We of the general public presume that the evil-doers that prey upon the users of the internet generally are all acting independently. What the FBI has found is that many of these evil people are linked together by a Russian hacker who goes by the name Slavik. He has written the code and perfected the software used by many of them to do their evil deeds. Slavik sells them that software for prices of $10,000 and up.

In addition to creating the software viruses he organizes collective actions such as having computers send numerous messages to a site so it cannot function normally. This is known as a denial of service attack.

What's in a Name

The choice of Slavik as a name indicates that this individual is a Slavophile. Any Slav has ample reason to be proud of the accomplishments of Slavic people in literature, art, music, mathematics, science and so forth. But the choice of the name Slavik stems from some sort of Slavic covenism and a jealousy of the relative prosperity of Western Europe compared to relative poverty of the Slavic countries, particularly Russia. Slavik set out to prove that the West is not so smart afterall. His striking at the banking system of the West indicates that he may well be a Marxist believing that banks and other financial institutions are predatory parasites on the social order. Then again he may have robbed banks for the same reason given by the 1930's bank robber, Willy Sutton. When Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he famously replied, "Because that is where the money is!"

Although Slavik became relatively rich that wealth came at a price. One of the joys of wealth is to be able to travel. Slavik and his cohorts do not dare to travel. They would be subject to arrest and extradition ,mmm to the United States or any other countries whose citizens and business have been subject to the technical thievery of Slavik and his cohhorts. They searched out the locations of countries which do not have extradition treaties with the U.S. and limited their travel to those.

In 2014 a Russian who had been indicted in 2011 on charges connected with hacking traveled to the tropical Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. Although the Maldives do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. that did not save him. He was kidnapped and taken to a jurisdiction where he could be indicted and extradited to the U.S. He was put on trial in 2016 and convicted. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Slavik faces the same risk and worse. If the financial institutions which he robbed cannot get relief and revenge there is always the possibility that they will hire an assassin to end Slavik's career.

So Slavik who has intelligence and organizational ability comparable to Mark Zukenberg has a hidden existence. Zukenberg, in contrast, stayed on the legal side and became fantastically wealthy.