Cypriot hacker extradited to the US

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Pezevenk

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Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« on: July 30, 2020, 08:28:10 AM »
Cyprus recently extradited a 21 year old hacker to the US, where he faces severe charges. He is accused of hacking Ripoff Report (seemingly so that he could delete reports made by users against certain businesses at the request of said businesses) and a few online game hosts and extorting them for money by threatening to make their user bases public. Here is the deal though (I couldn't find all of the info in English, I read it in Greek language sources): the crimes he is accused of happened when he was 14 and 16. He has Asperger's syndrome, he grew up without his dad and was forced to quit high school to make money to sustain himself together with his Filipino mother.

So the question here is, should a kid with Asperger's syndrome who hacked a few websites when he was 14-16 for money, when his family was in a super tough spot, be extradited and tried in a foreign country he has never been in and doesn't have any family in, even after he has been in jail for a long time, just because he caused some financial damage to some websites? He is facing a 20 year sentence in the US. Furthermore it seems pretty impressive to me that he managed to do all those things so early on, he should be given a scholarship, not a prison sentence, he did enough time in jail already...

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/07/21/cypriot-hacker-extradited-to-the-u-s-to-face-charges/
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markjo

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2020, 08:35:57 AM »
Are you asking if bad behavior shouldn't be punished?
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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2020, 08:41:46 AM »
Are you asking if bad behavior shouldn't be punished?
Do you not think already having spent time in jail along with all the trouble that comes with is enough punishment for a 16 year old hacker? Do you agree with the extradition and the potential 20 year sentence or is death sentence a more appropriate punishment?
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JJA

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2020, 08:41:55 AM »
Cyprus recently extradited a 21 year old hacker to the US, where he faces severe charges. He is accused of hacking Ripoff Report (seemingly so that he could delete reports made by users against certain businesses at the request of said businesses) and a few online game hosts and extorting them for money by threatening to make their user bases public. Here is the deal though (I couldn't find all of the info in English, I read it in Greek language sources): the crimes he is accused of happened when he was 14 and 16. He has Asperger's syndrome, he grew up without his dad and was forced to quit high school to make money to sustain himself together with his Filipino mother.

So the question here is, should a kid with Asperger's syndrome who hacked a few websites when he was 14-16 for money, when his family was in a super tough spot, be extradited and tried in a foreign country he has never been in and doesn't have any family in, even after he has been in jail for a long time, just because he caused some financial damage to some websites? He is facing a 20 year sentence in the US. Furthermore it seems pretty impressive to me that he managed to do all those things so early on, he should be given a scholarship, not a prison sentence, he did enough time in jail already...

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/07/21/cypriot-hacker-extradited-to-the-u-s-to-face-charges/

I know plenty of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and it in no way makes you a criminal.

People with Asperger’s Syndrome very clearly know right from wrong. It's not an excuse for their actions, or a get out of jail card.

I doubt you would be very happy if your data was exposed by him and you lost money or had your identity stolen causing you years of headaches.  He committed serious crimes.

Now, if it all happened when he was 14 then I don't agree with his extradition. But I have to imagine there is more to the story than what I can find online, it sounds like some of it was more recent.

As for the skill it takes, not so much. You can do plenty of damage with scripts and tools found all over. Hacking into a specific site takes skill, running a fishing script to find holes is easy to do.

It is a sad story though, and is unlikely to end happily for anyone involved. I agree, the few years served should be enough. I suspect he is being made an example of to discourage others.

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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2020, 08:49:27 AM »

I know plenty of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and it in no way makes you a criminal.

I never said it makes you a criminal. I said it as one more thing that makes the situation of someone forced to drop out of highschool even harder.

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I doubt you would be very happy if your data was exposed by him and you lost money or had your identity stolen causing you years of headaches.  He committed serious crimes.

He didn't steal anyone's identity, he hacked the user bases and threatened to expose public information in exchange of money from Armor Games, and deleted negative reviews for businesses probably at the request of said businesses at Ripoff Report.

Quote
Now, if it all happened when he was 14 then I don't agree with his extradition. But I have to imagine there is more to the story than what I can find online, it sounds like some of it was more recent.

