The underground market of carders. Translation of KingPIN. Chapter 20. “The Starlight Room”

Kevin Poulsen, editor of WIRED magazine, and a blackhat hacker Dark Dante as a child, wrote a book about " one of his acquaintances ."

The book shows the path from a teenage geek (but at the same time pitching), to a seasoned cyberpowder, as well as some methods of work of special services to capture hackers and carders.

The quest to translate the book began in the summer in an IT camp for high school students - “ Shkvoren: schoolchildren translate a book about hackers, ” then Habrausers and even a little editors joined in the translation.

(The long-awaited translation of the 20th chapter)

Chapter 20. “The Starlight Room”

(thanks to Artem Nedrya aka Translation Designer for translation)

From the ceiling, directly above the luxurious sofas of the Starlight Room club owned by Harry Denton, nine vintage chandeliers hung; the rays of a hundred-kilogram mirror ball ran along the surface of the dance floor. Huge dark red curtains hung on both sides of the wide panoramic windows, like stage curtains, behind which the lights of the skyscrapers of San Francisco were visible.

Located on the twenty-first floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Starlight Room Club was one of the city’s most expensive nightclubs and an integral part of its vibrant nightlife with a 1930s-style interior trimmed with dark red damask and silk manual dressing. More flashy than stylish club, managed to attract customers only thanks to regular theme nights. The club organized the “Russian Party” that Wednesday, so music from the Motherland thundered around, and waiters in tuxedos poured vodka to the crowds gathered near the bar counter.

Someone was kissing Tsengeltsetseg Tsetssendelger in the women's restroom. Having already had a drink that evening, the young Mongolian immigrant did not remember how it happened, or why, that the long-legged brunette wanted to kiss her. After a moment, Tsengeltsetseg's eyes widened in surprise. Nearby was another brunette, an exact copy of the first.

Michelle and Liz introduced themselves, and Tsengeltsetseg's face appeared wide, unmistakable smile. She told the Eskere twins that they could call her simply “T”, by the first letter of her last name.

Ti regularly attended Russian parties at this club and spoke Russian and English without any problems. Originally from the northern part of Mongolia, it still found times when the country was under the influence of the Soviet Union. She studied Russian at school until the Soviet Empire collapsed and the Mongolian Prime Minister declared English the second official language - and this is in a landlocked country ...


Anticipating a great adventure and the notorious “better life”, in 2001 year she was able to get a student visa and emigrate to the United States. Her first thought after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport was that the Americans are really terribly fat. But later, once in the city, her impression changed for the better: Los Angeles was full of wonderful people.

After studying for one semester at a two-year college in Torrance, she moved to San Francisco, where she received a green card. Now she studied at Peralta College in Auckland and worked as an ice cream saleswoman at the Fenton's Creamery Cafe, so she could pay for her apartment and school fees.

Liz was somehow particularly interested in the fact that Ty knew Russian. The twins brought Tee a drink from the bar, and then offered to continue the party with their friends at a hotel nearby. It was already after midnight when they arrived at their friend's room, Chris Aragon, at the Clift Hotel near Union Square. Chris, who was resting there with friends, immediately fascinated T with his appearance. He also seemed to show interest in T, which intensified when the twins mentioned that she knew Russian. In the company of two other Chris employees, they opened several bottles of alcohol and walked until the early hours of the morning. When the other girls went to their rooms, T was left to spend the night in Chris's room.

The next morning, while Ti was still inspecting her last dream, an active movement began in the room. Liz and several other pretty girls — all animated and cleaned up, without a trace of night walks — ran into the room one by one and ran out of it with envelopes and encrypted messages from Chris. *

The whole day continued in the same vein: the girls took the envelopes, brought bags, sometimes stayed briefly in the room, then left again. I could feel the idle atmosphere of the previous evening in the air, but a note of nervousness or excitement was added to it, which led T to bewilderment - but not so strong as to start asking questions.

In the evening, when it was already dark and the company gathered in the room, Ty said that she was leaving. She needed to return home to East Bay to be on time at work in a cafe the next morning.

Chris offered her something better. He recently launched a website with one of his business colleagues, Sam, and they needed a full-time Russian translator. She would have earned more than she was paid in a cafe for feeding nutty chocolate ice cream to young businessmen.

“Don't leave,” Liz said. “You will earn more with us.”

Ti looked at her newly acquired friends. They reminded her of the new Russians who, after the collapse of the Soviet regime, stuffed their wallets with money acquired in questionable ways, and devoured everything and everything with great greed and a small sense of taste.

But she liked Chris; he seemed to her different. In addition, making translations for the website, she would have freedom and a flexible schedule, she could concentrate on studying. Tee agreed.

The next day, Chris ordered his team to pack up and announced that their next destination would be Las Vegas. He told Ti to meet them already there, it would be fun. She should have started an email on Yahoo. She packed her bag and headed for the airport.

Chris helped Ty move closer to the area where he lived, and paid for renting an apartment in Dana Point, a coastal town in Orange County, which he rented in her real name. Standing at the end of a quiet, winding alley, painted orange in Italian houses and with a roof from Spanish tiles, the Tea House, as he christened it, was like a different world compared to Mongolia, where Ty grew up.

They made love on her new bed, after which Chris left $ 40 on the night table so she could go to the nail salon. Ti was offended by this. She's not some prostitute. She fell in love with him.

Chris and his team moved their card making equipment from Villa Siena to the garage of the apartment at Dana Point - Tea House will now be his new base, party venue and T's 24-hour work place at Carders Market. Her responsibilities: to find online forums for enthusiasts from Eastern European countries involved in counterfeiting payment cards, such as Mazafaka and Cardingworld, and to summarize what is happening there for use in the Russian section of Carders Market.

She'll need a nickname, Chris explained, a name or nickname for her alter ego in the online world. She chose the nickname "Alenka", the name of the famous Russian chocolate bar.

Alenka immediately rushed to work, day and night, sitting in front of a computer monitor, sincerely trying to track down influential Russians and lure them to the website of Chris and Sam, also known as the the Whiz.

* Liz was one of Chris Aragon's assistants engaged in cashing out funds; there is no information about the participation of her sister Michelle.

To be continued