Seldom told are the greatest hacks. The kind of hacks where nobody gets harmed, and where everyone involved becomes better for them. Such hacks have unfolded in the digital world. If, by some luck, such stories do make the airwaves, they are almost exclusively detailed by Crown prosecutors at trial and to the presiding judge. In such instances, a judge’s courtroom becomes the equivalent of a premier screening for a Hollywood movie. But these stories are better because they are not written, and because the individuals involved can be so eccentric that actors would refuse to play them because of how unbelievable they are. That said, not all hacks go to trial.
Some hacks are more complicated than others. Some hacks might have no “reasonable prospect of conviction”. Prosecuting them would do more harm than good, so prosecuting them falls into the grey space of not being “in the public interest”. Because not all “hacks” are same. Ever so rarely, such a story will end up skipping its big screen premiere in favour of a straight-to-DVD release, directly into the public domain.
A few trailers before the film starts.
Recently, I found myself talking about the digital world and cyber security and some of the exploits from around 15 years ago. One of the stories I told referenced how a fellow high schooler had set up an illegal underground radio and the sequence of events that transpired. After sharing that story, I encouraged listeners to reach out to any friends they might have that work in policing or public safety, in this case the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), or the Ottawa Police Service (OPS), and to ask them to validate the details of the 2009/10 story. Before I could finish the suggestion, I heard, “That is -so and so’s- boy. I knew of that incident, but not all the details.” Because none of my stories are embellished and they are all 100% true.
As I have previously wrote in “The Craziness of the Digital World: Hacking and the Dark Web”, Canadians are the most eccentric, ballsiest, and greatest hackers to ever walk the digital world. Sure, there are some great YouTube videos and podcast episodes that detail other over-the-top hacks, like an Albanian-British teenager who hacked Rockstar and leaked promo material for Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6 because he was such a huge fan of the GTA series. Rockstar (who did not appreciate this fan’s approach to fanboying) got the FBI involved, and a British Court eventually sentenced the fanboy to life in a hospital prison, solely because the fanboy was mad and said he was going to hack again. The tit-for-tat escalation between the teenage hacker, Rockstar, international police agencies, and a British court belongs in an episode of Beavis and Butt-head (1993-2011) or a parallel universe of the film Dumb and Dumber (1994).
More recently, Jack Rhysider, creator of the investigative podcast Darknet Diaries, wrote about how a story he was told in the first year of his podcast “broke his brain.” A 17-year-old teenager shared all the illegal stuff that they were doing over the web, with Rhysider recording around 12 hours worth of conversations with the teen over the span of a few months. If Rhysider, who has heard it all, describes an interaction as breaking his brain and did not post about because it might romanticize crime, then it must have been crazy. But few stories, if any, can match the goody feel or reach the level of hilarity of some Canadian hacks, where everyone involved becomes better for them. And I have such a story. One I think might be one of the best to-be-told stories ever.
Imagine a plot that rivals Hollywood’s greatest thriller films, which involves another high schooler from Hillcrest High School, a school that only saw only one student get disciplined for taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of the OPS’ back-end webpage. In reality, there was another high schooler, who did not send silly emails between police brass, and who focused on gathering information in order to hack everyone from the Hell’s Angels in Ottawa to ethnic organized crime establishments and their associates.
“I am “in” the mafia”, code for successfully hacking organized criminal groups.
Remember the Hillcrest High School student who I wrote about having hacked into the Ottawa Police Service’s (OPS) network and snooping through the emails of police brass back in the Fall of 2010 during a grade 12 class taught at the school’s computer lab? Well, that high school hacker, Big Ross, went on to work on Wall Street in tech and cyber security. But Big Ross may not have been the first high schooler to discover that the login credentials of OPS personnel were publicly stored on the back end of their website and available to anyone who bothered to toggle the settings, nor were they the first student to do so from Hillcrest High School’s computer lab. There seems to have been another high schooler who had also been snooping around, who was around the same age, but who had predated Big Ross by around 2 years.
Between the Fall of 2008 and the Summer of 2009, that grade 12 student may have had a graduation motto that sounded something like, “’09, organized crime”. That was when, “I am “in” the mafia”, was code for having successfully hacked organized criminal groups after coming across persons of interest when browsing OPS communications. Back then, there were no operational rules around what sensitive information police personnel would share over email, and emails often contained names of confidential informants and details of organized criminal activity, but there were also details related to major undercover operations including illegal online gambling and other major drug operations – all related to organized crime. Some of the more interesting bits related to outlaw motorcycle gangs and ethnic crime groups, including Italian and South Asian organized crime.
Rumor has is that after canvassing much of the information on the OPS network, there were some Google searches for other information, with the high school detective eventually shifting their search from Ottawa to Hamilton and Niagara, as locations of interest. Thanks to more faulty back-end systems and software hacks, snooping around those emails uncovered more ethnic organized crime groups, including Serbian organized crime. The GTA-related discoveries involved limited edition super cars showing up in low-income communities, money laundering via racehorses, and more. Although all of those troublemaking Serbian-Canadians in the GTA eventually got brought to justice, the craziness of that GTA saga deserves its own standalone article, with some never before heard details.
