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Ngo Minh Hieu, the Notorious Teen Hacker

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Ngo Minh Hieu, the Notorious Teen Hacker

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Ngo Minh Hieu, born in 1989 in Gia Lai Vietnam is one of the most notorious teen hackers and became what the U.S authorities have described as one of the most prolific identity thieves to ever grace a federal prison. For U.S law enforcement, Hieu’s case highlights a ‘new nightmare’ for this digital age. In one of the most influential computer integrity crimes, The Vietnamese hacker had been hacking and stealing data and information of over 3 million people for almost six years. Aged 25, he ran an ID theft service popularly known as Superget.info. in which he admitted to hacking into and gaining illegal access to databases of not only millions of foreign citizens, but also some of the world’s largest data brokers.

Hieu stole identity related information like Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, bank accounts and credit card details and sold “fullz” (an internet slang term commonly used by digital criminals as a word to describe packages of consumer data) to dark web forums for 50 cents to a dollar per information. This could then be used by other digital criminals and users of the dark web to commit identity theft in victims’ names. He stated:

“At first I just started having fun trying to deface those websites that I hacked into” he recalls “and I would steal information and share it. But it got more serious when I got into High School”.

From 2007 to 2013 Hieu masterminded his hacking scheme and profited US 2 million dollars. Hieu gained access to consumer databases by posing as a private investigator in the United States. However, prior to his online criminal endeavours, Hieu spent his childhood years in a computer shop owned by his uncle learning computer skills that unbenkownst to everyone, he would later use in criminal activity.

The traditional theory commonly referred to as Routine Activity Theory used within criminology to analyse the deviant behaviour of an individual can be considered somewhat reliant to Hieu’s criminal history. Individuals such as Hieu can be ‘caught up’ in subcultures in which criminal activity is normalised and seemingly encouraged. The theory of Routine Activity Theory is built upon a rational choice theory of crime in which is not a theory of offending per se; but rather a theory of routine activity and lifestyle which pose as characteristics for offence opportunities.

Ngo Minh Hieu spent six years in prison after being apprehended by a U.S Secret Service agent when he was lured to Guam with an offer to access more consumer data. Released at the end of 2019 and now works as a technical export at Vietnam’s National Cybersecurity Center.

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Lance Ealy, one of Ngo’s customers, is now in prison for tax ID theft.

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Hydra served multiple countries with same day drug deliveries, both in person and online. 

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Hydra Market was considered to be the world’s largest and oldest darknet marketplace of illegal items and services. Hydra, whose users were primarily located in Russian-speaking countries, accounted for what is estimated to have been 80% of all darknet-market related cryptocurrency transactions in history. Since 2015, the Hydra Market received about $5.2 billion dollars in cryptocurrency as a result of transactions from the site. The online market platform allowed vendors to sell a wide range of drugs, and rate sellers on a five-star rating system, which gave individuals purchasing a sense of security knowing their drugs and illegal items are coming from ‘a reputable source.

Heroin, cocaine, opioids, methamphetamines, LSD, cannabis, and numerous other narcotics were all prominent and available on Hydra Market. One of the main features of Hydra was how the platform specialised in ‘dead drop services’ where the vendors would hide the packages of narcotics in public spaces in which the customer could easily pick them up. The Hydra Market is a prominent and fairly recent example of a cyber-enabled crime operating on a large scale. Because of Hydra Market, many individuals engaged in digital drift, a term used to describe the ability to drift in-and-out of criminality when visiting dark-net websites such as Hydra and for those who purchased, become a criminal themselves.

Vendors of online crypto markets, Hydra Market and other’s similar also delve into a particular subcultural theory when using the online market. The operation of Hyrdra Market and other similar drug-cryptomarkets is particularly interesting as individuals using the market had to rely on a trust-based system for both vendors and sellers. This is of course given, as they cannot rely on consumer protections in the case of a low-quality product or scam.

