Super-hacker Albert Gonzalez Ushers In Exciting New Era Of Latino Racial Profiling

It is, by this point, well-established fact that all Latinos are knife-wielding marauders living in this country illegally, stealing jobs from nice Americans while committing untold brutal crimes. But we really moved up in the world with the indictment of hacker Albert Gonzalez. Cyber-crime, bitches!

Gonzalez, the 28-year old son of Cuban immigrants, was indicted August 17th by the feds as the lead conspirator in a ring of global hackers who stole data for a whopping 135 million credit cards. He was actually already in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial when this most recent indictment was handed down, having previously been arrested for stealing a mere 40 million credit cards. Feds can’t even put a price tag on how much money the guy has stolen over the years.

The gig is actually relatively simple: he and his conspirators would pull off SQL injection attacks wherein they would test the databases of various companies, flooding them with code and injecting malware at the first appearance of a flaw. Then they’d take the credit card info and sell it in clandestine online forums. Over the years he’s coordinated teams of hackers that have stolen info from OfficeMax, TJ Maxx, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21, DSW and Dave & Buster’s, but they really hit paydirt when they broke into Heartland Payment Systems. Heartland takes payment information for 250,000 businesses. Basically, if you’ve had your info stolen in the past few years, it was probably by this guy.

He’s now in jail and his Miami condo and cars and everything have been seized, not that it matters to him since he’s going to prison for five million years. And, naturally, he’s scum, but we have to confess a sort of misdirected pride in the fact that he leader of this huge white collar criminal ring was Latino. It’s like we’re his mom or something. (”Mijo Albert was a criminal, but he was in charge!”) Plus, it’s a cyber-crime, which takes more intelligence than your average smash and grab. Ooh and just think of the pride that will swell in our hearts if, for some reason, his case winds up in front of the Supreme Court! Latinos everywhere!

So lift up your heads with pride, Latinos! Now the world knows we’re smart enough to steal using fancy computers. The next time you’re using your laptop in a coffee shop or something and people are eying you suspiciously go ahead and give them a thumbs up. In a way they’re paying you a compliment.

‘Soupnazi’ hacker Albert Gonzalez went from nerdy past to life of sex, guns and drugs [NY Daily News]
Master Hacker Albert Gonzalez [Time]
Hacker charged, but his accomplices remain at large [USA Today]