But back to Ottawa. Only a place like Ottawa would have a high schooler who found themselves snooping around through a treasure trove of archives and using that knowledge to further Canadian national security interests, hacking organized criminal establishments, including clubhouses, restaurants, and other businesses.
Lo and behold, that high schooler, a Lincoln-loving Harley-hating marauder, was “in” the mafia, and “in” the Hell’s Angels too. So, did these networks have traces of drug contraband being smuggled between provinces by the way of private airports, because of the lack of security at private airports? You can bet your arse that they did.
What the little “Lincoln lawyer” had going for them was that they were not operationally bound by the courts, a situation that is every police officer’s wet dream. They found it quick to bypass the putrid security of the crummy Wi-Fi routers from the 2000s, or identify emails and IP addresses associated with their internet services, and backdooring into the network before saying, “Sono a casa.”
As it relates to Italian organized crime and getting into their networks, it was no different. There may have arisen an unexpected side-mission, however, one that involved filtering through the credentials of different people with accounts on an illegal online gambling website and a blank landing page that required a precise click to proceed. Intentional small nighttime bets may have been made on some of those accounts. Owners of those accounts may have even mentioned that they did not remember placing bets, but their group of friends would laugh at them and tell them they had a drinking problem. Perhaps they did have substance dependency struggles, but something tells me that was not the cause of “accidental bets”. But how much better would this story be if the “accidental bets” had been for tens of hundreds of dollars on the hundreds of accounts that existed?
Another outcome as a result of snooping around the networks of Italian organized crime was the creation of a communications web. A web that identified other business owners who were associating with those operating on the far-side of the law, and who were also caught up in the illegal online gambling phenomenon.
One of the more recognizable business owners gave his teenage son permission to use the illegal gambling website after someone had mentioned it to his son. The father did not want his son to hide bets from him and to develop an addiction to gambling, so he did what any father would do—told him to be transparent with it. Despite that it was supposed to stay a secret between father and son, that teenage boy went around trying to get his high school and post-secondary school friends to make bets because he would get a cut of around 40%, and to impress the babes and to pick-up “chicks”. Safe to say, thinking that it is possible to trust any adolescent boy that is going through puberty with something that could be leveraged as a “chick magnet” will never a good idea.
A lesser-known detail in this saga is an incident that could have changed how everything unfolded, a few months after Big Ross had been suspended for hacking into the OPS network, at the New Years Eve house party of a close friend in 2010. Now an OPS officer, the close friend, whose older brother and sister-in-law were OPS officers at the time, almost got this high schooler “busted”. During a shisha session in the garage, just before midnight, the topic of policing came up, and the little “Lincoln lawyer” started running his big mouth. “Well, I know that the OPS intentionally mishandled the evidence related to drug trafficking charges stemming from a drug raid at an ethnic Italian restaurant because they got the business owner to snitch on everyone else….” The garage became full of shocked faces, with the off-duty OPS officers shooting out questions like, “Who told you that?” and “Are you friends with the Hillcrest High School hacker?” But close-call sequences are the staple of every great thriller film.
Emails. Faulty back-end systems. Blotchy software.
After acquiring blotchy software and targeting the “baddest of the bad”, only to find out that many were quite insecure, some of the “worst” were playing both sides. All their confidence stemmed from being confidential informants. Those individuals were pathetic people who were given a free pass to do what they wanted, for cooperating with police. However, those undercover operations were often left uncontained and innocent Ottawa residents continued to get caught up in the mess, including minors.
Slowly building a dossier on Ottawa’s underworld, the high school hacker, now a first-year university (Nursing) student, submitted an application to CSIS. If you are wondering who the hell decides to study Nursing and gets cold feet less than two months into the program, it definitely is not Gaylord “Greg” Focker. However, the final question on that CSIS application should provide some closure, which included a blank area that was designed for an essay-type answer, which the little “Honest Abe” completed by writing what might be the single greatest sentence ever written in job application history, “I hate criminals”.
Overall, the major takeaway from snooping on organized crime circles in Ottawa might be that big-time police investigations have almost never prioritized containing harms and preventing them from spilling out and harming others. Because these big-time police investigations are so secretive, nobody ever shares specifics about the extent of the new cycle of victims that are created. Instead, the public only ever receives generic responses from police stakeholders about how everything is going well. Legislators, who do not know any better, are led to believe all is great. As a result, what needs to get changed does not change until the chickens come home to roost, and after damage to the institution of policing has already been done.
As crazy as this story sounds (I still have a few that top this one), it is one that can be found in the annals of all policing and public safety stakeholders in Canada. All of them are aware of it. They are quite furious with the Lincoln-loving Harley-hating marauder, now an adult and a “supernova”. In comparison, however, literally everyone is irate with the OPS and how reckless the police service has been over the decades, and how police service board members of the past seem to have been more interested in acquiring “get out of jail free” cards for friends and family than doing effective public policy work and bettering the institution of policing. And they’re also angry about the misuse of policing powers in an attempt to criminalize a community builder and two-time host of the Serbian Festival in Ottawa after he reported the same undercover operations that he hacked as a teenager when multiple youth sought his help because an RCMP officer refused to get involved.
