Authors: Mark Russinovich
In Eastern Europe and Russia, hacking is a digital way of life. Râmnicu Vâlcea, a small city in the Transylvanian Alps of Romania, is devoted to cybercrime and has become rich because of it. Officially the government disapproves. But in China, hacking is both a patriotic cause as well as a lucrative endeavor. And though the Chinese government claims to be cracking down on it, there is little sign of that in Shanghai where I meet with the young hacker who calls himself Victor.
Though he once set out to be an engineer, Victor was drawn into the lucrative world of hacking. “For a few dollars I bought a hacker’s manual,” he says as he chain-smokes cigarettes. “It showed me how easy this was and taught me simple penetrations. But that was just the beginning.”
Shanghai hackers form circles in which they brag about their latest techniques and conquests like jaded Casanovas of old. And though cyber security companies are constantly upgrading their product they are reactive by nature and so always one step behind. “I’m saving my list of zero day exploits that will make me rich,” Victor tells me. He already has more than five thousand computers in his own botnet and once the number is sufficient to make him rich, he’ll launch his attack and loot their bank accounts. The money will travel a tangled and untraceable digital route until it lands in a bank account he controls.
“After that I’ll move on.” I ask what he means. “For now the government doesn’t care but they will in time. Anyone who stays in that game long enough could end up with his head chopped off in a football stadium. No, there’s a safer and more interesting way to make money from hacking.”
Victor explains that he plans to design hacker code, then rent it out. Most hackers can’t be bothered to write their own programs. That involves actual work and according to Victor most are lazy. No, they either copy commonly available code from open Web sites or they rent them. “The best ones cost money but they are worth it. Once you have your botnet in place or have gained access to a single big account you need the very latest code to really get rich. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll even take a piece of the action as the rental fee in some cases.” He smiles at that, intrigued by his own thought process. “It will be fun, safe, and profitable.”
But despite his claim that he will loot his botnet accounts just once, get rich, and walk away, Victor admits that he is intrigued by the prospect of another big theft. Ten billion dollars is gambled online every year, worldwide. Victor has crafted a code that he says will give him a slice of it. “Ten percent is possible,” he says with a smile. “It depends on timing. How to do it is not the problem.”
It is estimated there are more than ten thousand such hackers in China alone.
Internet News Service, Inc.
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ISTANBUL, TURKEY
SABIHA GÖKÇEN AIRPORT
34906 ISTANBUL PROVINCE
12:03 A.M. EET
Wu leveled the SportCruiser LSA at 1,500 meters, adjusted his heading, then eased back in his seat. He listened to the steady drone of the engine, studied the controls until he was satisfied, then scanned the outside darkness. To his left was the black Sea of Marmara, to his right the glimmering lights of Istanbul. The SportCruiser was limited to two occupants and beside Wu sat Li Chin-Shou.
When Wu had received orders from his father in Beijing to retrieve two computers, he’d moved as rapidly as he could. This couldn’t be like last time. His father, Mei Zedong, had instructed him to seize the computer of a certain Uyghur leader in Istanbul that contained the names of many Uyghur activists in Xinjian Province. It had been a fiasco. The man had been home when Wu had been told he was out. Worse, he’d managed to pitch his laptop from the balcony and they’d never been able to locate it afterward. Wu ordering the man’s death had created an unpleasant police inquiry that fortunately never led directly to him. He had been officially reprimanded and personally shamed by the failure. Not much later, Li had been assigned to him.
Since learning to fly, Wu had come to know the staff at the Sabiha Gökçen Airport on the outskirts of Istanbul. He was generous with them and on the rare occasion when he wanted to take off at night, they asked for no more than a small contribution to make the runway available to him. Taking off in the dark with just the runway lights was no problem but he never wanted to attempt a night landing.
Wu had stumbled onto the utility of the SportCruiser quite by accident. He’d briefly seen a French diplomat who’d offered to take him aloft in the sport ultralight she’d flown over from Paris. To his great surprise the craft had been nothing less than a slightly downsized general aviation airplane. But because they were classified in the same category as a powered parachute or aluminum framed and fabric ultralight, they were viewed as a novelty by governments and escaped most aviation rules.
The craft were uncomplicated, designed to be simple to fly. Constructed of metal and state-of-the-art composites this model had a low wing and a bubble canopy. It was painted white and silver. A license only required twenty hours of instruction. The planes could be had new for under $100,000; half that for a good used one. The manufacturers had been quick to see the opening and a number of them were now constructing planes such as the SportCruiser, which was in every way an airplane. The official limitations on their use were not much at all especially as they weren’t enforced. Though the official ceiling was 10,000 feet to keep them from interfering with traditional airplanes Wu had taken his to over 25,000 feet with no problem. But he was content to cruise at the official level, even lower, so as to attract no attention but still have the capacity to overfly any European mountain range. He could, and often did, fly at very low altitudes, not only below radar but also beneath any kind of normal observation.
The craft cruised at 222 kilometers an hour and was designed with a 1,120 kilometer range. Wu had extended that to just under 2,000 kilometers by installing an additional gas tank in the rear compartment. The instruments were basic though adequate and with a portable GPS device Wu had no trouble navigating. He used an ordinary cell phone for communication. Though the craft’s landing gear was fixed and it was officially limited to daylight and so had neither landing nor running lights, it was in every important way a sturdy and reliable airplane.
