Man spies on scammers through their own security cameras

Jim Browning (previously at Boing Boing) turned the tables on another scamming outfit. But this isn't just a video showing a savvy user wasting a scammer's time: he gained access to the criminals' computers and even their office CCTV system. The result is incredible footage of them at work, trying to scam Jim while he records them with their own security setup. Jim also downloaded 70,000 recordings of scam calls archived by the outfit.

When a scammer connected to my PC, I was able to reverse their connection and discover that they had CCTV. You're going to see the most detailed expos of a tech support scam ever seen on YouTube. The company were called Faremart.com - A travel agency in Delhi who use their buildings and VOIP telephony to run various scams. They are one of hundreds of scam call centres in India and this one group will make over $3 million per year with scams.

Browning shared his work with the BBC, which made a documentary based on it -- the trailer is embedded below. The BBC claims what Browning did was illegal hacking. Given that the scammers demanded he access their network in hopes of victimizing him through that connection, I think the BBC could do a better job of explaining the legal basis of that claim and especially the likelihood of Browning being prosecuted.

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