It wasn't more recent as he was arrested in 2017, when he was 18 years old for actions he committed earlier (not the same ones he was extradited for, that one was a DDOS attack). He was released on bail but then the FBI requested his extradition because they suspected him for hacking Armor Games and Ripoff Report and I think a couple other sites.

Quote
As for the skill it takes, not so much. You can do plenty of damage with scripts and tools found all over. Hacking into a specific site takes skill, running a fishing script to find holes is easy to do.

He did hack specific sites though.
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JJA

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2020, 08:56:02 AM »

I know plenty of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and it in no way makes you a criminal.

I never said it makes you a criminal. I said it as one more thing that makes the situation of someone forced to drop out of highschool even harder.

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I doubt you would be very happy if your data was exposed by him and you lost money or had your identity stolen causing you years of headaches.  He committed serious crimes.

He didn't steal anyone's identity, he hacked the user bases and threatened to expose public information in exchange of money from Armor Games, and deleted negative reviews for businesses probably at the request of said businesses at Ripoff Report.

Quote
Now, if it all happened when he was 14 then I don't agree with his extradition. But I have to imagine there is more to the story than what I can find online, it sounds like some of it was more recent.

It wasn't more recent as he was arrested in 2017, when he was 18 years old for actions he committed earlier (not the same ones he was extradited for, that one was a DDOS attack). He was released on bail but then the FBI requested his extradition because they suspected him for hacking Armor Games and Ripoff Report and I think a couple other sites.

Quote
As for the skill it takes, not so much. You can do plenty of damage with scripts and tools found all over. Hacking into a specific site takes skill, running a fishing script to find holes is easy to do.

He did hack specific sites though.

If it was public data then he couldn't use it to blackmail. The article said data about customers, likely personal and financial information.

I doubt he decided he was going to go after Armor Games specifically.  He probably used a tool to scan sites for vulnerabilities and that's one he found. Probably others too, but he picked one with lots of sensitive data. We don't know the details, so it's all guesswork.

I feel bad for the kid, but it's not a victimless crime. All those customers at risk were real people.

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2020, 09:00:15 AM »
He clearly has skills. We should give him a chance to contribute to society (eg white hat hackers) rather than toss him in an American hole and throw away the key

But America not that long ago happily executed intellectually disabled people. They don't care. Won't care for his age or social awkwardness problems either


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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2020, 09:12:15 AM »
Based on the very little bit I have seen here, I have a couple thoughts. One is that in general, if a 16 year old (or any minor) commits a crime and isn't put on trial for it until after their 18th birthday, they should not be exposed to any harsher penalties than they would have been subject to when they were a minor and actually committed the crime. Second is, this dude did a bad thing and definitely should see consequences for that. And obviously it wasn't a one-and-done thing, because he got busted for a DDoS attack too, and who even knows what else he got away with before he got caught on these things he's been held accountable for.

When you break the law, there are consequences. And when you do it internationally, even more so. But the consequences for the things he did as a 14-16 year old should be the consequences that would normally be issued to a 14-16 year old committing those crimes, not the consequences for an adult that did those crimes.

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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2020, 09:19:59 AM »

I know plenty of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and it in no way makes you a criminal.

I never said it makes you a criminal. I said it as one more thing that makes the situation of someone forced to drop out of highschool even harder.

Quote
I doubt you would be very happy if your data was exposed by him and you lost money or had your identity stolen causing you years of headaches.  He committed serious crimes.

He didn't steal anyone's identity, he hacked the user bases and threatened to expose public information in exchange of money from Armor Games, and deleted negative reviews for businesses probably at the request of said businesses at Ripoff Report.

Quote
Now, if it all happened when he was 14 then I don't agree with his extradition. But I have to imagine there is more to the story than what I can find online, it sounds like some of it was more recent.

It wasn't more recent as he was arrested in 2017, when he was 18 years old for actions he committed earlier (not the same ones he was extradited for, that one was a DDOS attack). He was released on bail but then the FBI requested his extradition because they suspected him for hacking Armor Games and Ripoff Report and I think a couple other sites.

Quote
As for the skill it takes, not so much. You can do plenty of damage with scripts and tools found all over. Hacking into a specific site takes skill, running a fishing script to find holes is easy to do.

He did hack specific sites though.

