What Happened to the Teen Who Stole $23.8M in Cryptocurrency? (rollingstone.com) 67
15-year-old Ellis Pinsky stole $23.8 million worth of cryptocurrency — and his life was never the same. For example, Rolling Stone reports, in his last year of high school, "Four men wearing ski masks and gloves, armed with knives, rope, brass knuckles, and a fake 9 mm," crept around the back of his home in the suburbs:
Two weeks before the break-in, a lawsuit had been filed against him, and news stories had circulated connecting him to the hack. He knew that the thieves wanted this money, the millions and millions of dollars he had stolen. He also knew that he couldn't give it to them. He didn't have it. Not anymore.
The magazine paints the portrait of "an anxious young man in Invisalign braces" who describes the revelation he'd had at the age of 13. "The internet held such secrets. All he had to do was uncover them." As he soon found, there were plenty of people working to uncover them all the time, and willing to share their methods — for a price.... Realizing that a lot of the information social engineers used came from hacked databases, he began teaching himself to program, particularly to do the Structured Query Language injections and cross-site scripting that allowed him to attack companies' database architecture. The terabyte upon terabyte of databases he extracted, traded, and hoarded made him valuable to OGUsers as well as to others, like the Russian hackers he was able to converse with thanks to his fluency with his mother's native language... By the time he was 14, he tells me, "I think it's fair to say I had the capabilities to hack anyone."
The article describes him as "attending high school by day and extracting the source code of major corporations by night.... He was 14 years old and taken with the thrill of possessing a hidden superpower, of spending his nights secretly tapping into an underground world where he was esteemed and even feared. And then, in the morning, being called downstairs to breakfast." He wrote a Python script to comb through social media networks and seek out any mentions of working for a [cellphone] carrier. Then he'd reach out with an offer of compensation for helping him with a task. Every fifth or sixth person — underpaid and often working a short-term contract — would say they were game, as Pinsky tells it. For a couple hundred dollars' worth of bitcoin, they'd be willing to do a SIM swap, no questions asked. Eventually, Pinsky says, he had employees at every major carrier also working for him. Then the stakes got even higher. It was only a matter of time before OG hackers, known to each other as "the Community," realized that if they could use the SIM-swapping method to steal usernames, they could just as easily use it to steal cryptocurrency...
In one massive heist Pinksky stole 10% of all the Trigger altcoins on the market from crypto impresario Michael Terpin. ("As Pinsky's money launderers were converting it, the market was crashing in real time.") Pinsky recruited a crew to launder the money — at least one of which simply kept it — but even with all the conversion fees, he still made off with millions. And then... For a while, he half-expected the FBI to knock on his door at any moment, just like in the movies; but as time passed, he grew less anxious.... He says he moved on to learning different types of programming. He ran a sneaker business that used bots and scripts to snap up limited pairs then flip them... He went to soccer practice. He and his friends had started hanging out with girls on the weekend, driving down to the docks where you could see the glowing lights from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Until Terpin figured out it was Pinsky who'd robbed him: Pinsky and his legal team preempted his arrest by contacting the U.S. attorney directly and offering his cooperation. In February 2020, he voluntarily returned every last thing he says he got from the Terpin heist: 562 bitcoins, the Patek watch, and the cash he'd stored in the safe under his bed.... When I ask if he has also worked with the FBI to help bring down other hackers, he blinks quickly and then changes the subject.
Pinsky has not been criminally charged — partly because he was a minor, but also because of his cooperation with law enforcement. But filing a civil suit, Terpin wants to be compensated with triple the amount stolen, arguing that the teenager who robbed him was running an organized crime racket and that he should be heavily punished to set an example.
Rolling Stone's article raisees the question: what should happen next?
The magazine paints the portrait of "an anxious young man in Invisalign braces" who describes the revelation he'd had at the age of 13. "The internet held such secrets. All he had to do was uncover them." As he soon found, there were plenty of people working to uncover them all the time, and willing to share their methods — for a price.... Realizing that a lot of the information social engineers used came from hacked databases, he began teaching himself to program, particularly to do the Structured Query Language injections and cross-site scripting that allowed him to attack companies' database architecture. The terabyte upon terabyte of databases he extracted, traded, and hoarded made him valuable to OGUsers as well as to others, like the Russian hackers he was able to converse with thanks to his fluency with his mother's native language... By the time he was 14, he tells me, "I think it's fair to say I had the capabilities to hack anyone."
