Bine ati venit in Ramnicu Valcea!

Bine ati venit in Ramnicu Valcea, originally uploaded by mirciagutau.

Intr-un articol recent din revista Wired, a aparut un articol despre Valceni. Iata reactiile cititorilor la acel articol:


Posted by: AliB | 02/1/11 | 1:12 pm |

You should do better than a diletant. Ramnicu Valcea is not a remote town in Romania, but almost close to the central part thereof and with a long history. Just translate with Google this page http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A2mnicu_V%C3%A2lcea Actually, you even contradict yourself, because you say that it’s 3 hours outside Bucharest (2 hours, to be more specific, I don’t know what car do you drive), so this cannot be remote. Anyway, you are unreasonably presenting the town as a ghetto in Romania just to make your point about some smart hackers (yes, smart! some big IT companies are even hiring them – just do a Google search) hackers. Come on!
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Posted by: Andu | 02/1/11 | 1:35 pm |

I’m just curious how many hits from Romania this article will get considering it just went viral here.
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Posted by: AliB | 02/1/11 | 1:50 pm |

well, the author is very proud of his article. My second comment was not posted, so this might mean something, right?
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Posted by: AliB | 02/1/11 | 1:57 pm |

who are you to say Romania is a “relatively poor country”?? Relatively compared to what? To France, GB, Germany and other countries which made and make a fortune on our expense? Just read the history and you will find out! Maybe you’ve done yor homework just searching the Google at a glance and found out a 11-year old girl’s research on Romania. But this is an unauthorised opinion and you should quit categorizing the country.
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Posted by: AliB | 02/1/11 | 2:03 pm |

Enjoy the money brought into your country by: car manufacturers from car purchases made by Romanians, banks from credits to Romanians, pharma companies from drugs sold to Romanians, food companies from food sold to Romanians much more expensive than in their own country, etc.! Guess on whose expense Western countries are building their economies!?
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Posted by: Yacko | 02/1/11 | 3:31 pm |

So now the people who send out Nigerian scams of various sorts aren’t even Nigerian, just some pasty Eastern European? Oh, the humanity! What next?
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Posted by: alin | 02/1/11 | 5:01 pm |

just wondering if you have visited any highschool in the city, or one of the two universities, to have all the details before presenting a situation like this. i mean, this kind of people exist all over the world, only that in your search for a story you were only interested in your part…it’s not fair to put an etiquette on a community based on the crap that those stupid guys are doing…yes, stupid, because there is nothing smart in what they are doing, there is no “mastermind” as you call it, just regular thiefs … i am sure that back in your own city you have similar “diseases”, but … only you can write stories…or make them stories (by the way, in the picture of the car dealer you should have taken also the dam behind you….it’s a lovely sight, and also in the opening picture if you pointed out the camera to the left the main road of the city would appear with the bridge over the river…but again…you had to make your story, right?)
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/1/11 | 6:58 pm |

I am curious about one thing. Did you enjoy the pussy brother? Because “worldclass mobsters” definitely keep their end of the bargain. Or is it imaginary pussy we’re talking about? The one that looks good in the eyes of a reader.
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/1/11 | 7:14 pm |

p.s. if you don’t reply, I’m going to assume that you have an extremely active imagination.
p.p.s. fix your the sign up form, there is no “state not applicable” option in the drop-down list. the closest option was “Armed Forces Europe” and I didn’t want to select that because it’s too negative. I chose connecticut because it just sounds good.
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Posted by: Anca1 | 02/1/11 | 10:11 pm |

this article is the sort of trash i should expect. they say romanian, after english, is the second most spoken language at microsoft. we have amazing programmers, the strongest in europe, and certainly putting the combined “old europe” to shame. bill gates recognized this potential by building a microsoft university in bucharest. romanian programmers, working at comparatively low rates, are responsible for more excellent code than you will ever be aware.

AliB, for our part, let’s be realist: we both know that two hours outside of bucharest can become extremely rural. and as for relativity, we both know that romania is a poor country, compared to anything in the neighborhood except brethren in moldova. fair is fair, right?

and alin, let’s not pretend romania is not full of cybercrime. neither you nor i want these good people to know the last time you or i paid retail price for a dvd. ;)
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Posted by: lordsith | 02/2/11 | 4:03 am |

So first of all makes me laugh the point of view of the so called reporter. So you say Romania is relatively poor country ?! Than how about your native India/Bangladesh etc ?! And a lot of WU offices ? Man are you coming really from some God forsaken place? A lot of WU doesnt necessarily mean crime/money laundering etc but rather that many from that city work abroad !!
Another item man you cant make difference between scamming and real hacking ! Really start posting smth about house&garden or so and dont waste our time anymore…….
And yes people are right saying you should first of all improve your geography before “writing articles”…..
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Posted by: Sorix | 02/2/11 | 4:31 am |