If it was public data then he couldn't use it to blackmail. The article said data about customers, likely personal and financial information.

I doubt he decided he was going to go after Armor Games specifically.  He probably used a tool to scan sites for vulnerabilities and that's one he found. Probably others too, but he picked one with lots of sensitive data. We don't know the details, so it's all guesswork.

I feel bad for the kid, but it's not a victimless crime. All those customers at risk were real people.
He definitely hacked Ripoff Report specifically, because the whole point was that he was being paid to delete reviews there. As for the customers, I doubt they faced any serious issues, the data was probably emails, I mean, what else do you give Armor Games? I may have actually been one of the people exposed, I don't remember but I may have had an account there lol.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2020, 09:27:33 AM by Pezevenk »
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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2020, 09:21:12 AM »
Based on the very little bit I have seen here, I have a couple thoughts. One is that in general, if a 16 year old (or any minor) commits a crime and isn't put on trial for it until after their 18th birthday, they should not be exposed to any harsher penalties than they would have been subject to when they were a minor and actually committed the crime. Second is, this dude did a bad thing and definitely should see consequences for that. And obviously it wasn't a one-and-done thing, because he got busted for a DDoS attack too, and who even knows what else he got away with before he got caught on these things he's been held accountable for.

When you break the law, there are consequences. And when you do it internationally, even more so. But the consequences for the things he did as a 14-16 year old should be the consequences that would normally be issued to a 14-16 year old committing those crimes, not the consequences for an adult that did those crimes.

Thing is, he was already facing consequences for it in Cyprus, they shouldn't have extradited him to an entirely unfamiliar country.
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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2020, 09:23:37 AM »
Based on the very little bit I have seen here, I have a couple thoughts. One is that in general, if a 16 year old (or any minor) commits a crime and isn't put on trial for it until after their 18th birthday, they should not be exposed to any harsher penalties than they would have been subject to when they were a minor and actually committed the crime. Second is, this dude did a bad thing and definitely should see consequences for that. And obviously it wasn't a one-and-done thing, because he got busted for a DDoS attack too, and who even knows what else he got away with before he got caught on these things he's been held accountable for.

When you break the law, there are consequences. And when you do it internationally, even more so. But the consequences for the things he did as a 14-16 year old should be the consequences that would normally be issued to a 14-16 year old committing those crimes, not the consequences for an adult that did those crimes.

Thing is, he was already facing consequences for it in Cyprus, they shouldn't have extradited him to an entirely unfamiliar country.
Absolutely, as it's not like it would be reciprocal.
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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2020, 09:25:11 AM »
They actually couldn't do that until recently, they changed their constitution. I understand extraditing some war criminal or major terrorist or whatever but this just seems lame.
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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #12 on: July 30, 2020, 09:33:51 AM »
Based on the very little bit I have seen here, I have a couple thoughts. One is that in general, if a 16 year old (or any minor) commits a crime and isn't put on trial for it until after their 18th birthday, they should not be exposed to any harsher penalties than they would have been subject to when they were a minor and actually committed the crime. Second is, this dude did a bad thing and definitely should see consequences for that. And obviously it wasn't a one-and-done thing, because he got busted for a DDoS attack too, and who even knows what else he got away with before he got caught on these things he's been held accountable for.

When you break the law, there are consequences. And when you do it internationally, even more so. But the consequences for the things he did as a 14-16 year old should be the consequences that would normally be issued to a 14-16 year old committing those crimes, not the consequences for an adult that did those crimes.

Thing is, he was already facing consequences for it in Cyprus, they shouldn't have extradited him to an entirely unfamiliar country.
I thought you said he was facing consequences for the DDoS, implying it wasn't for this other stuff. You said he was 18 in 2017 when he got arrested. That makes him 21 now. He shouldn't just finally be "facing consequences for it in Cyprus," this is 5-7 years after the fact.

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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2020, 09:42:05 AM »
Based on the very little bit I have seen here, I have a couple thoughts. One is that in general, if a 16 year old (or any minor) commits a crime and isn't put on trial for it until after their 18th birthday, they should not be exposed to any harsher penalties than they would have been subject to when they were a minor and actually committed the crime. Second is, this dude did a bad thing and definitely should see consequences for that. And obviously it wasn't a one-and-done thing, because he got busted for a DDoS attack too, and who even knows what else he got away with before he got caught on these things he's been held accountable for.

