Operacion Bitcoins: Login to Hell

By ALBERTO HILL

My name is Alberto Daniel Hill. I am the first hacker that served time in prison in Uruguay for a computer-related crime. I was prosecuted for an apparent crime I never committed. A crime that probably never happened. Irregularities, illegalities, and verdicts based on ridiculous arguments were and are part of a process lacking any guarantees of a fair process.

 

I was sent to prison on September 11, 2017. It was my September 11. We probably all have a September 11. A day that we will never forget and will leave a scar forever in our lives. A day where there is nothing you can do to avoid the inevitable.Before the media gave me the title of "hacker, "I was an expert in cybersecurity and was specializing in both Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology and I was really doing very well. I do not care whether I am called hacker or cybersecurity expert. Being a hacker is not an insult, it is in fact a compliment.This book tells the story that changed me forever and was a totally unexpected turning point in my life and affected the lives of my loved ones

 

There is a "before" but not an "after" in my story. The adjective "sad" [1] is used 22 times in this book. That might give you an idea that you are not going to read a beautiful, lovely, and magical fairy tale.This book is for anyone interested in a real story about a criminal case where everything went wrong and somebody wants to trigger changes to avoid those wrong things happen again, for people from the Information Security community and in particular for those working or interested in computer forensics to learn what should not be done, as in my case everything was done incorrectly without any consequence for those in charge of the investigation.

 

"A remarkable, sad, unbelievable yet true story of a guy I met through the infosec community on Twitter." Alberto Daniel Hill (@ADanielHill) is a cyber security professional from Uruguay and what he is about to discuss here might disturb you. Even I was in disbelief after I heard the whole story." Matt from "OSINTME"

 

Alberto Daniel Hill

• Language: English
• Publisher: ALBERTO HILL
• Release date: Oct 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393992653

Book preview

Operación Bitcoins: Login To HELL

THE TRUE STORY OF A HACKER

This version of the book does not include many parts of the story, to protect my loved ones, and to respect certain codes.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

OPERACION BITCOINS: Login To HELL - ISBN: 9798688138023

[AlbertoHill.com] [[e-mail]] [@ADanielHill]

Send an email to [e-mail] to request permission to completely or partially reproduce this book.

1. 

CONTENTS

1. CONTENTS

2. DEDICATION

3. PROLOGUE

4. ABOUT ME

ACT ONE

5. THE BEGINNING OF MY END

6. IT WAS IN OCTOBER 2014

7. IT WAS IN APRIL 2015

8. TWO SEARCH AND ARREST WARRANTS

9. HANDLING THE ATTACK BY THE KIDS

10. THE EVIDENCE

11. A CHILDREN’S HACKING TALE

12. THE SUPPOSED EXTORTIONATE EMAIL

13. EXECUTING THE SEARCH WARRANT

14. SATOSHI NAKAMOTO IS URUGUAYAN!

15. BACK TO INTERPOL

16. THE OTHER GUY

17. MY 9/11

18. THE PRESS RELEASE

19. A POSSIBLE SCENARIO...

20. PRISON

21. BEHIND BARS

ACT TWO

22. THE DECISION

23. ON THE RADIO

24. LOVE IN PRISON

25. DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL

26. THE HEAT OF THE SUMMER

27. FEBRUARY 9th, 2018

28. NEW FRIENDS

29. AN UNEXPECTED VISIT

30. AN OFFER I COULD NOT REFUSE

31. THAT WAS NOT A DAY TO DIE

32. DEAD, HANDCUFFED, IMPRISONED, AND AT BURGER KING

33. THERE WAS MORE YET TO COME

34. THERE IS STILL MORE!

35. RETURNING TO MY HOUSE—SURPRISE!

36. SO, BUCKLE UP DOROTHY, KANSAS IS GOING BYE-BYE

37. EVERYTHING WENT WRONG

38. DRUG DEALERS HAVE MORE GUARANTEES

39. TO LAUGH OR TO CRY

40. ECONOMIC LOSSES (PART ONE)

41. ECONOMIC LOSSES (PART TWO)

42. ANATOMY OF A RANSOMWARE HACK

43. MY REAL ATTACK

44. QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS

45. THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION WITHOUT ANSWERS

40. LIES, LIES, LIES, YEAH

41. MY STORY AROUND THE WORLD

42. ARTICLE FROM THE GERMAN MEDIA

43. REFLECTIONS FROM JACK RHYSIDER

44. REFLECTIONS FROM MACIEJ MAKOWSKI

45. REFLECTIONS FROM END OF DAYS RADIO

46. THE END OF MY STORY

47. HOW WILL MY FUTURE FAIRY TALE UNFOLD?

48. THE ONLINE SURVEY

ACT THREE

49. THE AFTERMATH OF THE STORY

50. FORGET ALL THE SADNESS TOLD IN THIS BOOK

51. RESOURCES

52. SPECIAL THANKS

53. FEEDBACK

BONUS TRACKS

Bonus Track 1: THE GIRL.

Bonus Track 2: AGAINST THE ODDS.

2. 

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my mother, the only one left in my life.

3. 

PROLOGUE

My name is Alberto Daniel Hill. I am the first hacker that served time in prison in Uruguay for a computer-related crime. I was prosecuted for a crime I never committed. A crime that probably never happened. Irregularities, illegalities, and verdicts based on ridiculous arguments were, and are, part of a process lacking any guarantees of fairness.

