hackers

In a bid to cut down on fraud and inappropriate content, the organization responsible for administering Russia's .ru top-level domain names is tightening its procedures.

Starting April 1, anyone who registers a .ru domain will need to provide a copy of their passport or, for businesses, legal registration papers. Right now, domains can be set up with no verification -- a practice that has allowed scammers to quickly set up .ru domains under bogus names.

The changes will help Russia align its rules with international best practices, said Olga Ermakova, informational projects manager with the Coordination Center for the .ru top-level domain, in an e-mail interview. The .ru administrators care about the "cleanness" of the domain, she added. "We don't need negative content, and such content is often [created] by unknown users."

And how do they form their "street gangs"?

I'd love your input on this topic. I would be particularly interested in input on how the groups form (if groups exists, that is???), how they overcome communication obstacles, how they find their targets, how the share the work.

As seen in the TJX-case, it seems some of these groups form without caring about national borders, origin and language. In this particular case, at least nine persons formed the group. These persons came from, and are located in, at least six different countries, and spoke a minimum of six languages (my guess the communication would be using English).

In the TJX case we also know quite a bit of how they operated, and how they used the data they stole.

What can we expect in the future? What is going on right now, under our radars? I'd love your input on that!