I used to think that only Romanian journalists wrote articles based on shallow searches on Google and personal, 2 hours, experiences. I really hope you’re not getting paid for the work above…
Ramnicu Valcea is an important town in Romania, approx. 170 km from Bucharest,with a population of 107.726 inhabitants and a lot more than four policemen.
Through this article, you try to send the impression that Ramnicu Valcea is a small village, with small crooks, that due to internet theft “has grown in 1 year like others in 10″(Romanians will understand the saying).
I’m not saying that everything is honest work in R.M.,nor is it in New York or Los Angeles (“remote towns” in USA) but to write the kind of article you wrote means to not understand the full effects of your actions and to do a job just because you have to.
And, in case you wanted to know, R.M. is known for its hackers that broke into the NASA or CIA database…which are far more intelligent actions that what you describe in your article. And those hackers are now working in the USA.
Please, when you write your articles, try to really know what you’re talking about…Even if there would be actual true facts in your article, readers who know R.M. will not take your opinions seriously, because it starts with untrue info.
PS. After this article, I don’t think people should use your info on “decoding a spy’s messages”, cause the inconsistencies might get them killed.:))
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Posted by: nicolae1 | 02/2/11 | 5:11 am |

@ Yacko , the author and the rest of US people frightened by the world around them

Before wondering : Oh , the humanity . what next ?
Think a little about the past of your nation . About the time when your ancestors took people from Africa and sell them like slaves in US. Aren’ you terrified about that ? Did you forget about that ?

So , who gives you the right to teach us a lesson
You have only one right : to remain silent.
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Posted by: HighLevelRomanian | 02/2/11 | 6:21 am |

Hello,

I am a Romanian PhD student and I lived outside of Romania at the moment. I have read your article and it seems interesting. I am not a journalist, but wanted for a long time to subscribe for it as my second major.

Your article might show the true facts, but presents in a very negative manner the whole town and country. I am not from Ramnicu Valcea myself, but things like this are happening everywhere around the world. I would have rather presented the whole country (or maybe just the area) in a nicer form, explaining about the struggles of a Romanian citizen, about EU and what happened to Romania since it’s part of it, etc, and only after get to the bad things that are happening there.

It’s very easy to criticize and judge facts and please understand that I am not defending the people that are hackering, but after someone reads your article he or she might get the wrong idea about the country and the city. I also do not approve half of the comments here, some of them are blaming you but we are humans and this is your opinion.

So, from a person that’s a Romanian, currently working on the Security of Wireless Networks and Protocols (opposite to a hacker), I would advice you to reconsider the story, to blame the ones that deserve this, but to protect and care for all the others in Romania that are living not only in that area, but in the whole country and are struggling to earn their money by working hard every time. Let’s try and have an objectively point of view about the things that are happening not only in Romania, but all around the world.

All the best and good luck with journalism.

Yours sincerely,

MM
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Posted by: sandu | 02/2/11 | 6:57 am |

Westerners do not understand that Romania is no longer a developing country in terms of it technology. We are on the cutting edge now.
Look at Akamai “State of the Internet” last report(http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/) :
Romania is on 4th place on global avg connection speed and peak speed.
Constnata , Romania is the fastes city in Europe. West Europe and USA are far behind
This is true for the hole it sector. More and more very specialized it job are coming to Romania along with the big it companies because we are good at this.
This is why small crocks like those presented in the article are not robing liquor stores and gas stations at gunpoint(… like they do in USA).
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Posted by: rhk | 02/2/11 | 9:02 am |

Let’s just say that a desperate man will find a way to lift the burden off his shoulders, mkay?

I’ll not even bother to list all the inconsistencies in your little story, but I’ll say this: you’re a naive zergling. So naive that you believed that Chita doesn’t speak English, even though you wrote that he was an arrow in UK for some time.

Stop writing about things you don’t understand.
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Posted by: BAV | 02/2/11 | 9:33 am |

I left Ramnicu Valcea for college and I work in IT (in Bucharest), before internet was available in Ramnicu Valcea! There are a lot of young guys in RM that over the last 10 years cheat on internet. This is a fact! Even so, 2000 persons from 107.000 citizens of RM. Population decreased in last 20 years.
In 1999 was a total solar eclipse best viewed in the world from RM.
I congratulates the author for the article, even I don’t agree everything.
I’m proud that Wierd magazine published this article, because entire world can see that in Romania we know how to use computers, we do understand internet, money paths, police methods, e-commerce, human weaknesses.
Remember: only 2% from a small town can bring us celebrity.