When you break the law, there are consequences. And when you do it internationally, even more so. But the consequences for the things he did as a 14-16 year old should be the consequences that would normally be issued to a 14-16 year old committing those crimes, not the consequences for an adult that did those crimes.

Thing is, he was already facing consequences for it in Cyprus, they shouldn't have extradited him to an entirely unfamiliar country.
I thought you said he was facing consequences for the DDoS, implying it wasn't for this other stuff. You said he was 18 in 2017 when he got arrested. That makes him 21 now. He shouldn't just finally be "facing consequences for it in Cyprus," this is 5-7 years after the fact.

They didn't know about the other hack before. His trial wasn't over yet, he had been arrested and jailed for some time before they managed to get him out on bail. Then FBI said they think he is guilty for hacking Armor Games and Ripoff Report, so they arrested him again and extradited him. It's actually the first extradition of a Cypriot citizen to the US and I believe it may have something to do with Cyprus trying to sweet talk the US because there's a lot of stuff going on between Turkey, Greece and Cyprus so I guess that may have something to do with this. But this is just speculation.
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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #14 on: July 30, 2020, 10:06:32 AM »
Well I guess I stand by my opinion that he should be held accountable the way a 14-16 year old would be.

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JJA

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2020, 10:17:33 AM »

I know plenty of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and it in no way makes you a criminal.

I never said it makes you a criminal. I said it as one more thing that makes the situation of someone forced to drop out of highschool even harder.

Quote
I doubt you would be very happy if your data was exposed by him and you lost money or had your identity stolen causing you years of headaches.  He committed serious crimes.

He didn't steal anyone's identity, he hacked the user bases and threatened to expose public information in exchange of money from Armor Games, and deleted negative reviews for businesses probably at the request of said businesses at Ripoff Report.

Quote
Now, if it all happened when he was 14 then I don't agree with his extradition. But I have to imagine there is more to the story than what I can find online, it sounds like some of it was more recent.

It wasn't more recent as he was arrested in 2017, when he was 18 years old for actions he committed earlier (not the same ones he was extradited for, that one was a DDOS attack). He was released on bail but then the FBI requested his extradition because they suspected him for hacking Armor Games and Ripoff Report and I think a couple other sites.

Quote
As for the skill it takes, not so much. You can do plenty of damage with scripts and tools found all over. Hacking into a specific site takes skill, running a fishing script to find holes is easy to do.

He did hack specific sites though.

If it was public data then he couldn't use it to blackmail. The article said data about customers, likely personal and financial information.

I doubt he decided he was going to go after Armor Games specifically.  He probably used a tool to scan sites for vulnerabilities and that's one he found. Probably others too, but he picked one with lots of sensitive data. We don't know the details, so it's all guesswork.

I feel bad for the kid, but it's not a victimless crime. All those customers at risk were real people.
He definitely hacked Ripoff Report specifically, because the whole point was that he was being paid to delete reviews there. As for the customers, I doubt they faced any serious issues, the data was probably emails, I mean, what else do you give Armor Games? I may have actually been one of the people exposed, I don't remember but I may have had an account there lol.

Emails, passwords, addresses, credit card numbers are all things people give Armor Games.

And I highly doubt he was paid to target Ripoff Report.  As I said before, he likely ran some scrips looking for vulnerabilities, and then used what he found. The vast majority of attacks are like that, not targeted. Easier to cast a wide net and then exploit what you find. I've been paid to defend against this sort of thing, I know how it works.

Like I said I feel bad for the kid but we don't have the whole story here.  Just bits and pieces and a lot of assumptions.

I can't make any judgments on if what is happening is fair or not without knowing what he actually did and when.

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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2020, 02:28:51 AM »
The usa punishes underage hackers harder than rich child rapists.
#MAGA
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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #18 on: July 31, 2020, 06:47:48 AM »
You can see the "whole story" of what the hacks were here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/hacker-behind-ripoff-report-extortion-attempt-extradited-to-the-us/

A lot of these hacks are from 2017 - how many of these were from after he was 18 years old and in the eyes of the law, an adult?


