Anyone watch Scambaiter?

[GamerBlake]

I was browsing for something to watch on YouTube and I came across a channel called Scambaiter.

 

It’s a Russian guy with very high level hacking skills but who is a white hack hacker who uses his hacking skills to help people rather than hurt them.

 

Most of his videos are him targeting the computers of Indian scammers and deleting all of their files and loading up dozens of malware programs onto their computers so they have to completely reinstall Windows if they want their computers back which results in all of the information on their victims being deleted. From name & address to credit card and social security number. Gone.

 

What I found most heartwarming is that he is a Russian and he intervened MANY times to prevent American senior citizens from being scammed.

 

Sometimes he would call them but often they wouldn’t answer so he opens up notepad on their computer and types “You are being scammed. Hang up the phone. These are Indian scammers and they are not employees of Amazon like they claim. I know you are confused but I promise I am trying to help you. Call me at (phone number) and I will explain everything to you.”

 

 

Idk I just found it very heartwarming to see a Russian hacker going out of his way to not just protect American senior citizens but also to use his skills to get payback on the scammers.

 

 

Especially when you hear an 83 year old woman with tears in her eyes thanking him for saving her from the scammers because she was about to go spend $2,000 on Amazon, Best Buy, Target, CVS gift cards.

 

I highly recommend checking out his channel! It’s pretty cool.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Off Topic

[tikker]

12 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

It’s a Russian guy with very high level hacking skills but who is a white hack hacker who uses his hacking skills to help people rather than hurt them.

They're still a black hat hacker doing this, or gray hat at best (unless you meant his actual job is a white hat hacker).

 

I don't watch their channel, but I enjoy listening to kitboga wasting the scammer's time every now and then.

[adarw]

3 minutes ago, tikker said:

They're still a black hat hacker doing this, or gray hat at best (unless you meant his actual job is a white hat hacker).

 

I don't watch their channel, but I enjoy listening to kitboga wasting the scammer's time every now and then.

if you steal for the thief, are you a thief?

[tikker]

1 minute ago, adarw said:

if you steal for the thief, are you a thief?

Stealing for someone definitely makes you a thief   I assume you meant stealing from a thief, in which case also yes (at least over here). In this case, he does not have permission to access their systems, deletes their files and loads it up with malware. That is all with malicious intent.

[adarw]

Just now, tikker said:

Stealing for someone definitely makes you a thief   I assume you meant stealing from a thief, in which case also yes (at least over here). In this case, he does not have permission to access their systems, deletes their files and loads it up with malware. That is all with malicious intent.

oops my bad, meant from.

 

but a argue someone could say is that he is stop people from geting scamed.

[tikker]

49 minutes ago, adarw said:

oops my bad, meant from.

 

but a argue someone could say is that he is stop people from geting scamed.

True, but there you get in the whole vigilante and taking the law in your own hands territory. It might be for the right reasons, but in the end you are still breaking the law. It could also have unintended side effects. What if the scammer transfers infected files to the target's computer? What if the malware spreads to the target's computer once there is a remote connection?

[GamerBlake]

2 hours ago, tikker said:

They're still a black hat hacker doing this, or gray hat at best (unless you meant his actual job is a white hat hacker).

 

I don't watch their channel, but I enjoy listening to kitboga wasting the scammer's time every now and then.

How so?

 

From what I’ve seen he simply warns the victims that they are being scammed.

 

Sometimes it’s funny because they won’t answer their phone so he will open up Notepad on the victims PC and begin typing: “You are being scammed. Hang up the phone. The people you are talking too are not Amazon. They are scammers calling you from India.”

[GamerBlake]

2 hours ago, adarw said:

if you steal for the thief, are you a thief?

But he doesn’t steal from them. He just intervenes to prevent old people from being scammed.

[GamerBlake]

5 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Off Topic

I am confused. What’s the difference between General Discussion and Off Topic?

 

Shouldn’t General Discussion mean it’s for chatting about whatever?

[tikker]

11 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

I am confused. What’s the difference between General Discussion and Off Topic?

 

Shouldn’t General Discussion mean it’s for chatting about whatever?

General Discussion: Come hang out and discuss tech related content!

Off Topic: Discussion - Non-tech related content only please!

 

"Whatever" falls in the second category

13 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

How so?

 

From what I’ve seen he simply warns the victims that they are being scammed.

 

Sometimes it’s funny because they won’t answer their phone so he will open up Notepad on the victims PC and begin typing: “You are being scammed. Hang up the phone. The people you are talking too are not Amazon. They are scammers calling you from India.”

Well because according to you he is

15 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

deleting all of their files and loading up dozens of malware programs onto their computers so they have to completely reinstall Windows if they want their computers back which results in all of the information on their victims being deleted.

As I said above, good cause or not, they are breaking the law by hacking a computer that is not theirs and they do not have permission for to hack.

