

Inside 'Hackerville,' Romania's Infamous Cyber Crime Hub [video] - Errorcod3
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/inside-hackerville-romanias-infamous-cyber-crime-hub

======
andreime
This is stupid. Those guys are breaking e-mail accounts using exploits that
were probably dumped on an IRC channel.

That city is renowned for cybercrime, but if you actually go beyond the media
frenzy you find out that the vast majority are phishing and fake ebay
accounts. They even brag about how they fool other people into buying
fictional cars - I know this because I met some of these people.

There are no true hackers in HackersVille, only some people - journalists -
who have almost no idea about how computers and the internet works but insist
on refreshing this story every year.

~~~
liviu
This time has nothing to do with journalism, this is just a Norton
campaign[0].

I think they present these scammers as "hackers" (or cyber criminals) only to
scare some people, hoping they will buy (their) antivirus.

[0] [http://www.mostdangeroustown.com](http://www.mostdangeroustown.com)

------
krisgenre
Deliberately dramatic and made to seem like as if cyber criminals are as
dangerous as the mafia with guns.

~~~
Rainymood
Heh, at least it's better than them happily typing away at keyboards while
wearing ski-masks in a dimly lit room.

I thought Vice was 'good' journalism, turns out they pretty much
sensationalise everything :(

~~~
leaveyou
Knowing the real Romania, I had the same revelation about Vice. These guys can
go anywhere and pay some poor locals from some slums to say anything they want
to hear, add some historic flashbacks (communist if possible) and urban
mythology to it and bam !, they have a story to sell. Ridiculous

------
ilurk
It was interesting but lacking any technical details.

Are there any analysis on the attacks done by these individuals?

Something juicy like the analysis done by Symantec and Kaspersky.

~~~
liviu
Because most of them are just crackers. They use exploits found by real
hackers.

~~~
yenda
this. Seems like it's all just script kiddies and social engineering. If you
want to watch juicy hacking go for Geohot for instance. He does some crazy
screencasts

~~~
jzelinskie
Do you have any links? A cursory search didn't yield anything of value.

------
mpu
It's not so deep. The takeaway is that modern terrorism will go through wires.
Today, the logistics needed to generate massive power failure able to damage
severely the economy of all developed countries are arguably simpler than
what's necessary to re-create a 9-11.

I think we should fear and get ready, unit testing and agile software are not
enough. We need to make sure some systems are NOT reachable in any way via
internet, we need formal methods and expensive secure designs.

I really hope terrorists never get smart enough to attack digital
infrastructures.

~~~
jacquesm
There's enough fear going around to power a couple of wars. Fear is such a bad
emotion to give in to. Unit testing and agile are _definitely_ not enough for
mission critical systems like power grids and other infrastructure and
airgapping certainly helps (but we've already seen that it is no guarantee for
absolute security).

Why secure designs would be automatically 'expensive' is something I don't
understand.

Terrorism is all about using fear for purposes of political pressure, simply
don't give in to the fear and you've already won the battle, stay calm and
clearheaded.

If terrorists really wanted to destabilize society they could easily do so but
it would defeat their purpose, the one thing terrorists want you to be able to
do is to continue to communicate and consume media, that's _their platform_.

------
markyc
this is just marketing

vice is selling sensationalism, and it's a far better story to pinpoint the
hackers' lair on a map than to talk about real hacking. Real hacking comes
from all over the world, including from governments and companies

norton is selling antivirus software, and it's in their interest to scare
people instead of educate them

the funny thing is antiviruses don't really work against real hacking

understandint this better, it makes me wonder about news in general, how much
do journalists care about the truth vs selling a story?

~~~
notfoss
> how much do journalists care about the truth vs selling a story?

Not much. And it's the same the world over.

------
anon3_
Lots of color effects. It's like Silent Hill, everything is ash gray /
overcast.

~~~
leaveyou
This is anything but a documentary. It's a repackaged story about things
happening 4-5 years ago. I never heard the term "hackerville" in romanian
mass-media and I read it daily. If you google it you will see that it's a term
coined by journalists to re-sell the same old story: ex-communist slums,
"hackers" with russian accent, cyber-crime, dangers everywhere. It started
with Wired in 2011, France24 in 2012 and now this..

