Fergie's Tech Blog

Man Carged With Selling Hacked VoIP Services

Ingenious, but (obviously, and needless to say) illegal.

Robert McMillan writes on InfoWorld:

A Miami man was charged Wednesday with stealing more than 10 million minutes of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone service and then selling them to unsuspecting customers for as little as US$0.004 per minute.

Edwin Pena paid a Washington State computer hacker named Robert Moore about $20,000 to help him illegally route Internet telephone calls through the networks of more than 15 unnamed VOIP companies, according to criminal complaints made available by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Pena presented himself as a legitimate telecommunications wholesaler, while at the same time using hacking techniques to steal networking services valued at as much as $300,000 from each of the carriers.

"They had hoped they had engineered a brilliant toll-free calling network for themselves," said Newark FBI Special Agent Charge Leslie Wiser Jr. in the statement. "They hoped wrong."

posted by Fergie @ 6/07/2006 05:48:00 PM