'm not as young and agile as typical robber, and I cannot have any "technical" advantage over him. If it is question of your personal belongings you better give everything and report to insurance company (as if any belongings could be replaced with their price!) Again, I don't say it is in every EU country, but EU bureaucrats try to force more "liberal" countries (as Czech or Bulgaria) to adopt "common" (very strict) rules.
- 5040 2y agoAn outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dang 2y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41198724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41198724.
- hot_gril 2y agoIt "doesn't condone it" but shows the exact recipe for doing it, and even distributes a dump of their PHP files. Just a CYA statement.
- kelnos 2y agoThe solution here is to fix the law enforcement apparatus, not condone vigilantism. Yes, I know that's a hard thing to fix. But think about "IRL crime". Would we condone someone pulling out their gun and going after someone who they believed had stolen from them? I hope not. The problems are the usual ones with vigilantism: ensuring a proportionate response to the alleged crime is impossible (vigilantism usually has a large emotional component, so good luck restraining someone there), and ensuring the vigilante is actually going after the right person, and hasn't screwed up their investigation, causing them to target someone innocent. Certainly holding law enforcement accountable is difficult and sometimes impossible. But at least there's a process to fix that, and people are constantly working on this problem. There's no process to fix cases where randos botch an amateur investigation and mess up the life of someone innocent.