“I had no idea Canada could be this much fun?”
– John McClane (Die Hard with a Vengeance, 1995).
If there is one thing that spooks individuals who are involved in small- to mid-level criminal activity, it is when someone knows a lot about them, especially if that someone is outside their inner circle. Heck, even members within the Serbian- and Bosnian-Canadian community have asked me whether I worked for “Interpol”. Many of the youth I grew up with, and others that I met through sports or partying who operated on the far-side of the law started to ask questions about me like, “How the f**k does Alek know everything about everyone?”
Knowing practically everything about practically everyone who was operating on the far-side of the law and exactly how much money they made from it, may be why nobody ever bothered this “digital-cowboy”—a sharpshooter who is said to have had one of the quickest draws in the Wild West era of the internet. It may also explain why a high number of people working in different sectors have enquired if I could assist them with recovering deleted files off phones or laptops, or help recover email passwords, even though these people have access to IT teams and despite that a regular person should never be recovering and viewing files of such importance. But this cool guy always suggests that those requests be redirected to their IT geek squads.
Not that long ago, however, I had the opportunity to potentially pursue a career in the “I hate criminals” space. The way that process would have unfolded eventually requires being sent places with little choice on the location, which was the sole point of contention. Knowing me, or not knowing me, there are only four places I would live outside of Ottawa that can match my personality: Hawaii, Hollywood, New York City, and Las Vegas. Anything outside of Ottawa and those four places I consider to be the boonies, and I am the farthest thing from a boonies-kind-of-guy. Plus, I like not being operationally bound by the courts, made to receive my policing powers and judicial powers via policing stakeholders playing at policing and undermining the two institutions.
Surprisingly, while I was interviewing for that role, no OPS officers were filing frivolous police reports like they had done when I had been interviewing for the RCMP. Maybe those OPS officers were “paying it forward” after I helped Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General, the Ontario Police College, and a litany of other stakeholders recognize the limitations of public policies (like Applicable Standards Ontario Policing Standard: AI-007) and mandates that are no longer adequate for today’s time.
Whether I get recognition for advancing public policies and the public interest matters not. Because the praise for identifying those public policy limitations belongs to the learning experience provided by Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education program (Public Policy), and I am entirely content being viewed as their favourite son. After John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), and Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), of course. And the doors to that learning experience were only open thanks to the greatness of Athabasca University, which I owe everything to, and me being mentally mature enough to take my studies seriously.
If Netflix or an Amazon was ever to come along, however, I would not mind getting my “Larry King Live” (1985-2010) moment and sitting across from high-ranking individuals who were once involved in crime and high-ranking police and seeing how they respond when I detail their digital footprint. I imagine it would be something along the lines of Sean Penn’s interview of El Chapo, but I would need to be guaranteed the Pulitzer Prize for my interview. That, and to set the record for the biggest payday in that line of work, which I would split with all the participants (I am the A-side like Floyd Money Mayweather, so it would have to be an 85-15 split). However, if that does not sit well with everyone, we can do a spin-off of Gs to Gents (2008-2009), where the “Gs” are active in organized crime and I take the role of Fonzworth Bentley and attempt to mould them into becoming respectable members of society.
In any case, John McClane may have said it best, “I had no idea Canada could be this much fun” (Die Hard with a Vengeance, 1995). So, welcome to my Canada, and Yippee Ki Yay. And if you enjoyed this read, then you might also enjoy the “My Crazy Life” series, which often revolves around the “digital world” activities like “My Crazy Life – Cybercrime During Covid-19 Lockdowns” and “My Crazy Life – The First 48”.
Disclaimer: Whoever. Wherever. Lives matter. And it does not change.
On a more serious note, this saga was detailed in an eight-page submission to the Foreign Interference Commission because of its relation to foreign interference. The full story details the fallout from policing gone bad and serves as the perfect case study for everything that is wrong in policing, because policing and public safety work is the bedrock of a safe society when done right.
Police attempting to cover for criminal informants and attempting to criminalize non-criminal Canadians, on the other hand, is beyond comprehension and something that no Canadian should support. Such actions were certainly not on the minds of our Fathers of Confederation, when they signed the British North America Act, 1867 and entered Confederation, with George Etienne Cartier leading the French and John A. MacDonald leading the English. They took every precaution to ensure institutional powers could not get misappropriated. Unfortunately, it happens, but at least in this instance, they are to be thanked for inspiring academic breakdowns of institutional shortcomings, sprinkled with a touch of entertainment.
Many people who might end up on the receiving side of misappropriated policing powers might feel embarrassed because of the lack of control over police narratives, as well as the damage such actions may have on another person’s opportunities, credibility, and for other reasons—just not me. Because I am authentic and trend in the right direction, and because those kinds of individuals are incapable of matching me mind-for-mind through-for-thought. Because iron sharpens iron, and I melt steel, baby.
