The Pebble and the Avalanche

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Current Revolutions in Business and Technology

by Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky,

author of The Pebble and The Avalanche: How Taking Things Apart Creates Revolutions

 

Mon, 2006-Oct-23, 17:23

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Hostile Takeover

Here's an article about a hostile takeover of some "hacker" web sites — actually, web sites used by criminals to trade stolen credit-card data — by another criminal who simply stole all the data. I can't really feel sorry for anyone except the victims of the credit card fraud.

This story struck home for two reasons. First, I had a bit of a scare over the weekend about an unexplained credit-card charge; given the compromise of the Investor's Business Daily subscription database, I worried that data had fallen into the wrong hands. In the end, I discovered that the charge was legitimate.

Second, the sheer audacity of thieves and spammers. A spam post to another blog — one I don't manage, but one to which I consult and contribute — advertised bogus credit-card numbers. I have to admit that it's beyond me why anyone would purchase fake credit-card numbers from a spammer, but I suppose there's one born every minute.

My thanks to Bruce Schneier for bringing this article to my attention.

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