January 24, 1997, Il Gazzettino, Venezia: He Alerted the FBI in the USA

Ha Allertato l’FBI in USA - Maxitruffa via <<Internet>> scoperta da un mestrino
He Alerted the FBI in the USA - Maxi Swindle via Internet Discovered by Mestrian

By Elisio Trevisan

Internet like the 144 (note: 144 is the Italian equivalent of a 900 toll call area code)? It was an inter-swindle (or international swindle) that probably earned the perpetrators millions, tax free, and tricked a sea of cheated “navigators”.

And uncovering it - blocking the illicit traffic that originated from the States - is a young man from Mestre, 22 years old. A young man who, however, began tapping at a keyboard from the age of 5.

Roberto Capodieci, as soon as he recognized the fraud, did not call the Carabinieri official below his apartment, but instead contacted the FBI directly, with the department that handles crimes committed electronically.

To simplify - though things didn’t happen immediately - you connect to an American address which gave you a free, seemingly innocuous little program enabling you to see and hear the photos and sounds of that site better. Without giving you time to realize it (because, among other things, it lowered the volume of your modem to zero), it disconnected you from the Internet and re-launched a connection via an international phone prefix (remember the famous 144?). You could discover the trick… but always too late. That is, when you got your phone bill, you would be very fortunate if the amount was only near a million lire [US$500].

“Be aware that in ‘your house’ there is some DRITTO that is tricking everyone, spying on thousands of people who are connected to the Internet,” Capodieci wrote to the FBI. Then he explained the swindle with files and signals, and gave the coordinates to retrace the sly perpetrators. And they were stopped.

After some days he went to recheck the incriminated site. And he discovered that the FBI had already intervened.

Science Fiction? No, simply more virtual crimes committed, however, by real people who, in the end, were pocketing real big bucks.

But what did Roberto Capodieci uncover? The Mestrian became aware that in his computer - connected to the network - “unauthorized” strangers were trying to get in.

“I’ve navigated the Internet for many years by now, so in my PC I’ve installed a series of security measures that let me know about the trick in time. But, usually, even a half-expert can fall into a trap without knowing it,” explains Capodieci.

“Sometimes they are really underhanded: you copy a program and automatically - while the message “loading, please wait” appears - they disconnect you and tie you in through an international phone prefix/area code; in this case I uncovered a 1-900 number (like our 144). In other cases, they offer you a more-or-less free service and, while you load the program to access the service, they disconnect you from the Internet.”

And the FBI, what did it do? “I don’t know yet precisely how they did it. However, now, at that address there appears a screen with a little script that says ‘Attention: the program that you load disconnects you from the Internet and connects you through a toll call number to our databases’. And, considering all the possible tricks, it is one of the most simpleminded because the creators had their base in the United States. To avoid any control, it would have been enough to transfer to any little country, like the Dominican Republic, where there are no existing laws and much less chance of getting checked.”