And according to that article, he charged $3k-$5k for each complaint removed, removed at least 100 complaints - that's $300k-$500k in dirty money, and then tried to extort the CEO for an additional $90k. And he'd been doing it for years, meaning this was a pretty well established behavior pattern. So yeah, he's gonna get the book thrown at him. This is a lot more serious than you painted it to be in your OP.

Quote
Pre-2016 hacks

In addition to his Ripoff Report hack and extortion, US officials have also accused Epifaniou of hacking and extorting other websites between October 2014 and November 2016.

Victims listed by the DOJ include a free online game publisher based in Irvine, California; a hardware company based in New York, New York; an online employment website headquartered in Innsbrook, Virginia; and an online sports news website owned by Turner Broadcasting System Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia.

To extort victims, officials said Epifaniou used two techniques.

He used security bugs to hack target sites and then steal user data himself, or he bought the victim site's user data from other hackers and then used it to extort the victim into paying a ransom.

I mean, Jesus Christ. If any of that was from after his 18th birthday, then it's hard to argue that he shouldn't have to pay the piper. Even as a 17-year-old, with that kind of a resumé, I think he'd be in some pretty big trouble.

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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #19 on: July 31, 2020, 07:01:12 AM »
Here are the charges. Source.

Quote
Joshua Polloso Epifaniou, 21, a resident of Nicosia, Cyprus, arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York yesterday after being extradited from the Republic of Cyprus, where he was arrested in February 2018.  Epifaniou is the first Cypriot national extradited by Cyprus to the United States.  Cyprus amended its Constitution in 2013 to allow for the extradition of Cypriot nationals to a European country or to a third country on the basis of a European arrest warrant or on the basis of a bilateral or multilateral treaty that the Republic of Cyprus has signed, with the understanding that the corresponding country would extradite its citizens as well.  In 2003, the United States and the European Union entered into an extradition agreement.  The articles of the U.S.-E.U. agreement were incorporated into the pre-existing bilateral treaty to create a new bilateral treaty with Cyprus, signed in 2006.

A five-count indictment filed in the Northern District of Georgia charges Epifaniou with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud and identity theft, and extortion related to a protected computer. According to the indictment, between approximately October 2014 and November 2016, Epifaniou worked with coconspirators to steal personal identifying information from user and customer databases at victim websites in order to extort the websites into paying ransoms under threat of public disclosure of the sensitive data.  The indictment alleges that Epifaniou obtained confidential personal identifying information from these websites including from a free online game publisher based in Irvine, California; a hardware company based in New York, New York; an online employment website headquartered in Innsbrook, Virginia; and an online sports news website owned by Turner Broadcasting System Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, either by directly exploiting a security vulnerability at the websites and stealing user and customer data, or by obtaining a portion of the victim website’s user data from a co-conspirator who had hacked into the victim network.  After obtaining the personal identifying information, Epifaniou allegedly used proxy servers located in foreign countries to log into online email accounts and send messages to the victim websites threatening to leak the sensitive data unless a ransom was paid.  He is alleged to have defrauded the entities of $56,850 in bitcoin, and two victims incurred losses of over $530,000 from remediation costs associated with the incident.

Epifanou is scheduled for his arraignment on Monday, July 20, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan J. Baverman in the Northern District of Georgia.

Epifaniou is charged in the District of Arizona in a 24-count indictment with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, obtaining information from a protected computer, intentional damage to a protected computer, and threatening to damage a protected computer.

The indictment alleges that on Oct. 30, 2016, Epifaniou obtained unauthorized access to the database of Ripoff Report (ROR), a company located in Phoenix, Arizona, through a brute force attack.  A brute force attack is a trial-and-error method used to obtain information, such as a user password or personal identification number.  Epifaniou allegedly used the attack to successfully override ROR’s login and password protection to access its database through an existing account for a ROR employee.  On Nov. 18, 2016, Epifaniou emailed ROR’s CEO using an email address, threatening to publicly disseminate stolen ROR data unless the company paid him $90,000 within 48 hours.  According to the indictment, Epifaniou emailed again the following day with a hyperlink to a video recording demonstrating Epifaniou’s unauthorized access to the ROR CEO’s account.  The indictment additionally alleges that between October 2016 and May 2017, Epifaniou worked with an associate at “SEO Company,” which was a search engine marketing company based in Glendale, California, to identify companies that might be interested in paying for removal of complaints posted on ROR’s website, which Epifaniou would then illegally remove through unauthorized access to the ROR database.  Epifaniou and his co-conspirator removed at least 100 complaints from the ROR database, charging SEO Company’s “clients” approximately $3,000 to $5,000 for removal of each complaint.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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Bullwinkle

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #20 on: July 31, 2020, 03:14:23 PM »
He may have had a bad childhood.