The article describes him as "attending high school by day and extracting the source code of major corporations by night.... He was 14 years old and taken with the thrill of possessing a hidden superpower, of spending his nights secretly tapping into an underground world where he was esteemed and even feared. And then, in the morning, being called downstairs to breakfast." He wrote a Python script to comb through social media networks and seek out any mentions of working for a [cellphone] carrier. Then he'd reach out with an offer of compensation for helping him with a task. Every fifth or sixth person — underpaid and often working a short-term contract — would say they were game, as Pinsky tells it. For a couple hundred dollars' worth of bitcoin, they'd be willing to do a SIM swap, no questions asked. Eventually, Pinsky says, he had employees at every major carrier also working for him. Then the stakes got even higher. It was only a matter of time before OG hackers, known to each other as "the Community," realized that if they could use the SIM-swapping method to steal usernames, they could just as easily use it to steal cryptocurrency...
In one massive heist Pinksky stole 10% of all the Trigger altcoins on the market from crypto impresario Michael Terpin. ("As Pinsky's money launderers were converting it, the market was crashing in real time.") Pinsky recruited a crew to launder the money — at least one of which simply kept it — but even with all the conversion fees, he still made off with millions. And then... For a while, he half-expected the FBI to knock on his door at any moment, just like in the movies; but as time passed, he grew less anxious.... He says he moved on to learning different types of programming. He ran a sneaker business that used bots and scripts to snap up limited pairs then flip them... He went to soccer practice. He and his friends had started hanging out with girls on the weekend, driving down to the docks where you could see the glowing lights from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Until Terpin figured out it was Pinsky who'd robbed him: Pinsky and his legal team preempted his arrest by contacting the U.S. attorney directly and offering his cooperation. In February 2020, he voluntarily returned every last thing he says he got from the Terpin heist: 562 bitcoins, the Patek watch, and the cash he'd stored in the safe under his bed.... When I ask if he has also worked with the FBI to help bring down other hackers, he blinks quickly and then changes the subject.
Pinsky has not been criminally charged — partly because he was a minor, but also because of his cooperation with law enforcement. But filing a civil suit, Terpin wants to be compensated with triple the amount stolen, arguing that the teenager who robbed him was running an organized crime racket and that he should be heavily punished to set an example.
Rolling Stone's article raisees the question: what should happen next?
He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:3, Interesting)
A guy with a mind like that doesn't do us all any good in jail.
I'd say his power should be used for good in bargaining for his freedom, there's a cyberwar going on, various countries and evil individuals and corporations even trying to manipulate the worlds governments to favor their own. I'd say put him on our team and let him do some good, he is still a kid and needs to learn from his mistakes, but also get a chance to be brilliant and use his power for something that can help us all.
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What makes you think the FBI is ethical enough to handle such a charge competently? What makes you think they're competent enough to stop him from backdooring their own shit in the process?
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I'll believe that when my rapist murderer parents are in jail.
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That's a strong accusation to make. Naturally, you've charged your parents in the civil courts with sexual offences and wrongful death, and we can see the judgement for ourselves.
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Well, when I realized what they'd been doing to me (they used date-rape drugs heavily) it was years later, and I also realized I didn't know which set of them it was; they had been swapping places with several look-alike sets of Russian spies too. So of course I went straight to the FBI because, you know... treason, national security threat, etc. The FBI GLOATED ABOUT BEING IN ON IT. Then I remembered I'd tried this several times before... believe that? No, of course you won't.
Re:He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:5, Interesting)
He's old enough to know right from wrong and went to extremes to avoid detection. His crimes were not petty in any sense, and were planned and organized. He feared retribution. He created nothing of value, but acted parasitically in multiple phases of his short career. He clearly understood he was acting in a sociopathic way. Rehabilitation is unlikely to reverse that sort of view. He is not an asset to society, and should be removed, permanently.
Treble damages is not unreasonable; that's what we all wail for here against corporations when they make egregious mistakes.
Re: He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because your door is unlocked doesn't make the person who steals your stuff any less of a piece of shit. That says something about your character that you would blame the victim. I guess it's also the girls fault when she gets raped because she dressed too slutty in your mind.
Re: He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:1)
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Treble damages is not unreasonable; that's what we all wail for here against corporations when they make egregious mistakes.
Dude got his $23.8M back. He's a fucking multi-millionaire and he wants triple that? From a 15-year old kid? Sounds pretty greedy and unreasonable to me.
Kid could've taken the money, cut all ties to his former life, and run. With that much money and brains, he could've bought himself a whole new identity and disappeared forever.
Instead, he did the "right thing" and voluntarily returned everything. Clearly, he's not necessarily as sociopathic as you think.
Re: He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:3)
Wow, you people have a really loose definition of morals.
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Instead, he did the "right thing" and voluntarily returned everything. Clearly, he's not necessarily as sociopathic as you think.
He did the right thing? AFTER GETTING CAUGHT. Do you morons not know how to read, comprehend or anything anymore?
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He was not caught.
He turned himself in.
Do you moron actually even read the summary?
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Children cannot know right from wrong, regardless of their actions afterwards.