[LogicalDrm]

15 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

I am confused. What’s the difference between General Discussion and Off Topic?

 

Shouldn’t General Discussion mean it’s for chatting about whatever?

General Discussion is dedicated on tech topics that don't fit anywhere else. Off Topic is more relaxed.
Your subject here is mainly about scamming scammers and YouTube channel(s) doing it. Only tech portion here is that both scam and counter-scam are done with tech tools. With main thing still just being appreciation of the creator. Hence, Off Topic.

[GamerBlake]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

General Discussion is dedicated on tech topics that don't fit anywhere else. Off Topic is more relaxed.
Your subject here is mainly about scamming scammers and YouTube channel(s) doing it. Only tech portion here is that both scam and counter-scam are done with tech tools. With main thing still just being appreciation of the creator. Hence, Off Topic.

Oh ok sorry about that. I thought it was tech related since it was about white hat hacking. It won’t happen again I promise.

[GamerBlake]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

General Discussion: Come hang out and discuss tech related content!

Off Topic: Discussion - Non-tech related content only please!

 

"Whatever" falls in the second category

Well because according to you he is

As I said above, good cause or not, they are breaking the law by hacking a computer that is not theirs and they do not have permission for to hack.

Fair point. I get what you’re saying but according to Scambaiter he reported all this stuff to the Indian Cybercrime Police along with all the information he collected while hacking them and they thanked him for it and moved to arrest the scammers so I assumed it was legal if the Indian police thanked him for it.

[For Science!]

2 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

How so?

 

From what I’ve seen he simply warns the victims that they are being scammed.

 

Sometimes it’s funny because they won’t answer their phone so he will open up Notepad on the victims PC and begin typing: “You are being scammed. Hang up the phone. The people you are talking too are not Amazon. They are scammers calling you from India.”

If he hacked the scammers with the intent of disclosing to them their security flaws and with the aim of patching it up, then this would be considered white hat hacking. What you present is simply vigilante justice, which in itself is a debatable subject.

[GamerBlake]

27 minutes ago, For Science! said:

If he hacked the scammers with the intent of disclosing to them their security flaws and with the aim of patching it up, then this would be considered white hat hacking. What you present is simply vigilante justice, which in itself is a debatable subject.

But is it vigilante if he uses that information he gathers to report them to the Indian Cybercrime Police and they thank him for what he did?

 

That is what is confusing me because it seems like he is helping them do their job.

 

Also if he is Russian maybe it’s legal in Russia? Idk I’m just saying that if you have police in any country thanking you for something you did it seems like it can’t be illegal since police don’t usually thank people for committing crimes.

[For Science!]

3 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

But is it vigilante if he uses that information he gathers to report them to the Indian Cybercrime Police and they thank him for what he did?

 

That is what is confusing me because it seems like he is helping them do their job.

 

Also if he is Russian maybe it’s legal in Russia? Idk I’m just saying that if you have police in any country thanking you for something you did it seems like it can’t be illegal since police don’t usually thank people for committing crimes.

Gray zone imo, its still vigilante as he does not have legal authority to conduct the searches, and this demonstrates more of the lack of resources of the Indian Cybercrime Police than legitimizing his means. I am sure if he did the same for example to expose malpractice within the Cybercrime Police unit (for example) they would not be thanking him, despite it is the same task and process.

 

And no, you cannot infiltrate another persons computer legally across borders.

[GamerBlake]

4 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Gray zone imo, its still vigilante as he does not have legal authority to conduct the searches, and this demonstrates more of the lack of resources of the Indian Cybercrime Police than legitimizing his means. I am sure if he did the same for example to expose malpractice within the Cybercrime Police unit (for example) they would not be thanking him, despite it is the same task and process.

 

And no, you cannot infiltrate another persons computer legally across borders.

Ah ok I didn’t know that.

 

Im not trying to argue or be confrontational or belligerent but I’m just curious..

 

What about YouTube? He has over 900K subscribers and I’ve seen them take down videos that violate their TOS (such as videos of illegal activity) but all of his videos are still up.

 

There’s a few other guys named Lewis’s Tech and Jim Browning who do the same thing and they both have millions of viewers.

 

I guess I just assumed it was legal to watch because it was on YouTube and came up as “Recommended for You”.

 

I am guessing it’s because I watch alot of TechQuickie and Linus Tech Tips.

[For Science!]

18 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

Ah ok I didn’t know that.

 

Im not trying to argue or be confrontational or belligerent but I’m just curious..

 

What about YouTube? He has over 900K subscribers and I’ve seen them take down videos that violate their TOS (such as videos of illegal activity) but all of his videos are still up.

 

There’s a few other guys named Lewis’s Tech and Jim Browning who do the same thing and they both have millions of viewers.