P.S. Please observe that there is no reference to gypsies, homeless or baggers!
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Posted by: AdrianK1 | 02/2/11 | 12:32 pm |

“Romanian Alps”?What is wrong with you?Do you even know where Romania is?
bla bla …no base
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Posted by: Ampersand | 02/2/11 | 12:39 pm |

There’s nothing as obnoxious as self-righteous Romanians completely missing the point of an article that’s barely critical of their country. (and showcasing their sub-Google Translate mastery of English, to boot.)

This knee-jerk reaction of nitpicking irrelevant details (as if it’s essential that we know the precise time it takes to drive to Ramnicu Valcea from Bucharest) or posting pseudo-patriotic factoids (“they say romanian, after english, is the second most spoken language at microsoft.” [citation needed], to borrow a joke.) serves only to clutter the discussion and stray from the point.

Please re-read the article. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Done? Is it about how Romania is a backward nation? Is this even the subtext of the article?

To be fair, the author does seem to slightly skew the image of this town in order to fit it into his narrative about “cybercrime central”, but that’s just Journalism 101 – you want to make the story a bit more interesting and exciting.

This article is about common crooks with a (slightly) uncommon m.o., and how they’ve grown into an impressively organized and coherent community in a location that just happens to be in your country (and mine, for that matter). So please, stop bickering about how every Westerner is out to disgrace Romania. Just stop.
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Posted by: mimisorutz | 02/2/11 | 1:13 pm |

We all studied “informatics” in high school. We should all fight internet crime.
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Posted by: Misha2m | 02/2/11 | 1:47 pm |

It’s not that smart to present the situation just from one point of view… the point of view of the majority. At least you could of tried to get out a percentage of the people that actually “hack” on the internet. And try to talk also about how other people live… at the beginning of the article i think i have read something like: chickens in front of their house…etc etc… well, as in my opinion, trying to grow chickens is a hard thing, because you need to feed them, to clean the place they sleep etc. etc… and it’s natural because you don’t have to eat “Stressed eggs” from the supermarkets/hipermarkets and you like to eat your own natural eggs. Why growing chickens in front of the house is so bad? Where else can you grow them? In an appartment?
For me, this article is a little bit revolting…. but among other written articles that have been written about us, romanians, this is just another little drop in the big picture. We’re all different and all it’s relative :) .
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/2/11 | 3:03 pm |

mister ampersand, I admit you are a bit naive as to what is currently happening in Romania. as is the author of this article. journalism itself is at a standstill in an age of open information. and what do you do when everybody has an opinion? are there any people of TRUE opinion left? because as we both know, opinion is quite relative. a smart debater would bring up education into account but education is a phenotype effect. it not only depends what you know, it also depends where you’ve learned it and in what environment you grew up with said piece of acquired information. therefore the issue of opinion is at a stalemate. true/rational opinion can only be argued with facts. numbers. the data which everybody so ambitiously wants to collect. if you want to tune that data with the audience, you would express it in narrative terms. like you did (sorry, the author) of this article did. so true UNIVERSAL opinion is transferred emotion based on holistically proven facts.
Can I please ask you to point out both the rational data and emotional translation of that data to form in the article above?

Thank you in advance,
Andrei Stefanuca
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Posted by: FredHarmonium | 02/2/11 | 5:17 pm |

Thank you for your article. I deal with victims of these criminals every day and it has been difficult for me to explain to the victims the international ties to their case — because I had very limited information. Hardworking, innocent citizens of Râmnicu Vâlcea, I hold no feelings of ill will toward you. But until your leaders stop this activity, I will continue to write the phrase “Romanian Scammer” to describe those who steal what is not theirs.
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Posted by: BAV | 02/3/11 | 3:09 am |

Yes! Romania is in top countries as source of scamms! But is on far away from the top! Even Ghana or Italy scamms better than we do!
From this top I could say that really scammers are americans and british; we are just having a hobby.

Top Ten Countries By Count (Perpetrators)

1. United States 66.1%
2. United Kingdom 10.5%
3. Nigeria 7.5%
4. Canada 3.1%
5. China 1.6%
6. South Africa 0.7%
7. Ghana 0.6%
8. Spain 0.6%
9. Italy 0.5%
10. Romania 0.5%
(source: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/internet_scam_statistics.htm)
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/3/11 | 8:37 am |

@BAV
I was just cruising this Fraud Reporting website and there’s quite a funny thing written on the about page: “don’t assume the products or services in the ads have been cleared by CFR!”