I did.   I never went on a crime spree.

Do you realize how much effort he put into his crimes?
He did not "fuck up". He plotted and worked at his crimes for many years.
On purpose. Hundreds of hours of work for a specific purpose.


He robbed and stole and pilfered and extorted things he knew were not his.
Not a mistake. A goal.

He demonstrated an advanced knowledge of criminal behavior.
He knew right from wrong. Otherwise he would have done his shit in the open.


He is a menace to the entire planet.



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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #21 on: August 01, 2020, 09:54:39 AM »
You can see the "whole story" of what the hacks were here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/hacker-behind-ripoff-report-extortion-attempt-extradited-to-the-us/

A lot of these hacks are from 2017 - how many of these were from after he was 18 years old and in the eyes of the law, an adult?
None, because he was already arrested before he reached that age.

The hacks you mentioned were the ones I mentioned in the op. He hacked ROR to delete complaints for money, and he hacked Armor Games to extort money from them. Also he did a DDOS attack to some telecom company or something.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2020, 09:58:24 AM by Pezevenk »
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Pezevenk

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #22 on: August 01, 2020, 10:05:51 AM »
He may have had a bad childhood.

I did.   I never went on a crime spree.

Do you realize how much effort he put into his crimes?
He did not "fuck up". He plotted and worked at his crimes for many years.
On purpose. Hundreds of hours of work for a specific purpose.


He robbed and stole and pilfered and extorted things he knew were not his.
Not a mistake. A goal.

He demonstrated an advanced knowledge of criminal behavior.
He knew right from wrong. Otherwise he would have done his shit in the open.


He is a menace to the entire planet.

LOL dude calm down, "a menace to the entire planet". Yeah, he's a kid with Aspergers who's good at computers and very short on money, so he found a way to make lots of money by cyber crimes. And really, to many people cyber crimes don't feel as bad or as "wrong". Like, it's one thing to steal a DVD, it feels like a completely different thing to pirate a movie-and I'm sure most people here have done it plenty of times. He should pay up and serve some small sentence. Then he can hopefully stop doing this sort of stuff, or he'll get busted again and actually get a serious sentence. I don't understand what the downside of that would be. But that is not what is happening, he is being extradited to a foreign country and threatened with 20 years in prison, which is frankly ridiculous. He didn't kill anyone, the most serious thing he did was extort a company for money, and they can just make him pay whatever he managed to take from them back.
Member of the BOTD for Anti Fascism and Racism

It is not a scientific fact, it is a scientific fuck!
-Intikam

Read a bit psicology and stick your imo to where it comes from
-Intikam (again)

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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #23 on: August 01, 2020, 12:06:42 PM »
The things that outage you and the things that don't sometimes surprises me. He stole a shitload of money. For years. And he got caught. The fact that what he did was illegal isn't some carefully guarded secret, and it's not as if he only stole what he needed to get by.

The hacks you mentioned were the ones I mentioned in the op. He hacked ROR to delete complaints for money, and he hacked Armor Games to extort money from them. Also he did a DDOS attack to some telecom company or something.

You didn't give any indication of what the scale was. Or the insane amount of money he stole. There is no way he didn't know he was doing something wrong that could land him in a huge amount of trouble. Why are you diminishing his crimes so much?

Quote
Yeah, he's a kid with Aspergers who's good at computers and very short on money, so he found a way to make lots of money by cyber crimes. And really, to many people cyber crimes don't feel as bad or as "wrong".
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Asperger's has nothing to do with this, I don't know why you keep bringing it up. So leaving that side, what he did was steal several hundred thousand dollars while also having access to whatever user data some of those sites had, and clearly his moral compass is far enough out of whack that he shouldn't have been trusted to act responsibly with that stolen information, and then he decided to add extortion to the list of things he thinks are totally OK to do. And this is just what we know about.

