Hacker City by Corran Nolan

Ramnicu Valcea, a small town in Romania, has a dark reputation. To many people it is known by another name: Hackerville. Among the bleak, Soviet-Era buildings are parked sports cars belonging to 20 and 30-year-olds who are proud to show off their wealth. Where do they get all this money? Ramnicu  Valcea is the world capitol for internet theft, with over 80% of it's victims coming from the US. The US Ambassador to Bucharest says "Last year, 1 billion dollars was stolen in the US by Romanian hackers." Everyone in the city knows what is happening, but they practice omerta, the code of silence, when asked any questions. One of the hackers was willing to share his secrets, but stayed anonymous, saying "It's easier with the Americans. Bamboozle four or five users per a week, leaving me, in the end, a few dozens or few hundred thousand dollars richer." They all have extensive networks for getting money into the country, as well as many people, some orphans drafted from the orphanage, to work for them. Though it has been hard, Romania has made significant progress in the war against cyber crimes. They have a whole unit of the police devoted to it, and have arrested many hackers, including the head of a large network who hacked Nasa's servers. The hacker from Ramnicu Valcea says, "The big whales... have settled elsewhere, in the US, the UK, France, or Switzerland. They are... ghosts and I don't think they'll ever get caught."

This article was written to bring awareness to this internet "pirate port". Though many people think pirating things off of the internet is not that bad, most don't know actually how bad it can get. I don't think anyone could have anticipated how bad things actually are without an article like this getting out into the open. The author's diction and description of the people and area give the audience the sense he does not think too highly of these hackers or Ramnicu Valcea. I believe the authors purpose in this article was to inform and inspire people to help fight against internet piracy.

Source: http://www.worldcrunch.com/tech-science/in-romania-a-quiet-city-has-become-the-global-hub-for-hackers-and-online-crooks/hacking-hacker-romania-pirate-scam-internet-website/c4s10532/#.UPTXVSfO39w