2016 and 2017

In mid-2017, I hacked the website of one of the world’s leading security organizations and immediately contacted the organization and reported the problem they had.

In November 2016, I found a security problem on the web site of the stock exchange of Asunción, Paraguay. When I did not find a channel to report directly to the system administrators, I reported to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)[1] of Uruguay so they would do their best to contact them and inform them of the problem.

In December 2016, I had a profoundly serious car accident in the early hours of the morning. In the afternoon, I received an SMS from my insurance company with a code to track insurance procedures online. After five minutes of accessing the site, I detected a serious problem with the security checks and could see all the insurer’s claims, including personal customer information, medical details, police information, claims photographs, etc. Within 15 minutes, I was reporting to the CERT of Uruguay.

Figure 1 - Crash, boom, bang

Oh! And by the way, also in 2016, I informed YouTube of a weakness in its YouTube TV system.

––––––––

I do not trust words,

I even question actions.

But I never doubt patterns.

––––––––

I mention those things to show a pattern in my behavior. I have always made reports with the sole purpose of helping to improve the security of vulnerable sites and prevent malicious people from finding them in the same way I did, by using faults to cause some harm or illegal behavior.

I never requested or received anything for these reports. For ethical reasons, I believed that I should proceed in this way. I could have looked away and not taken any action after finding these problems, but I did not think it was the right thing to do. I believe in consistency when it comes to acting. People typically follow certain patterns of behavior systematically and do not change how they act in certain situations overnight.

Before the media gave me the title of "hacker," I was an expert in cybersecurity, and was specializing in both cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, and I was doing very well. I do not care whether I'm called a hacker or a cybersecurity expert. Being a hacker is not an insult—it is in fact a compliment.

This book tells the story that changed me forever. It was a totally unexpected turning point in my life and affected the lives of my loved ones. There is a "before but not an after in my story. The word sad" is used 22 times in this book. That might give you an idea that you are not going to read a beautiful, lovely, and magical fairy tale...

This book is for anyone interested in a real story about a criminal case where everything went wrong, and where somebody wants to trigger changes to avoid those wrong things from happening again, for people from the information security community, and in particular for those working or interested in computer forensics to learn what should not be done. In my case, everything was done incorrectly without any consequences for those in charge of the investigation, as I mention in the chapter Drug Dealers Have More Guarantees.

I tried hard for months to get a person with English as their first language and writing skills to write this book. I even signed two contracts with a couple of people to do it that initially were extremely excited about it, but things did not work out; they basically disappeared without any explanation. This book should be written and nobody, nor anything, was going to stop me from doing that, so I decided to write it myself. After having a draft, I could get four beta readers that pointed out many issues to fix. I did not want to use a ghostwriter. After that, I hired somebody to edit the book and make it ready to be published. I must thank the beta readers that provided me useful feedback. I deeply appreciate that support. That was basically how this book was born, grew up, and became mature enough to be published. This is a tremendous triumph for me and is another example that nothing is impossible when you desperately want it. 

Do not forget to check out the last page of this book to have access to the bonus chapters!

––––––––

Alberto Daniel Hill - June 2020

4. 

ABOUT ME

I was born in 1975 in Cardona, a small town in Uruguay. I lived there until I was six years old, then I moved to Montevideo, the capital of the country. I do not know what would have been my life if I had not moved to Montevideo, as the possibilities available in that small town of Cardona were almost zero. My parents kept the house in Cardona, but I seldom go there.

I had my first computer when I was about 10 years old. A Sinclair spectrum plus with 48kb of RAM. At that moment I knew that my future was going to be related to computers. I can say that my first hack was when I was 14, I learnt some basic assembler and started playing modified games.

Figure 1 - My first computer

I managed to alter a soccer game named Emilio Butragueño and I sent the hack to a Spanish magazine and they published it. That was cool. Then I took some courses in basic and kept learning by myself about assembler.

It is funny that nowadays I do not touch assembler, I find it too complicated and not especially useful for the things that I do.

Living in Montevideo I was able to go to the university and in 2003 I became a computer engineer, but in the University I did not learnt anything about security or hacking, I had to learn everything on my own, reading, investigating, and my love for that along with a lot of curiosity and patience gave me a lot of knowledge you could not had learnt in college. For almost 20 years I have been working and gaining experience related to Information Security (Consulting, Computer Forensics, Ethical Hacking, Computer Security). I worked in many large companies in Uruguay and provided services for companies in other countries.

In 2011, I specialized in ISO / IEC-27000 standard as well as ethical hacking and passed various courses related to a wide range of IT security fields. Then in 2012, I specialized in the ISO / IEC-20000 norm.

I am a certified project management professional (PMP) and have led many information security projects since 2011. I also have the Cybersecurity Fundamentals Certificate (CSX) from ISACA, an organization that awarded me PLATINUM membership recognition.

The CSX certification in cybersecurity demonstrates knowledge aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), which is compatible with global cybersecurity topics, activities, and job functions.

I have been part of the volunteer team of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Uruguay chapter since 2012. I have been recognized all over the world for my knowledge of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, as well as all aspects of their security.

My professional profile on LinkedIn is at the following address: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nofear75

Figure 2 - My LinkedIn Profile

Curiously, I was not only the first hacker to be sent to prison in Uruguay, but I was also the one who carried out the first computer forensics procedure in 2004 after the enactment of the "production of child pornographic material" law. That was my first job after becoming a computer engineer. It was an honorable job.