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Wolvaccine

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #24 on: August 01, 2020, 12:16:25 PM »
The things that outage you and the things that don't sometimes surprises me. He stole a shitload of money. For years. And he got caught. The fact that what he did was illegal isn't some carefully guarded secret, and it's not as if he only stole what he needed to get by.

The hacks you mentioned were the ones I mentioned in the op. He hacked ROR to delete complaints for money, and he hacked Armor Games to extort money from them. Also he did a DDOS attack to some telecom company or something.

You didn't give any indication of what the scale was. Or the insane amount of money he stole. There is no way he didn't know he was doing something wrong that could land him in a huge amount of trouble. Why are you diminishing his crimes so much?

Quote
Yeah, he's a kid with Aspergers who's good at computers and very short on money, so he found a way to make lots of money by cyber crimes. And really, to many people cyber crimes don't feel as bad or as "wrong".
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Asperger's has nothing to do with this, I don't know why you keep bringing it up. So leaving that side, what he did was steal several hundred thousand dollars while also having access to whatever user data some of those sites had, and clearly his moral compass is far enough out of whack that he shouldn't have been trusted to act responsibly with that stolen information, and then he decided to add extortion to the list of things he thinks are totally OK to do. And this is just what we know about.

Low tech scammers who pretend to be some wealthy Prince or some hot chick and scam people over the internet collectively steal hundreds of millions of dollars from nations every year. Or those dodgy phone calls pretending to be the police or some IT repair tech. Where is the government in these cases? Most of the time if you got fooled your own government simply says 'touch luck, you'll never see your money again'

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boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #25 on: August 01, 2020, 12:20:01 PM »
I'm pretty sure I didn't say those scammers should get away with it?

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Wolvaccine

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #26 on: August 01, 2020, 12:28:12 PM »
I'm pretty sure I didn't say those scammers should get away with it?

No but it seems governments around the world are apathetic to victims of those crimes.

Also, the governments where the perpetrators live are probably happy with the crimes as it brings in millions to plug their economy lol

Quote from: sokarul
what website did you use to buy your wife? Did you choose Chinese over Russian because she can't open her eyes to see you?

What animal relates to your wife?

Know your place

*

boydster

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #27 on: August 01, 2020, 12:32:28 PM »
I suspect we also don't have extradition agreements with those countries, but regardless it's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. You're playing whataboutism.

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Wolvaccine

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #28 on: August 01, 2020, 12:59:43 PM »
I suspect we also don't have extradition agreements with those countries, but regardless it's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. You're playing whataboutism.

Your government could literally make life much harder and costly for these countries that scam you though sanctions etc until they cooperate and arrest or crack down on the crime but they dont

You're right they probably dont have extradition agreements... So what does that mean?

Citizens in countries that are 'enemies' are free to do as they please to you and your allies will get duly arrested no problem. This Asperger's kid is easy pickings. Some random guy in Nigeria you wont bother with even if he's a much bigger menace.

Is this kid essentially getting 'double jeopardy' though? Getting charged twice for the same crime? Or did he serve his time for offenses and then go and do the same crime again?



Quote from: sokarul
what website did you use to buy your wife? Did you choose Chinese over Russian because she can't open her eyes to see you?

What animal relates to your wife?

Know your place

*

JJA

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Re: Cypriot hacker extradited to the US
« Reply #29 on: August 01, 2020, 02:29:44 PM »
I'm pretty sure I didn't say those scammers should get away with it?

No but it seems governments around the world are apathetic to victims of those crimes.

Also, the governments where the perpetrators live are probably happy with the crimes as it brings in millions to plug their economy lol

The reason this kid is getting extradited and some random Nigerian scammer isn't is this kid filmed himself committing a crime and sent it to one of his victims. He is in trouble because he got caught, that simple.

Nobody is going to go arrest "that Nigerian scammer" if you have no idea who they are or where they are or don't have good solid evidence on them.

Calling the FBI and saying some guy scammed you but you don't know where they are and don't have any recordings of the conversations... well yeah he's not going to get arrested.