Sex Sites Sick of Getting Screwed

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60423,00.html

By Noah Shachtman 
Sept. 13, 2003

Internet porn purveyors can pant a little easier now. The hacker who
allegedly tried to extort money from triple-X webmasters has been
arrested in Israel.

Earlier this summer, a hacker with the alias Deepsy demanded $1,500
each from at least three online smut-selling firms. If the companies
refused to pay, he warned, he'd crash their Internet operations with
distributed denial-of-service attacks. One site took as many as 745
million hits per day during what was believed to be a
Deepsy-coordinated assault.

But all that may be coming to an end now. Police in the desert city of
Be'er Sheva took 20-year-old Pavel Vladislav into custody on suspicion
of blackmail, extortion, theft, interfering with an investigation and
conspiracy, according to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot. In a
posting to gofuckyourself.com (or GFY), the best-known bulletin board
for porn webmasters, someone using the handle Deepsy1 identified
himself as "Vladislav Pavlov" from Be'er Sheva.

"I hope he's gone. He deserves to go to jail for a long time," said
one webmaster who was supposedly threatened by Deepsy. "He attempted
to shut down businesses that make tens of thousands a day. Imagine
walking into your local grocery store and shutting down their cash
register system for a few days. There would be hell to pay."

Boaz Guttman, an Israeli attorney and computer-security expert, said
that a California company, Cyber Trend, contacted him in early July,
complaining that a hacker had threatened to take down its
SilverCash.com adult webmaster affiliate service.

Guttman said he took Cyber Trend's allegations -- and supporting
evidence, including 47 pages of server log files -- to the Israeli
police's antifraud unit, headquartered in the town of Bat Yam.

But the authorities in Bat Yam blew him off, Guttman contends.

"Something dealing with sex websites, it's not for her (antifraud
chief Miriam Golan's) tastes," he said. "She only wants me to come
with (Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld's laptop."

Guttman went to the local authorities in Be'er Sheva instead to press
Cyber Trend's case, and there he found a more receptive audience. The
alleged hacker was arrested on the evening of Sept. 8, Guttman said.  
He claims that the FBI and Interpol are also pursuing this case.

Calls to Israeli authorities and to Cyber Trend executives seeking
comment for this story were not returned. The FBI declined to comment,
as well.

Online porn sellers had viewed Deepsy with a combination of amusement
and fear, said Tom Hynes, editor at AVNOnline, the adult webmaster
trade magazine. Deepsy's rants and threats made for good theater on
message boards like GFY. But the damage he caused was all too real:  
home pages ruined, sites offline, revenue lost.

"His tactics weren't terribly sophisticated," Hynes said. "But they
could still ruin your day.

"We were down for an hour because of this character. The adult
Internet is overall better off (now) that this annoyance is gone. And
to the extent (the arrest) dissuades others, it's a good thing."

In an interview over instant messenger, Deepsy claimed some of his
attacks were launched because the webmasters owed him money. He
threatened to strike others when they called him a "script kiddie," a
know-nothing hacker. Still others were given no reason at all. They
were simply told, "You're next."

According to Israeli press reports (translated into English by Hebrew
Translator), a magistrate in Be'er Sheva has ordered Vladislav,
Deepsy's alleged alter ego, to be held in custody until next Tuesday,
at least.

To which one GFY member said, "Let him rot."




-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email majordomo () attrition org with 'unsubscribe isn'
in the BODY of the mail.