Darkmarket: CyberThieves, Cybercops And You [Hardcover]

DarkMarket totally captured me! I found the tales of those deep into the underworld of cyber crime fascinating and frightening. Glenny manages to make what could be a dry subject a page turner and not least, comprehensible (most cyber stuff flies over my head). I tried to read Worm but was completely lost, even bored. Look, if you want to understand what we are up against in this new age of cyber reality, such as identity theft and obsession - then read this book. It explains it all in a dramatic (even fun) way. Enough to get me really thinking about this strange new world we are just beginning to enter. Great book. Glenny hit it out of the park for me.

'DarkMarket' begins as an interesting report on cybercrime, using the story of a pastor's account being compromised in England by Nigerian chemical engineer employed locally to get started. Unfortunately, the book quickly degenerates into mostly unrelated threads located all around the world, making it difficult to maintain interest.

The book's value is limited to simply summarizing the difficulty of tracking, apprehending, and incarcerating those involved - problems begin with the fact that criminal acts are often perpetrated from an IP address in one country against an individual/corporation in a second, in which the proceeds may be cashed out in a third. The actions taking place may not even be considered a crime in all three nations, the authorities not on the best of terms with each other (eg. U.S. problems caused by hackers in Russia are not a priority for Russia's KGB, but woe to the Russian hacker who attacks Russian individuals or enterprises). Anonymity makes the physical location of a computer difficult to identify, as well as the individual operating it. Encryption is widely available for free, most notably PGP, further complicating law enforcement, though reportedly government entities use Echelon to break these codes. (On the other hand, simple corruption of local languages - usually Russian, make it almost impossible for American agents to infiltrate Russian networks.) Glenny also mentions that German police officers are legally required to ID themselves as belonging to law enforcement if tracking a suspect over the Internet. Similarly, there are legal limitations in the U.S. and elsewhere on the use of Virtual Network Computing (VNC) oversight programs that monitor downloading and software installation.

Continuing, 'Safemail' is an encrypted email system that cannot be cracked without getting an Israeli Court to subpoena the information (owned and operated in Tel Aviv), victims often reside outside the investigating officer's jurisdiction, often resulting in pressure to instead work on more local cases.

DarkMarket had sections for pirated software, fraudulent documents, viruses, card skimmers, and stolen card information. Also important was its escrow system to enforce trust among the thieves using it, its 'invite' system that limited those who could offer wares on it, and the use of site administrators to patrol for cops and rats. (Those administrators sometimes used their authority to push competitors out, for their own benefit.) Still another law enforcement problem - U.S. agencies sometimes didn't communicate with each other, leading to Keystone Cops situations of one agency investigating the investigators of another.

Most of the material covers the activities of DarkMarket's founder (Renukanth Subramaniam, in London) and FBI agent Keith Mularski's infiltration of it using the alias Master Spylntr; ultimately more than 60 arrests worldwide followed. It had 2,500 users at its peak. Max Vision (Iceman) also was a notorious hacker who ran an underground forum called Carders Market and ended up sentenced to 13 years in jail after stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and generating about $86 million in fraudulent charges.

Kevin Poulsen's 'Kingpin' provide much more focused and useful information on the cybercrime underground.

This book is disappointing in the sense that it is a follow up to the original Dark Market and appears to be a reprint of that book, with merely a new prologue to link the new publication to the old one. Ninety percent of the paperback seems to be a repeat of the splendid investigative record of the first book meaning that there is bacically nothing new apart from the linking prologue.Many readers will feel angry that they have spent money to read a book they had already read. Still the suthor is doing a good job in alerting unsuspecting millions to the inherent dangers of the hackers and carders who use the internet to pickpocket the innocent people of the new electronic age. Yet the feeling persists that this paperback is a money making endeavour that really has no eminent place on the bookstalls. Misha Glenny is at his best in the original Dark Market, a cracking and educative read.