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10/22/2007: "Russia a decaying criminal state that hates the West"

Russian hackers became something akin to national heroes last spring when a wave of Internet attacks was launched from Russia against Web sites in Estonia, the former Soviet republic. The incidents began after the Estonians angered the Kremlin by moving a Soviet-era war monument.

VeriSign, the Internet services company, considers Russian hackers to be the worst, in part because they tend to have ties to organized crime outfits that embezzle money with stolen bank and credit card information.

This penchant has not stayed rooted to Russian soil. In the United States, a center for health care fraud is Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which has one of the nation's largest concentrations of Russian immigrants.

Russia has only 28 million Internet users, according to rough estimates, compared with 210 million in the United States and 150 million in China, meaning that Russia has a higher percentage of scammers.

On a Livejournal Russian forum last week, The New York Times asked participants why Russians have a reputation for Internet crime.

"As for the West? - You are getting what you deserve," said one by the name of Lightwatch.

[ They hate you, Western man. ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/weekinreview/21levy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=technology