"High-tech" business or a fairy tale about a small town femida

In the south of Ukraine, in the place where the Ingul River flows into the Southern Bug River, the district town of Nikolaev is located. The city is very small (about 500 thousand inhabitants) and quiet. But there was one sad story in it that I would like to tell you about. It is very characteristic for this country (and for not this , I think, too).

I found her in a note on a local news site. For starters, the most basic.

On February 16, the appellate court in the Nikolaev region dismissed the claim of the administration of the "BRIZ International Club" about illegal interference in the work of telephone networks in Nikolaev.

Initially, everything was presented as a heroic operation conducted by our valiant Security Service of Ukraine, together with almost the Interplanetary Police of the Milky Way Association.

Violators were detained, the court was quick and fair.

Both accused were convicted, according to part 2 of art. 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, for three years in prison with release from serving a sentence and a trial period of 1.5 years.

What kind of article is this, you ask. In order not to look for a long time - here it is, think about these words:

the commission of unauthorized interference in the operation of telecommunication networks, which led to a change in the routing of information and distortion of the information processing process.

Well, did you get a terrible picture of hacking Ukrtelecom servers and evil hackers greedily rubbing their hands?

The tale of the victory of good over evil is darkened only by the knowledge of what the accused actually did.



In fact, this "international club" simply helped people call abroad via Skype Out. The mind of any IT person starts building logical chains in this place, including various words like “SIP”, “billing”, “digital telephone exchange”, etc. But the scheme was involved completely different.

The scheme was banal to tears. Wishing to call relatives cheaply, he joined the club and paid a very small monthly fee. If necessary, call, he dialed the usual city number, on the other end of which he picked up the phone ... a live operator! The number was dictated to the operator, then there was dialing in skype and using the super-high-tech device “wire-with-two-jacks-at-ends”, the telephone and computer were switched, after which the caller talked for his pleasure.
UPD : They corrected me in the comment: even the wire was not used. The handset simply rested on a stand with a microphone and speaker. So there was no talk of any routing violation.

This club did not work for very long, and it didn’t bring any money to its creators: it all went to pay the bills of the provider, Ukrtelecom and advertising (it should be noted that the club organizers paid all taxes correctly). But he helped some people significantly reduce their international communication costs.

The only one who did not enjoy this is the beloved state monopolist Ukrtelecom. With whose filing the authors of this crime of the century were detained and convicted.

This is such a sad tale, and I think everyone will draw conclusions.

PS I took the picture here , I hope the copyright holders forgive me. She really suits the occasion.
PPS And in which blog would you post this?