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tl;dr, why isn't he already the CEO of a Fortune 500?
Re:He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:4, Insightful)
He is a kid. Science has well documented that teen brains make bad decisions, its part of maturing. Do not treat this kid like an adult.
He did bad things, yes. He needs correction and a new direction. Prison will not bring an improvement in this kid or society here.
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He's old enough to know right from wrong and went to extremes to avoid detection. His crimes were not petty in any sense, and were planned and organized. He feared retribution. He created nothing of value, but acted parasitically in multiple phases of his short career. He clearly understood he was acting in a sociopathic way. Rehabilitation is unlikely to reverse that sort of view. He is not an asset to society, and should be removed, permanently.
Treble damages is not unreasonable; that's what we all wail for here against corporations when they make egregious mistakes.
Neither.
The kid is smart, probably "a good hire smart", but not "we can't find anyone else to do the job" smart. He was good at building and running an enterprise with questionable ethics, but that's not really a skill we want him using as an adult.
He was also just a teen who like most teens didn't fully understand the consequences. A teenager with bad judgment and bad ethics doesn't always mature into the same person. With rehabilitation he can probably become a well functioning member of society.
Treble damages is not unreasonable; that's what we all wail for here against corporations when they make egregious mistakes.
Applying
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Agreed. Unlike this case, when a corporation acts criminally it's a case of multiple adults who we may reasonably expect better of all choosing criminality with a full adult understanding of what they're doing.
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Toddlers also know they aren't supposed to snitch cookies but it happens. We know they are aware because they (unconvincingly) deny it afterward. Are you prepared to expand criminal history searches to cookie snitching? According to your claim that rehab, even of a youthful offender, is futile surely you would support that. If you snitched a cookie when you were 3, you can't be a CFO today.
There is a lot more meant by "knowing right from wrong" than literally knowing if you would be in trouble if someone fo
Re:He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Executions are, rightly IMO, banned in all but the most conservative of countries. Nevertheless, while the USA endorses the death penalty, maybe it should ensure that corruption of (or by) public officials carries such
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Executions are, rightly IMO, banned in all but the most conservative of countries. Nevertheless, while the USA endorses the death penalty, maybe it should ensure that corruption of (or by) public officials carries such a penalty. That would 'drain the swamp' faster than anything else I can think of; it may even lead a course back to democracy.
I might be American but don’t really endorse capital punishment. Some crimes, the very worst, are so bad that they don’t just impact one life, or a few people, but millions - tens of millions or more. A single person lacks the power, authority, and reach. An individual does not have the capacity on their own to even do such a thing. Leading is messy, involves hard compromises, and inevitably leads to some amount of casualty. However with the responsibility of office comes a burden of actin
That's not the reason (Score:1, Troll)
created an entire generation of people who had nothing but government mistrust... which is one of the reasons why we are in such a shitty situation in the US.
No, we are in such a shitty situation only because not nearly ENOUGH people learned to mistrust the government, and thus kept voting in people that increased government power.
If you think what we need now is even MORE government, you not only are not paying attention but are part of the problem.
Re: That's not the reason (Score:2)
Re: He wouldn't be any good in Jail. (Score:1)
So you want 60 millions from me? (Score:3)
How much is the cost for the average hired assassin in your country?
Asking for a friend.
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Sounds like a case for https://rentahitman.com/ [rentahitman.com] !
(Note: It's a legit site... sorta. Just looks bad to have in your history.)
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I'll browse it from our company VPN. Have them deal with the questions.
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Go for it. It should be trivial to find an IT security expert with 20 years experience and a background in finance and law that cheap to replace me in this economy.
Triple money back? (Score:3)
Re:Triple money back? (Score:5, Insightful)
A scammer doesn't like it when another scammer scams him. That's why he wants the kid roundly punished.
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Let's take a look at what's on the table. He wants about 60 millions from someone who has build a criminal network as a 15 year old, via the internet. Who probably has contacts with people who I wouldn't want to meet even if I could pay them.
I would be VERY surprised if his reaction is not a mail to someone saying something along the lines of "Here's a million. Rig it so he has an accident. Or commits suicide. Or vanishes. Or get creative."
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I would be VERY surprised if his reaction is not a mail to someone saying something along the lines of "Here's a million. Rig it so he has an accident. Or commits suicide. Or vanishes. Or get creative."
I would be very surprised indeed. He sounds like a typical slimy small business man that would know the going rate is at most 50k for that kind of hit job. Overpaying 20 times is not in his MO.
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It's a bit more expensive to make it looks like it wasn't a hit job, something you'd want if it's plain obvious that you're number one on the suspect list if he ends up with a hole in his head. What you want is someone who can make it look like an accident, or, which would probably work better in this case, look like the target wanted to vanish and took steps to cover his tracks when he ducked out.
Or so I heard.