To utilize the craft’s extreme range, as he was doing tonight, meant a grueling ten-hour flight. But taxing as it might be, it greatly improved his flexibility as well as his ability to move about undetected. For one, Wu was not restricted to general aviation airports with all the bureaucracy and record keeping that entailed. With a very low stall speed, the plane could land most anywhere that was flat, including grass fields. With little advance planning, Wu was able to land essentially where he wanted, quickly refuel, then fly on. And when he reached his destination, he utilized the obscure modest airstrips outside all major European cities where no records were kept of landings and takeoffs.
By avoiding regular general aviation airports he was also not required to check in with aviation authorities or, for that matter, to even maintain radio contact while in the air. He faced no passport checks, no meaningful controls over his movement. If he did come to the attention of authorities, he presented his passport and explained he was flying on to some city with exotic ladies of the night. A lewd wink later, he was gone as the Sport-Cruiser was refueled and made ready for his departure.
Before realizing its usefulness he’d bought the SportCruiser LSA to commute between his restaurants in Ankara and Istanbul. It enabled him to cover the distance in just over two hours; otherwise he faced a seven-hour drive. He’d quickly logged two hundred hours in the plane to improve his ability and confidence. He’d flown at night twice before against the eventuality of such a flight. Though illegal, no one was checking, not if he departed from an unsupervised airport. Flying without running lights, shrouded in the darkness, he was all but invisible. He’d timed his arrival for morning, as before, and his landing would arouse no interest.
The wind was relatively calm tonight. The land was a vast stretch of darkness below, the cities of any size glittering, the expanse between black and fathomless. The engine droned steadily and it was possible for him to lapse into a near trance as he held the craft on course. From time to time, he scanned the instruments and confirmed nothing had changed.
Li had arrived from China some months earlier. He was a highly trained and motivated agent. He was also very bright and though he worked as one of his waiters, Wu could not help but question why such an able agent had been assigned to him. He wondered if he was being watched. After all, he worked in a relative backwater of Chinese intelligence and few demands were made on him by Beijing. An occasional agent dropped by to receive cash, information was funneled through Wu, and he was required to file monthly reports. But that was all. It was possible for him to go weeks at a time and forget he was a field operative.
Wu had originally been stationed in Istanbul because of its large Uyghur population. This was a Turkic ethnic minority that had begun arriving from China in the late 1930s. In 1952, several thousand Uyghurs fled China’s communist regime into Pakistan and the Turkish government stepped in and brought 1,850 of them overland to Turkey. The new arrivals were settled in the city of Kayseri in central Anatolia and were given jobs and citizenship.
The kinship between the Turks and Uyghurs was self-evident. You could fly east from Istanbul, get off the plane in Urumqi, and make conversation to some degree. The average Turk felt enormous sympathy for and an affinity with the Uyghurs.
But in recent years, Ankara has become increasingly wary of antagonizing Beijing over the fate of the minority. The two countries had recently signed a $1.5 billion development deal and more were in the pipeline. Now, no more than a few hundred Uyghurs trickled into Turkey each year, and they would apply to the local office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for refugee status, where they were treated no differently than an Iraqi or a Sudanese. More often than not, they were given temporary travel papers and sent on to receptive third countries such as Canada or the Netherlands.
But there remained a significant Uyghur minority in Ankara and Istanbul, one that was heavily involved in opposition to the Chinese government. Agents were smuggled in and out of China routinely, even receiving training here in Turkey. The Uyghur independence movement was simply waiting for the day when the communist hold on China finally snapped and distant regions such as the Xinjian Province began to break away.
Wu’s first official assignment, the excuse his father had used to get him placed here, was to watch the Uyghur dissidents in Turkey. A significant number, he’d learned, was nothing more than terrorists, licking their wounds in a friendly country while gathering resources. And for all the claim of neutrality toward the Uyghur, they were after all Turkic, and the Turkish government could not help but given them assistance. It might not be the government’s official position but unofficially they turned a blind eye to the Uyghur independence movement.
These days, Wu assigned the agents under him to maintain a watch on the Uyghur dissidents. He stretched, yawned, then glanced at Li, who was sleeping. They’d talked little on the flight, a bit about home, more about the restaurant and Istanbul. He was not a talkative man.
Toward the east, Wu could make out the faint blush of dawn. They’d be there soon.
PRAGUE 3, CZECH REPUBLIC
KRASOVA 702/34
3:41 A.M. CET
T
ap! Tap! Tap!
The rapping on the window roused Jeff from a deep sleep. He blinked, then looked outside. He saw a baton and a man in uniform. Police. He rolled down the window.
“Nemůžete spát zde!”
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said. “I don’t speak Czech.” He could see the officer now, a young, slender man wearing a black leather jacket and peaked cap.
The man switched seamlessly into English. “I said that you cannot sleep here. Not like this. Find a hotel. Okay?”
“Right,” Jeff said. “Thanks. I was just tired.” He started the engine, then rolled out onto the quiet street. He wanted to stay, wished he could think of some way to make it happen. Given the officer’s demeanor he was certain the offer of a bribe would have landed him in jail. As Jeff passed, he looked again at the lockup. No change.
He drove down the street, then made a series of turns that took him out of the crowded city center. When he reached a residential district he went down a narrow street until he found an open spot and parked. He turned off the car and leaned back in the seat. He’d been lucky to last as long as he had without attracting attention. And what had he accomplished by sleeping? For all he knew the car was gone by now.
He glanced at his watch. He opened his laptop, finding six wireless connections, two of them unsecured. He went online and checked messages.
Attached are four likely matches attending school in Prague. Assuming you’ve seen the culprit I’ll let you decide if one is your man. One does have an 83% probability.