The market, not only facilitating the sale of illegal items and services also facilitated the use of false identification documents, hacking tools, phishing services, and money laundering services for bitcoin. This went on for seven years, and Police state that 17 million customers and more than 19,000 seller accounts were registered on the marketplace. Hacking vendors on Hydra commonly offered to illegally access online accounts of the buyer’s choosing, and in this way could select their ‘victims’ and hire professional hackers to gain access to these victims information and accounts. For example, U.S passports or driver’s licenses. Purchasers were able to sort their searches by availability, location, or price, making the system professional and easily accessible to criminals. Relative to other dark-markets, As Hydra was able to stay running for seven years before being seized, it gave Hydra the opportunity to dominate the Russian drug market in an unprecedented way and develop a sophisticated organisation and structure, an established set of rules for both buyers and sellers. However, within the market’s scope of illegal business, it was limited by the platform itself and explicitly forbade the selling and purchasing of certain goods and services. Such as, poisons, contract killing, government secrets and pornography.

“The Hydra darknet site provided a platform for criminals who thought that they were beyond the reaches of law enforcement to buy and sell illegal drugs and services”. Chief Jim Lee of the IRS-Criminal Investigation stated.

The seizure of Hydra servers and cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 million worth of bitcoin happened on the 5th April 2022 in Germany, by the German Federal Criminal Police in accordance with U.S law enforcement. The investigation was conducted with support of the U.S Department of Justice and the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement Team.

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Philipp Budekin incited over 130 teenagers and children to kill themselves by taking part in his ’online game’ called the “Blue Whale Challenge”. The Blue Whale Challenge was a social media phenomenon between 2017-2018 that encouraged children and teenagers to perform specific tasks over the course of 50 days that are assigned to them by an anonymous group administrator. The different tasks escalate over the 50 days and goes from something simple such as watching a scary video, to instructing the victim to carve out the shape of a whale on their forearm, then to the last day of the challenge in which the victims were instructed the only way to ‘win’ is to kill themselves and die by suicide.

Targeting teens in Russia, the game reached a global scale and impacted teenagers and families around the world. Six cases of child suicide were linked to the Blue Whale Challenge in India alone. The victims played the Blue Whale Challenge by joining specific social media groups in hopes of the opportunity to play by being selected by a “group administrator”. Those who played the game were required to send photo evidence of each task being completed to their “group administrator”. Players of the challenge could not stop playing once they had started as they were blackmailed and cyber bullied into completing the game.

Budekin, a computer enthusiast and former psychology student before his arrest, used and developed numerous tactics to manipulate and abuse children and teenagers through a computer screen. This included use of a number of different forms of cyberbullying, such as online harassment, threats, and cyberstalking.

It targeted lonely children and teens that wanted to be part accepted as part of a group. The challenge originates from the unexplained phenomenon of how whales (known to be highly social animals) leave their herd and beach themselves in a seemingly deliberate manner, causing them to die. Giving the games name a cruel and heartless psychological meaning.

Previously to Budekin’s confession and arrest, the hardest part for authorities around the world was to pinpoint these Blue Whale attacks to an individual due to the anonymity of the perpetrators. The most police could do around the world at the time was share with the media the dangers of children and teenagers on the internet, as well as ways parents were able to keep their kids safe online.

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 What is the Blue Whale Challenge? www.youtube.com › watch

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Jacob Graham, 20-year-old college student studding computers from Norris Green in Liverpool had been communicating with like-minded extremists on several different online servers, one including a popular gaming platform called Discord. Conspiring multiple acts of terrorism, he declared that he wanted to kill at least 50 people, and take the government 'down'. Graham was the administrator for a number of chatrooms on the encrypted Telegram app, including Total Earth Liberation Group, in which he had shared his bomb-making manual.

The young criminal had made and posted 138 videos, posted to multiple online servers and explained how they were to be released on the day of his planned attack. In these videos, he demonstrated the use of explosives and how likeminded extremists can “stand up to the government” with him, using weapons such as a machete and included the mention of guns. He was motivated by a “hatred and contempt” for government and although he had talked about bombing Liverpool to his online followers, had not finalised his plans or selected a specific target yet at the time of his arrest.

With the rampant use of the internet in today’s day and age, individuals are able to propagate from their lounge rooms or in Graham’s case his bedroom and absorb extremist ideas. Terrorist belief systems also often share common connections to deviant subcultures online. It is demonstrated, that within his online endeavours, Grahm engaged in a form of performance crime and although not actually undertaking any in-person terrorist acts, shared upwards of 100 videos online with in depth plans of his bombing attack on Liverpool as well as tutorial like videos of how to make a bomb and how he will use weapons in his attack posted online to an audience.

