Romanian Fraudster, Vladuz, Arrested Thursday Morning

Jason ElderOn 04.17.2008 at 10:34 pm Said:

Excellent Blog. I’ve been reading along and just wanted to say hi. I will be reading more of your posts in the future.

- Jason.

Patricia 1On 04.17.2008 at 10:51 pm Said:

Wonderful news!

JamieOn 04.18.2008 at 1:39 am Said:

Good news indeed, but you have to worry that one man’s loss is another man’s game. There will always be another criminal looking to exploit a new opportunity sadly.

JJHOn 04.18.2008 at 4:37 am Said:

It’s only good news if they lock him up. Do you trust the Romanian Govt?

SandiOn 04.18.2008 at 1:51 pm Said:

Isn’t he the person who hacked into ebay last summer and posted user real names, personal info and credit card numbers on the Trust and Safety Discussion Boards?

If he is that individual, why not just say he had been causing nightmares to ebay for an extended time, forcing them to shut down areas of their website from time to time, that ebay had been diligent contacting members affected so they could protect themselves.

I mean, here we are getting all these changes to improve transparency? Does transparency not apply to ebay itself?

Vladuz had been successful in fact, he often bragged about his successes, last summer’s posting directly on the boards was an example of such.

In the programming world it is common knowledge any site can be hacked if a person is intent on doing so. Some are easier than others of course.

Maybe it is just me, but it would seem if one is more forthcoming, it would improve user morale and trust. After all ebay is not the only major site targeted by hackers. Microsoft, Yahoo, international banks all have had similar incidents.

eBay is in need of rebuilding trust, here was a great opportunity, but they opted to let it pass.

No site can offer 100% protection, to promise such is a equally wrong because member/user’s always need to remain diligent themselves. Giving false sense of security simply creates new victims.

I personally would have loved to see a press release saying something like,

“After causing eBay’s Trust & Safety team a year of sleepless nights, Vladuz was captured today…blah, blah”

I am certain the sense of elation was intense, I am certain all involved had worked on capturing him diligently. Why isn’t it acceptable to express the true sense of sentiments? Why can’t a company like ebay be brave enough to state the obvious?

Regardless, congratulations to all who I am certain worked very hard to get this person.

implogOn 04.18.2008 at 3:59 pm Said:

@Sandi

You wrote;

“Isn’t he the person who hacked into ebay last summer and posted user real names, personal info and credit card numbers on the Trust and Safety Discussion Boards?”

Yep. The same guy.

Search vladuz on youtube to see screen shots and comments concerning the hacks.

Vladuz even hacked the eBay account of a member of eBay’s legal team then posted the attorney’s personal info on his ME page.

SandiOn 04.18.2008 at 6:28 pm Said:

@implog

I know:-) I was just trying to word it nicely for Richard.

He’s the new guy and he keeps publishing the ebay press releases. I am guessing he hasn’t figured out they are usually incorrect, and/or leave out significant information.

It was the (ultimately unsuccessfuly) that irked me. As you stated, all you have to do is a Google search and you can see just how “unsuccessful” he was.

Two weeks is a little fast to differentiate between fact & fantasy I suppose.

(BTW unsuccessfully is misspelled, personally I can spell, I just can’t type, - I appreciate kindred typist)