In an achievement “clearly” worth being proud of, Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez may be the new world record holder for stealing debit and credit card information. Gonzales, a 28 year old man from Miami, Florida, was indicted last week for conspiring to hack into computer networks supporting a number of major American retail and financial organizations, and stealing the information associated with an estimated 130 million+ debit and credit cards. 

But Gonzalez cannot take full credit (get it?) for this achievement on his own. Working with two Russian hackers, known by online names as “soupnazi and j4guar17″, they called the credit card theft ring “Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin.”. The group used an advanced computer hacking technique called an “SQL injection attack,” which invades computer networks by finding a way around the network’s firewall to steal credit and debit card information. Some of the businesses that were hit by the ring in this latest attack include credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems, the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers.

But it gets even better – apparently this guy used to work for the United States Secret Service! So the bottom line is, our tax dollars quite possibly taught him a good portion of what he needed to know to perform his recent achievements, and the government trained him. And this is not an isolated incident – in August of 2008, the Justice Department announced indictments against Gonzales and others for a number of retail hacks affecting eight major retailers and involving the theft of data related to a mere 40 million credit cards.

It seems as though the hackers will likely only meet one of their two goals, the part about ”death”. Although certainly convicted felons are capable of  post-prison reform, and finding honest, respectible careers maystill allow them the chance to fulfill the “get rich” portion of their goal.  But given that  they each face a maximum of five years in prison, a possible maximum fine of $250,000 on the computer-fraud count, and an additional 30 years and $1 million fine on the wire-fraud count, or twice the amount they gained from the offense (whichever is greater) — I’m thinking the likelihood of becoming rich is not in the (credit) cards for these fellows… at least not in this life.

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