I just wanted to mention that and and I have some questions:

1. Why is the data that you are writing about signed 2009, we are in 2011?
2. How can you accurately produce a HOLISTICALLY proven statistics for anything related to the whole internet unless you monitor everyone connected to it in real-time? The man behind the statistics probably took all the perpetrators, split them by IP address and then calculated the percentage of people of each nationality in particular. But then the statistics would be available only in regards to the total number of people that were caught. It is NOT HOLISTICALLY PROVEN. It can’t be holistically proven unless you have a way to also monitor the people that DON’T get caught at the same time. Everybody, as a matter of fact. Not to mention, finding a way to remove fake positives (web crawlers, bots, etc) although this condition is optional (wouldn’t serve a purpose for counting actual global internet related crime statistics) and would be related to the purity of human information in your study.

Your “2009 statistics” is only saying: look, we have these guys, let’s split them up by nationality. I repeat, It is NOT HOLISTICALLY PROVEN unless someone monitors the entire Internet in real time. 3) Does anybody do that now?

Other than that the website may be useful for spreading awareness to the public on the means by which fraud takes place on-line, I give you that. But getting back to the rankings, it’s obvious why the U.S is ranked first in cyber-crime considering how big the american porn industry is and what I just said above. The statistics splits the perpetrators caught in YOUR country by race, because it’s the only place where the US is allowed by law to actually catch them. Moreover 4) does this statistics count the address of the registered IP or the nationality in the caught user’s citizenship? If it’s the first, then it’s completely useless.

Until you find a way to answer the questions above, I do not believe that this statistic is more than a regional measurement falsely presented as facts and figures from a global point of view. wake up America, you are not alone in the world and you don’t own it either.

@ FredHarmonium: Please tell my why you find the need to apply labels and national stereotypes to online “scammers” considering that you have no valid regional statistics from Romania, or for any other country except your own? speaking under anonymity on this matter doesn’t make you believable. You could argue that you’re working against criminals and they could harm you if they knew your true identity – that always stands. Nobody wants to see people of the law getting hurt brother. Nevertheless, even this potential fear for your own life doesn’t justify the stereotype. Please think again. I personally believe that NO stereotypes are good.

And what exactly do you mean by “But until your leaders stop this activity”? True leaders should not even have the phrase “negative activity” in their bloody dictionary, attacking smaller countries for resources for example. Because all negative activity doesn’t do anything else then spread chaos across the world when the only sollution to be found for any crisis is in communication.

Let me tell you a secret: as far as a country is concerned, any soldier is a sword in the right hands. But as far as all the countries in the world are concerned, soldiers are nothing but the blood on those hands. All of our hands.
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/3/11 | 9:22 am |

Other than that, I earlier asked for some clarifications Mr. Bhattacharjee. I asked for them without hiding under some invented pseudo-name, I expect you to do the same when answering.

All due respect,
Andrei.
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Posted by: FredHarmonium | 02/3/11 | 10:04 am |

BAV, your link misformed. I think it is http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/internet_scam_statistics.htm

I can tell you that 95% of the scams for which I supply victim support originate in Romania.
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Posted by: andrei_stefanuca | 02/3/11 | 10:41 am |

=)))) like anybody’s gonna believe that. I just academically nullified BAV’s opinion.
But guys, you’re missing the point, please try to think about the questions that I asked? Because they might lead to a solution that’s better for all involved parties in equal measure.
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Posted by: Orsi | 02/4/11 | 2:21 pm |

Supporting Romanian’s contra arguments for the article here!
Thank you Andrei for the way you put the problem. The vast majority of people do not think sceptically, though I can’t make proof of this by pointing out statistics (I heard statistical data about it once on the radio but I don’t remember the exact percentages given, however I assume you won’t believe me just by telling this:)), but hopefully we won’t be arguing on what I said.
So the point is one could not make a living, neither build an impressive readership from writing unexciting true facts, it’s pretty obvious. Therefore the story needs to be pumped up and put in an untrue context even though maybe it’s telling the truth about some hackers. The problem, dear author, is that you put a whole community (in this case Râmnicu Vâlcea)in an unfavourable,offending situation and you make others, who are not familiar with realities in Romania, to believe that the world is dealing with a whole nation or, at least, a whole town of fierce and terrifying criminals. Come on!

Oo, and by the way, I’m not Romanian!
Cheers,
Orsi
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Posted by: sbartok | 02/4/11 | 7:02 pm |

C’mon guys, swindlers have been with us since earliest history. The alchemists, the men of god – - .. This is just a late twist. The illegal part is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the legal one. Many billions were made in the latest financial crisis only, with legal (protected) money laundering oops, I mean transferring.

These blokes in Romania are penny ante compared to the big brokerage guys.