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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Highway robbery 

Via Techdirt, a story from the Wired Threat Level blog about Computer Phreaks (Russian programmers, actually) who ran a three-year, $500K man-in-the-middle scam against American trucking companies:
For over three years the Russian immigrants repeatedly hacked a Department of Transportation website called Safersys.org, which maintains a list of licensed interstate trucking companies and brokers.... There, the pair would temporarily change the contact information for a legitimate trucking company to an address and phone number under their control.

The men then took to the web-based "load boards" where brokers advertise cargo in need of transportation. They'd negotiate a deal, for example, to transport cargo from American Canyon, California, to Jessup, Maryland, for $3,500.

But instead of transporting the load, Lakes and Berkovich would outsource the job to another trucking company, the feds say, posing as the legitimate company whose identity they'd hijacked. Once the cargo was delivered, the men allegedly invoiced their customer and pocketed the funds. But when the company that actually drove the truck tried to get paid, they'd eventually discover that the firm who'd supposedly hired them didn't know anything about it.

This must happen all the time in Alpha Complex. High Programmers wage entire wars of supply interdiction, completely invisible to the unwitting populace -- until suddenly, one morning, an entire sector abruptly collapses. Or a team of Troubleshooters in a Straight campaign might innocently carry out a long sequence of missions for The Computer, only to discover The Computer didn't dispatch those missions, never made those citizens Troubleshooters, and in fact has no idea who they -- crap! Even as I type those words, I see that's basically the mission premise PARANOIA has used for over two decades, since Vapors Don't Shoot Back if not even earlier....
Posted by: Allen Varney / 1:22 PM

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