After security services uncovered his activity as part of an investigation into the purchase of poisons online, Jacob Grahman was arrested on Friday the 26th of May 2023 by officers from Merseyside Police and Counter Terrorism Policing Northwest, under section 41 of the Terrorist Act 2000, the UK’s terrorist Act.

He was charged under the following offences:

Preparation of terrorist acts, contrary to section 5(1)(b) of the Terrorism Act 2006.

Two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications, contrary to Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

And;

Four counts of possession of material likely to be useful to a terrorist, contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorist Act 2000.

Sentencing him to 13 years in a young offenders institution.

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Self-described Anarchist Jacob Graham has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for multiple terrorism offences. Leading up to his arrest, he recorded... | By Granada ReportsFacebook

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Self-described Anarchist Jacob Graham has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for multiple terrorism offences. Leading up to his arrest, he recorded...

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Gary McKinnon found his way into the computer system of the US defence department and NASA in 2001 after an eccentric search for evidence and information the US government may have on UFO’s. The young man found his way into the Pentagon’s system and carried out what US authorities described as “the biggest military computer hack of all time”. He conducted his criminal endeavours all from a bedroom in his North London flat.

Convinced that the government was hiding antigravity and advance technology devices, he planned to find and release the information for the benefit of humanity.

McKinnon had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a rare form of autism. Asperger’s sufferers have severe difficulty reading social cues and grasping the impact of their obsessive-behaviour. As a result of this, his lawyers argued that his criminal behaviour was a result of his disorder and had asked the court to judge him with leniency.

At age 14, McKinnon had taught himself to code video games set outer space, and his hacking can be considered to stem from an obsession with outer space he had since a kid. At a later age, he installed a software program onto his computer that allowed remote access and control of computers all over the internet. With his fixation overpowering him, he was then able to enter government computers from Fort Meade to NASA’s Johnson space centre.

The U.S Department of Justice hasn’t publicly discussed how it became aware of McKinnon, but believes his intrusion was detected when he logged onto a computer at the Johnson Space Centre. McKinnon stated that he then believed the government discovered the software, traced it to his e-mail address; and immediately cut him off.

McKinnon’s diagnosis however did not deter the U.S government from pursuing charges against him, and he quickly became an icon of Asperger’s with many describing his situation as “a travesty of human rights”. The Sting told the Daily Mail, astonished that the “British government is prepared to hand over this vulnerable man without reviewing the evidence”.

For McKinnon, there was no desire for embezzlement, money or economic benefit, no desire to fit in with a subcultural crowd or revenge against an aspect of government in an extremist situation. McKinnon, a seemingly socially motivated hacker wanted to seek knowledge, and never sought to a reward.

Though having no malicious intent, Gary McKinnon demonstrated narcissistic traits, common in cybercriminals and the reason most perpetrators of cybercrime can be explained by criminal theories. These can be considered psychoanalytic; the GottFred and Hirschi General Theory of Crime, or otherwise known as the Social Control Theory of crime can effectively explain McKinnon’s actions, as he would have the ability to be socialised out of his criminal behaviour.

Gary McKinnon was arrested by the U.K’s National High Tech Crime Unit in the morning of March 19th, 2002. Later in 2002, McKinnon was charged by U.S prosecutors with crimes that could put him in jail for as many as 70 years and over. In 2005, the U.S submitted a request that McKinnon be sent from the U.K to face prosecution in the U.S. This was on the grounds of a treaty signed by the two nations in 2003 to prosecute suspected terrorists in a more effective way. However, it was established that McKinnon was not a terrorist and was not acting under a ‘lone wolf’ terrorist scheme when hacking into the U.S military systems as many may have thought. There are certain characteristics needed to fulfil evaluation for this in an individual, such as whether they had political ties to an extremist network. Which it is evident that in McKinnon's case he did not, meaning he also did not suffer from psychological disturbance or distressing atypical thoughts or behaviour outside of what would be characterised by his autism.