 

I guess I just assumed it was legal to watch because it was on YouTube and came up as “Recommended for You”.

 

I am guessing it’s because I watch alot of TechQuickie and Linus Tech Tips.

Legal to watch, sure, but don't take what YouTube leaves up to be the word of the law, they only recently started taking down COVID-19 misinformation. Whether what they do is legal is gray zone imo. If they did what they did to an "ordinary" citizen, I think you would agree that this would be frowned upon. And even if they were criminals, you still as an ordinary citizen should not be breaking into their PCs.

 

If you toned down the tech a little bit, imagine if an ordinary citizen was tapping phone lines of "potential" drug dealers, and happens to land on a drug deal, and so informs the police. I think you would agree thats a bit iffy, even if the ordinary citizen was "100%" sure this was a drug dealers house. This is vigilante justice, and the police really ought to punish the phone tapper too, but you can imagine it will be praised in the local newspaper, and thats it. Sometimes even in this time and age, vigilante justice is praised and upheld.

[GamerBlake]

46 minutes ago, For Science! said:

Legal to watch, sure, but don't take what YouTube leaves up to be the word of the law, they only recently started taking down COVID-19 misinformation. Whether what they do is legal is gray zone imo. If they did what they did to an "ordinary" citizen, I think you would agree that this would be frowned upon. And even if they were criminals, you still as an ordinary citizen should not be breaking into their PCs.

 

If you toned down the tech a little bit, imagine if an ordinary citizen was tapping phone lines of "potential" drug dealers, and happens to land on a drug deal, and so informs the police. I think you would agree thats a bit iffy, even if the ordinary citizen was "100%" sure this was a drug dealers house. This is vigilante justice, and the police really ought to punish the phone tapper too, but you can imagine it will be praised in the local newspaper, and thats it. Sometimes even in this time and age, vigilante justice is praised and upheld.

You’re right it is iffy when you put it like that.

 

But on the other hand would it be wrong if someone hacked into someone’s computer and found child pornography and reported it to the police?

 

I guess it all depends on the motivation and how the person did it.

 

In the videos I’ve seen the hacker is only able to gain access because the scammer tries to scam by insisting the victim download AnyDesk/TeamViewer and then he uses those programs the scammer insists the victim download to reverse the connection and do his thing.

 

If the scammer hadn’t told the potential victim to download those programs the hacker would’ve never been able to gain access in the first place. So basically it’s just the hacker is using the scammers own tactics against them. Instead of the scammer taking control of the victims computer it’s flipped and the victim takes control of the scammer’s computer.

 

Because the victim isn’t giving permission to the scammer to access their computer either.

 

Idk to me I just find it infuriating to hear these calls of scammers trying to steal from old people and the mentally disabled.

 

According to the hacker the average age of the victims was 72 and that really angers me.

[whm1974]

25 minutes ago, GamerBlake said:

You’re right it is iffy when you put it like that.

 

But on the other hand would it be wrong if someone hacked into someone’s computer and found child pornography and reported it to the police?

How do the Police know that "Someone" didn't upload Child porn on the Hacked Computer?

[tikker]

10 hours ago, For Science! said:

If he hacked the scammers with the intent of disclosing to them their security flaws and with the aim of patching it up, then this would be considered white hat hacking. What you present is simply vigilante justice, which in itself is a debatable subject.

More "gray" hat I think unless he had the scammer's permission to go and check?

10 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

But is it vigilante if he uses that information he gathers to report them to the Indian Cybercrime Police and they thank him for what he did?

 

That is what is confusing me because it seems like he is helping them do their job.

The difference is that it's (presumably) not his job to do. It's like if you would now go outside and started arresting people and bringing them to jail (citizen's arrests aside). You don't have the authority to do so s that's the job of the police.

10 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

Also if he is Russian maybe it’s legal in Russia? Idk I’m just saying that if you have police in any country thanking you for something you did it seems like it can’t be illegal since police don’t usually thank people for committing crimes.

Muddy waters I'd say. You might have stopped some scams and they may thank you out of courtesy, but that doesn't change the fact you still hacked someone else's computer, in a foreign country of all things, which is illegal.

9 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

You’re right it is iffy when you put it like that.

 

But on the other hand would it be wrong if someone hacked into someone’s computer and found child pornography and reported it to the police?

 

I guess it all depends on the motivation and how the person did it.

You'd may get charged for hacking and an investigation against both of your involvement would be started. Who's to say you didn't plant the compromising material? The fact that you hacked the machine before reporting it will first draw suspicion to you. Motivation might affect judgement, but doesn't change the fact that you still broke laws.

9 hours ago, GamerBlake said:

Because the victim isn’t giving permission to the scammer to access their computer either.

Exactly, but neither do you have permission to access theirs unless you are law enforcement or some other entity with the authority to do so.