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USPS text scammers duped his wife, so he hacked their operation

(blog.smithsecurity.biz)
460 points wglb | 4 comments | 08 Aug 24 23:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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0xEF ◴[09 Aug 24 08:27 UTC] No.41199904[source]▶
I hate that it kicks off with "DISCLAIMER: This is not my work. I would never and don't condone illegal hacking of scammers"

You know what? I do. We all should. These scammers are awful people and deserve to be attacked. I am tired of toothless authorities like CISA and the alphabet agencies in the US doing next to nothing about it unless some YouTube scam baiter does the work for them. Scammers destroy people, not just financially, but emotionally as well, even driving some victims to suicide. As far as I am concerned, any wannabe hacker out there should be using these scammers for target practice.

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delfinom ◴[09 Aug 24 12:57 UTC] No.41201398[source]▶
As far as I can tell, these scammers were in China.

Nothing illegal until they sign an extradition treaty with the US.

Which they won't, lmao.

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lesuorac ◴[09 Aug 24 13:09 UTC] No.41201483[source]▶
Isn't it?

Like if I fly from China to US and offer you a bridge in exchange for $20 and take the $20 and don't give you a bridge, it's a scam.

What's the difference between that and doing it online? The offer is still posed on US soil; if anything it should expose you to the legality of both countries.

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1. bluGill ◴[09 Aug 24 13:24 UTC] No.41201592[source]▶
The difference is if I'm still in the US the US police will arrest me. If I'm in China the US police has to ask China to arrest me - if China refuses to arrest me than no crime was committed as far as I'm concerned since my government let me get away with it.

Technically the US can start a war with China, which could reach the point of the US military capturing me and bringing me to the US thus ensuring I don't get away wit it. Realistically that isn't happening though. There are also trade-war options which sometimes happen in high profile cases, but often they are seen as losing more than gained.

Note that most countries will arrest me and send me to the US if presented evidence. If you used France as your example country and so I'm exposed the the legality of both countries. Russia and North Korea are most well noted as protecting their own people against crimes like this committed elsewhere, so if you can get protection from those countries for this crime it isn't a crime because nothing will happen (war of course is an option but it seems unlikely). China is a grey area - they sometimes protect their own, but often they will not, in general for this scam I'd expect they would arrest you for this scam, but not all of them.

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2. lesuorac ◴[09 Aug 24 14:05 UTC] No.41201953[source]▶
Sure, the US might not be able to arrest you if you're not within it's territory. But that's still the same as selling you a bridge for $20 and just hoping on a flight to China.

It doesn't make it legal though; it just means you aren't arrested. The DoJ may still issue indictments [1].

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=doj+warrents+for+russian+hac...

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3. lupire ◴[09 Aug 24 16:32 UTC] No.41203335[source]▶
"Possession is nine tenths of the law."
4. aragonite ◴[09 Aug 24 18:51 UTC] No.41204396[source]▶
> Note that most countries will arrest me and send me to the US if presented evidence.

I believe that's actually very rare. I mean instances in which country A extraditing to country B one of its own citizens (who isn't also a dual citizen of B). In the most common scenario, country A extradites a citizen of B back to B, or (less common) a citizen of some 3rd country C to B.

I couldn't find a single instance in which a US citizen was extradited from American soil to a foreign country, for example, even though this is permitted by the extradition treaties. (I welcome any pointers to actual instances)

Foreign countries sometimes extradite their own citizens to the US, but I believe that to be very rare. Even the case of Gary McKinnon [1] was ultimately blocked, for example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon