Pranknet , also known as Prank University , is an anonymous anonymous joke calling the virtual community responsible for hotel and restaurant breakdowns over $ 60,000 and some examples phone harassment. It was founded by a man who later called himself "Dex1x1" (allegedly a Canadian man named Tariq Malik). This group has been linked to nearly 60 separate incidents.
Posing as authority figures, such as firefighter firms and front desk managers/hotel corporations, Pranknet participants called unsuspecting employees and customers in the United States and tricked them into damaging property, lighting fire sprays, window shutters, and other embarrassments. acts like taking off the clothes and consuming human urine. Pranknet members can listen in real-time and discuss progress together in a private chat room.
In 2009, prank waves across the United States sparked an internal alert by Choice Hotels, as well as advisors by the Orange County office, Florida Sheriff, and others. At that time, law enforcement officers from a number of jurisdictions and the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating various incidents and "Dex" identities.
Video Pranknet
Technology
Pranknet participants initially used Skype to make their calls. In 2009, Skype provided an uncontrolled registration system for users without proof of identity, making it difficult to track and identify users. After Skype starts an internal investigation, Pranknet leaves Skype and briefly uses Paltalk for his chat. However, Paltalk banned Pranknet after the February 2009 KFC incident. After Pranknet users were banned from Paltalk, the company was subjected to several DDoS attacks. Starting in 2009, members chat before, during, and after every joke through Beyluxe Messenger, which is owned and operated outside of North America. Spectators range from 40 to 200 people at any given time.
Pranks that created enough havoc are posted on YouTube. Updates are also provided through a Twitter account.
Maps Pranknet
The Leading Pranknet Incident
In February 2009, "Dex" was called the KFC restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. Posing as the manager of the corporate office, he persuaded the employees to put out the building with fire suppressing chemicals and then proceeded outside, removing all their clothing and urinating with each other. He claims that the chemicals are caustic and this will make them inert. When "Dex" posted the audio to YouTube, he described it as "Epic KFC Prank Call (the greatest ever)... dex managed to convince 3 female employees to take off completely bare clothes outside and urinate each other." Months later, "Dex", pose this time as an insurance adapter called the same KFC and ask victims to describe their experiences while Pranknet members listen.
On February 10th, "Dex" and a member named "DTA_Mike", disguised as a front desk employee of the hotel, called two separate guests at the Best Western in Shillington, Pennsylvania. Using the pretense of a broken gas line, the caller persuades each guest to break the window and then throw the television out. "Dex" and his friend repeated the same action on February 19 with Best Western in Santee, California.
On April 30, a Pranknet member named "Rollin in the A" called Prejean's Restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana posed as an official from the health department. This target is chosen because the restaurant provides live streaming of videos from the dining area on their own website. Victims in this restaurant were told that Prejean pork was contaminated by swine flu. "Rollin in the A" also tells the manager to immediately close the restaurant and tell the customers (75 of them) that they may have eaten the contaminated food.
On May 27, "Dex" called the Hampton Inn in York, Nebraska and deceived an employee to fire a fire alarm. As guests walk into the lobby, a second call is placed at the front desk. "Dex" claims that, to avoid allegations of fines, firefighters may not be called. Instead, the caller provides a variety of false instructions to turn off the alarm, including going to websites that only display pornography. The next suggestion from the caller is to break the front window of the hotel. A truck driver staying at the hotel offered herself, and under the direction of "Dex", the man drove his semi-trailer truck to the front door. Later that night, "Dex" tweeted: "I just did the most epic joke I had a hotel guest behind his truck to the hotel's front window (in the lobby), and broke the window." The post was removed at the end of July.
On June 6, 2009, a joke was made at the Holiday Inn Express in Conway, Arkansas. The caller acts as a representative of the company who installed the hotel fire extinguishers and claims that the system needs to be reset by pulling the fire alarm. As soon as the alarm is turned on, the officer is notified that the sprinkler will be activated unless the window is damaged. The same day, the criminals called Comfort Suites in Gadsden, Alabama, persuaded an employee to pull a fire alarm; The sprinkler is then activated causing water damage.
In July, a Pranknet member called Hilton in Orlando, Florida and, admitted there was a gas leak, convinced the family living there to break the window with a lid for the toilet tank and threw their mattress out the window. The incident cost $ 5,000 in damage.
Also in July, a Pranknet caller informed two hotel guests that a deadly spider would occupy their room. The caller was able to manipulate the couple to break their windows with a tank lid from their toilet.
On July 5, members of Pranknet Powell and Markle called Arby in Baytown (where Powell lived) and talked to a worker there to trigger a fire suppression system, which caused about $ 4,600 in damage. Powell failed in his attempt to crack all windows. Powell was later arrested and charged with criminal offenses over the incident.