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For 2-5k you get cousin Jack's friend Bob who will shoot your husband. And with a hint of luck lethally so, but I wouldn't count on it, he just bought his gun with those 2k you fronted him.
We need something way, way more sophisticated than that.
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Prices shift pretty rapidly depending on the market-- there was a case a few years ago where somebody offered a hitman ~250k to kill a business rival...
Who outsourced it to another hitman.
Who outsourced it to another hitman.
Who outsourced it to another hitman.
Who outsourced it to another hitman, for around 15k. They contacted the target and came to some kind of a deal where the target would supply photos faking their death and lie low for a bit. The target eventually contacted the police, and all 5+1 people
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Re:Triple money back? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Who probably has contacts with people who I wouldn't want to meet even if I could pay them.
He has contacts with a bunch of other script kiddies also hiding out at their parents house trying not to get caught. Give me a break. Not one of these supposed internet hackers looks or acts like a gangster IRL. He is a fucking high school kid that put on hacker big boy pants for a bit of fun and got caught.
https://worldstopinsider.com/m... [worldstopinsider.com]
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Let's take a look at what's on the table. He wants about 60 millions from someone who has build a criminal network as a 15 year old, via the internet. Who probably has contacts with people who I wouldn't want to meet even if I could pay them.
I would be VERY surprised if his reaction is not a mail to someone saying something along the lines of "Here's a million. Rig it so he has an accident. Or commits suicide. Or vanishes. Or get creative."
The kid, as the TFA points out, has more to worry about than a lawsuit. He walked away from serious prison time by cooperating; so some of those very same people are either upset he turned on them and caused them problems, or concerned he may turn them in as well. Either way, those very same people who made money off his hacks are likely to see him as liability and won't bother with niceties like a lawsuit.
He wants to be etch entrepreneur. I wonder how he'll react when he gets hacked?
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Look, he said Rolling Stone "raisees the question" [sic]. What more do you want from an editor?
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It must be a compound word. :)
Rolling Stone "sees" the question and "raises" it - mix them up and "raisees" comes up
Hold on just one minute here (Score:4, Funny)
Cryptocurrency is anonymous and secure!
This has to be a fake story.
Certainly, all those many who pushed cryptocurrency as being anonymous and secure couldn't all have been lying.
Re:Hold on just one minute here (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I know your comment is marked as funny but it is worth pointing out that his scams relied upon social engineering and SIM swapping.
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> it is worth pointing out that his scams relied upon social engineering and SIM swapping.
I don't mean to be trite, but I do not see your point.
The GP "funny" post was funny only in pointing out that cryptocurrency is - as the story pointed out - neither completely anonymous nor secure. The fact that the security breached was not the crypto itself is irrelevant. A hole at one point voided all the other security.
Oblig XKCD [xkcd.com]
Fake 9mm (Score:2)
If you go creeping around WV with a fake gun you'll get your head blown off.
A Kid Indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
There always, always is someone smarter than you.
Now the underworld does not trust him and no employer with sound background checks will hire him. Time to sweep the streets or to enlist in the French Foreign Legion. Is he fit for service?
Re:A Kid Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there's always someone smarter, but it's not a level playing field.
Defensive security is like a chain, it's only as strong as its weakest link. If the admin screws up, you lose. If the programmer screws up, you lose. If the user has a lapse of judgment, you lose.
Defense requires continual vigilance that hacking does not. While persistence is a big asset for a hacker, he can take a break anytime he wants to. Whatever oversight he's going to find will likely be there next week.
Re: A Kid Indeed (Score:2)
I know a guy who thinks he's the smartest person he knows. He's the biggest fool I know.
Crypto isn't real (Score:2)
What crime was committed? Someone scammed another scammer. That's just called justice. We shouldn't be wasting government resources on prosecuting such bullshit.
Good Luck WIth That (Score:2)
Good luck suing this minor child, who has no assets.
(The parents can't be sued in this case, because he engaged in willful and wanton misconduct that was beyond their responsibility. But even if they were liable for negligent supervision, they don't have any assets, either.)
He will likely have a court appointed lawyer to be his "friend". And he'll need representation after the case is done, too, but someone will do that pro-bono. Nothing in his life will change.
It might be easy to win a case against this bo
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I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you, but bankruptcy [wikipedia.org] isn't the magic bullet you think it is. Fines and restitution relating to any criminal actions by the debtor aren't discharged in this type of proceeding
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What he really wants (Score:2)
A rich American screams 'victim' and 'tough on crime' after he gets his money back: What he really wants is making a profit from being careless and greedy.
Translation: I have altered the deal. Pray, I don't alter it further.
Probably, the NSA will hire him. (Score:2)
They would never let talent like this go to waste, and the government can always use another talented hacker.
Why stealing? Better investing (Score:1)