The Mysterious Figure Stealing Books Before Their Release (vulture.com) 19
For years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? Or a complete waste of time? Vulture: On the spectrum of cyberattacks, this one wasn't very complex. There was no malicious software or actual hacking involved. Some of the earliest victims used Gmail accounts for work, which were easy and free to spoof. Registering an alternate domain and setting up an email server was only slightly more involved, and the possibilities were endless: t's became f's (@wwnorfon.com), q's replaced g's (@wylieaqency.com), r's and n's cornbined to make m's (@penguinrandornhouse.com). The domains suggested someone who liked to play with words as much as code. Books became bocks, unless the company was Dutch, in which case boek was Anglicized to book.
What did seem sophisticated was the thief's knowledge of the business. The culprit wrote like someone in publishing, abbreviating to "MS" for manuscript and "WEL" for world English-language rights, while exchanging insider chatter, telling one victim that a publisher was pitching a book as a comp to Pachinko and expressing surprise to another that a novel had recently sold for a shocking amount. The thief sent messages in the wake of announcements on Publishers Marketplace, a subscription website that tracks deals, but they also asked about books that the thief's marks didn't even know existed. The mimicry wasn't always perfect -- an assistant at the talent agency WME realized her boss was being impersonated because she would never say "please" or "thank you" -- but the impression was good enough.
What's more, the thief seemed to have a strong grasp of the rarefied world of international publishing. The first emails, in the fall of 2016, traveled almost exclusively among the small group of people who handle the flow of manuscripts between countries, including a foreign-rights manager in Greece, an editor in Spain, and an agent selling international writers in the Chinese market. In the attempted "Millennium" heist, only a few dozen people in the world knew the book was being shared with foreign publishers and that Mork and Altrov Berg controlled access to it.
What did seem sophisticated was the thief's knowledge of the business. The culprit wrote like someone in publishing, abbreviating to "MS" for manuscript and "WEL" for world English-language rights, while exchanging insider chatter, telling one victim that a publisher was pitching a book as a comp to Pachinko and expressing surprise to another that a novel had recently sold for a shocking amount. The thief sent messages in the wake of announcements on Publishers Marketplace, a subscription website that tracks deals, but they also asked about books that the thief's marks didn't even know existed. The mimicry wasn't always perfect -- an assistant at the talent agency WME realized her boss was being impersonated because she would never say "please" or "thank you" -- but the impression was good enough.
What's more, the thief seemed to have a strong grasp of the rarefied world of international publishing. The first emails, in the fall of 2016, traveled almost exclusively among the small group of people who handle the flow of manuscripts between countries, including a foreign-rights manager in Greece, an editor in Spain, and an agent selling international writers in the Chinese market. In the attempted "Millennium" heist, only a few dozen people in the world knew the book was being shared with foreign publishers and that Mork and Altrov Berg controlled access to it.
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
I'll save you from reading the 7,111 words. Someone is spear phishing book authors and publishers, typically using emails from domains slightly altered from
legitimate domains. It's not clear why they are doing it, but they are an insider, and probably a literary scout wanting early access to broker various publishing or movie deals.
And somehow the entire article never uses the term "spear phishing" which is the exact technical term describing the entire article.
Re: Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks. I kept reading the summary hoping it would get to the point and it never did.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the author never reveals the identity of the person running the spear phishing operation. So don't read it thinking the story has an end. It doesn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the author never reveals the identity of the person running the spear phishing operation. So don't read it thinking the story has an end. It doesn't.
The one time I should have read the comments before the TFA, and I read the article first... :-(
Re: (Score:2)
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It's not clear why they are doing it, but they are an insider, and probably a literary scout wanting early access to broker various publishing or movie deals.
Considering it starting a small group of international book publishers consisting of a couple no-name nations and China, it's clearly China making shitty Chinese knockoffs of books just like they make shitty Chinese knockoffs of everything else. They've been stealing IP for decades, guess someone over there got a literary bug up their ass, probably for the propaganda factor of being the first to publish great works and claim everything else is a knockoff.
Re: (Score:2)
The most likely reason (Score:4, Interesting)
Disgruntled present employee, who doesn't get paid anything extra when a book is published.
Kind of like all the non-actors/directors/producers who work on movies and TV that don't get extra, or and percentage of any residuals. You're not stealing anything from them...
I for one welcome our early release overlords.
Don't forget. (Score:3)
This is also an issue caused by corp-speak and "professional writing". If everyone types the same way, it's trivial to impersonate someone you've never even met. As the summary says, one person got suspicious when they saw please and thank you. Most of my boss' emails to me involve colorful language that the absence of would make me think he was replaced by a Thing.
Re: (Score:2)
You're an imposter! My boss would never call me by name! He always calls me "Dickhead" or "Skinny boy" and tries to bribe me with salted caramel!
Sorry, it was me (Score:2)
I've been stealing the books. You see, my computer monitor doesn't adjust vertically, and I needed to raise it up a bit - and getting the height exactly right has been a pain in the neck.
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My first thought:"we still have email clients (and web interfaces) that use fonts permitting kerning and spoofing attacks?"
Re:Outrageous! (Score:5, Funny)
r's and n's cornbined to make m's
What kind of animals are we dealing with??
Anirnals, obviously.