On July 20, Markle deceived a desk clerk at Homewood Suites in Lexington, Kentucky to drink someone else's urine. The joke begins with a call to the guest. The guest was notified that it was a call to the front desk and the previous guest had tested positive for Hepatitis C. The guest was then told there was a doctor in place and a simple urine test could determine if the guest was infected. The urine should be brought to the front desk in a simple drinking cup. Switching the role, Markle then called the front desk accused of being a Cider Martinelli employee. He told the officers that a representative of the company wanted to come down with an example of their new drink. The guest of the previous call then arrives and handed her the urinary. Markle then persuaded the woman to try it. He asked how it felt. "Terrible," he said. "It does not taste like apple cider, I'm not going to take another sip, it's horrible." Markle replied: "Well, I need to tell you something, ma'am, I want you to understand that you just drank the urine of the man." In his investigation, the Lufkin Police Department's cyber crime division called for a subpoena for Skype Markle's activities. Police reports classify Lexington incidents as dangerous first class crimes, Class D crimes in Kentucky. Markle was then sentenced to six months in prison.
In addition, an employee at Holiday Inn Express was persuaded by a Pranknet caller to light a fire alarm, break windows, and turn sprinklers that flooded the building. Damage estimated at $ 50,000.
The Smoking Gun reported that Pranknet leader "Dex" was responsible for the October 21 hoax in which he phoned ESPN reporter Elizabeth Moreau, tricking her into a broken window in her room at the Hilton Garden Inn in Gainesville, Florida.. She then initiates a conference call with the front desk employee at the hotel, where she later claims she is Moreau's girlfriend and that the damage was a result of them fighting, as well as making a number of vulgar statements. As a result of the hoax, a Gainesville Police detective was assigned to the case.
In November 2010, an elderly man who lived at Motel 6 in Spartanburg, South Carolina was deceived by a Pranknet member disguised as a hotel administrator to smash the television and smash the mirror in his room with a wrench to destroy the hidden camera that should have been left by a previous guest. The man, saying that there was a "midget" trapped in a neighboring room, was then tricked into smashing the sheetrock wall behind his bedroom door, almost penetrating into the next room. Since one of those fraudulent calls was again heard by the police and another guest who received a prank call, immediately phoned the receptionist, the hotel did not hold the person responsible for the damage, but asked him to leave. The criminals called back on March 11, 2011, persuading a guest to "disable" the sprinkler head by crushing it with a toilet lid to prevent 'poison gas' from entering the room. According to TSG, "Motel 6 is the preferred target because Pranknet members can call directly to the room without having to know the guest's name." As of November 1, 2011, this is no longer possible. After the police arrived to answer the 911 call placed by the motel manager, they refused to file a lawsuit against the victim but noted that other similar phone calls had been received at the motel.
On December 5, 2010, two Pranknet members identified by The Smoking Gun collaborated to embarrass a veteran of the Iraq War, 22, at Motel 6 in Amarillo, Texas. One, posing as a hotel receptionist, informed him that the previous occupant of his room had been diagnosed with the "H1N1 flu virus", and transferred it to another, disguised as a doctor, who for half an hour directed him to the doctor. induce vomiting, then consume some of his own urine to "kill the incubation period", and finally collect the stool sample in a pillowcase, which will be brought to the front desk. A fad then calls the actual hotel receptionist, identifies himself by the full name of the guest and admits very angry with the service that he will leave a pillowcase full of dirt at the front desk. The receptionist locked the door and called the police, so the veteran returned to his room, where his conversation with the police officer who had been called by the receptionist became available to the followers of worshipers. They finished by calling other visitors at the hotel who described aspects of the joke until the police were called again half an hour later. In an electronically altered voice disguised as the mother of a boy who made a joke, one of those mischievous people managed to convince the police to return the victim to the phone, who unknowingly relates his experience to the chattering.
On January 9, 2011, the Holiday Inn in Omaha, Nebraska was targeted. Taking advantage of the ability to call hotel guests directly, the prankster pretends to be an employee of the Fire Department who reads instructions from a computer checklist to prevent an explosion from a gas leak. These instructions include to "break the red glass bottle in the sprinkler", which causes water damage of $ 115,000 in seven guest rooms and conference rooms. Guests were also persuaded to tear the mirror off the wall to find the closing valve (none).
Phone and computer hijacking
Starting July 2009, "Dex" started hijacking US business phone numbers and sending them to his Skype account. Claiming as an authority of a particular business, he telephoned the telephone company and claimed they did not have a dial tone. He then requests that all calls be forwarded to the number he gave.
On July 7, "Dex" took over an incoming call from the Olympic Game Farm in Port Angeles, Washington made lewd sexual comments to the calling customer. On July 11, he repeated the action with the All 4 Entertainment Park in Chula Vista, California. On July 13 he took over an incoming call to the Best Western in Jacksonville, Florida for over 12 hours. In one interaction, a woman called to find out if her husband had arrived and was told first that she had an accident, and then she had sex with a man in her room and did not want to be disturbed. On July 15th, "Dex" controls an incoming call to the Hilton Garden Inn in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He told the people who asked about the shuttle to take a taxi and they would get a replacement. He told several callers that the hotel was hit by a swine flu outbreak and told another caller that the hotel was in the middle of a hostage-taking situation.
Speaking of the hotel front desk clerk through a series of steps using TeamViewer, "Dex" has acted as IT superintendent's corporate headquarters and took the remote control of the hotel computer.
abuse Craigslist
Pranknet members often place Craigslist ads that offer free tickets or goods. Questioners are bombarded with lewd sexual stimulation and racial epithets. A 12-year-old girl called about a free trampoline, and "Dex" told her not to get pregnant by black men because "they have AIDS". Markle often calls women who sell household items on the site. After getting the victim's home address, he then tells him that he is on his way to raping her and kills her children.
Smoking Rifle Investigation
"Dex" and other Pranknet members regularly mock the victims and others, saying they are untraceable. In an interview with The Smoking Gun on June 17, 2009, "Dex" showed no concern about being tracked or caught. In a July interview with Markle, he boasted: "It's too hard to find me I'm a ghost on the Internet I do a lot of things I can do to save anything from my computer that will take it back to my computer." the actual computer. I am not a fool, as I say. "
In June 2009, The Smoking Gun launched an investigation that lasted nearly two months and included trips to Windsor, Ontario and reconnaissance outside Ms Malik's home. Smoking Gun editor William Bastone sent an email "Dex", and during the Skype interview gave the URL on the Smoking Gun website. The URL is unique; when Malik saw them, it revealed the IP address and its location. The names, biographies and locations of Pranknet's founder "Dex" and a number of productive members, and their other findings, were published on their website and given to the FBI in August 2009.
Members
According to The Smoking Gun's crime reporting website, key members include:
- Tariq Malik, also known as Pranknet leader "Dex" (a tribute to the character Dexter Morgan, a fictitious serial killer). In an interview with The Globe and Mail , "Dex" denies that he is Malik (but insists he is a Canadian).
- William Marquis, "second commander of Pranknet". Known as Hempster, the Marquis was previously found guilty in 2004 for drunk driving and in 2005 for marijuana production. CBC News attempted to interview the Marquis over alleged Pranknet. However, he did not answer the door.
- James Markle, one of the group's most productive callers. Markle had already become interested in Lufkin Police investigations involving phone calls to local McDonald's, and was arrested for this next. The Smoking Gun bases claims for information from old MySpace and Facebook pages, and people from areas that identify Markle in photos. The Smoking Gun also published official documents indicating that Markle pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse in 2005, serving two years in a juvenile detention facility for having sex with a 5-year-old girl and then threatening to kill her if she told anyone about the incident. In an interview with The Lufkin Daily News, Markle denied that the person described in TSG was him, claiming otherwise it was someone else called Samoan Prankster. He was charged with serious criminal offenses in two separate states: to create a threat of criminal terrorism in the case of Lufkin McDonald and to terrorize and criminal damage (both crimes) in a separate incident involving Wendy's restaurant in Gretna, Louisiana. He was later extradited to Louisiana as a result of the allegations filed in the Gretna incident. In December 2010, Markle was sentenced to five years in prison in Texas for a prank call to Lufkin McDonald's.
- Shawn Powell, previously jailed for indecency with minors (for taking nude photographs of an 8 year old female relative), a crime that kept her on hold for 13 months. He specializes in racist and threatening calls. He was charged with a criminal offense for his part in a hoax call to a Baytown Arby restaurant, resulting in a fire suppression system activated and resulting in damage of $ 1,350.
A former member, Jericho Batsford, left the group in 2009 after the Conway incident, Arkansas, and contacted local FBI agents. He told them that he knew Dex's identity belonged to Malik and that he was responsible for many incidents. In response to his defection, members of Pranknet are constantly harassing his home and workplace via Skype and Beyluxe. Malik tells the members to be patient, that he will not answer the phone and let them meet him, and instead "catch him later on the road, when he least expected it." Batsford has participated in several telephone jokes, but left when he watched members encourage children under the age of 18 to make bomb threats.
Officials in at least four US states and six US cities said they are considering charges against "Dex" and the possibility of extradition from Canada to stand trial.
See also
- American Phone Loser
References
External links
- Details, incident reports and photos of the Conway, Arkansas incident
- Incident incident report Comfort Suites
- Orange County Sheriff Bulletin about pranks
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments