Drew discovered as a child how easy it was to scam others online for money. But thieves have no honor, so he himself became a victim of his accomplices. This is the first part of “Kids Without Scruples”. In the English original by Jack Rhysider, this episode is called “Dirty Coms [1]”. The German production is the responsibility of Isabel Grünewald and Marko Pauli from heise online. The podcast is released weekly on all major podcast platforms and can be subscribed to here [2].. JACK: The older generation gives us so much life experience and wisdom, I don’t know where we would be without them. They warn us of the dangers of the world and give us insights that we would take decades to gain on our own. But the Internet… has no older generation yet. We are still the first generation of users. It was only 30 years ago that AOL brought millions of people online for the first time. And oh, how the Internet has changed since then…. But if there is no older generation to show the younger generation how to navigate online safely, many children will have to learn the hard way. I remember when I was a teenager, I messed around on the Internet so much that, honestly, I caught a new virus on our family computer every week. There was absolutely no one there to show me why that happened or how to fix it. My grandmother and my father hardly knew how to turn on the computer, let alone how to deal with such problems.. Schools didn’t offer computer classes back then, and when they finally did, they only taught basic things like typing or how to use certain applications. There was nothing in the curriculum about the dangers of downloading software, shopping online, or visiting chatrooms. Such things were only taught by family – or in my case, by no one. Often the older generation relies on us younger people to teach them computer things. I’ve seen so many times that parents ask their children to set up a new computer or show them how to use social media. When children have to explain to their parents the dangers of social media, it’s as if children were teaching their parents traffic rules. But that’s the world we live in, because the Internet is still relatively new. What will the Internet look like in 2060? There will be better-informed users, users who grew up with parents who experienced the dark sides of the Internet and who can warn them and show them the dangers. But that time hasn’t come yet. We’re still in a time when the younger generation is showing us the way. I really hope they know where they’re going.. From game to phishing trap. JACK: Recently, someone approached me who was willing to give me an insight into some online communities that I had no idea about before. Let me say upfront: this episode is less about a story than it is about an insight into what’s happening in some of these underground groups – groups where hackers, con artists and thieves hang out.. JACK: Hi. What’s up, man?. DREW: All good.. JACK: Is there a name I should use when I talk about you in this episode?. DREW: You can call me Drew.. JACK: Really? I don’t know if that’s your real name or not, but it sounds like a…. DREW: Yeah, no, it’s not.. JACK: Okay. Just Drew, got it.. DREW: Yeah, Drew.. JACK: Oh, first: is it okay if I record our conversation to use it in the Darknet Diaries podcast?. DREW: Yes, you have my permission.. JACK: Okay, so we’re recording.. DREW: All right. Do you want the whole story?. JACK: Yeah.. DREW: Okay, so it starts, I’m thirteen years old, it starts with Roblox, so playing Roblox, and I found out that you could get cheaper Robux.. JACK: Okay, sorry, I’m already lost. Roblox is just outside my field of view, and I don’t really understand it. So I need to pause here for a moment, do some research, and I’ll be right back. Okay, so first of all, Roblox is a video game, but it’s more than that; it’s a video game platform that gives you the tools to develop your own video game. If you build something cool there, other people might want to play it. But there’s this thing called Robux. That’s Roblox’s in-game currency, and in some user-created Roblox games, you have to pay Robux to play them. Have I got that right so far?. DREW: Yeah, that’s right, except for one thing you have to keep in mind: kids want in-game currency and they’re willing to do anything for it, because they don’t have physical money, since their parents definitely won’t spend money on it.. JACK: Can you buy it with real money?. DREW: Yes, you can only buy it with real money.. JACK: Oh, you can’t earn it in the game?. DREW: No, it’s not a…. JACK: Okay.. DREW: You can’t earn it in the game. Kids want it, but they can’t afford it because they’re kids and their parents don’t want to keep paying for their games. So they visit websites where they can fill out surveys and watch ads to get Robux for it.. JACK: Okay, I can already see the potential for abuse here. Real money flows into Roblox and real money flows out. Because if you manage to develop a game that people are willing to pay for, you get paid as a game developer. So if I can get people to play my game, whether legitimately or not, I get paid. But on the other hand, there’s the question of how people get Robux. As Drew said, kids don’t have money, so they go to these websites, fill out surveys and watch ads to get Robux. These ad servers make money from their clicks and pay a percentage to the kids who click on the links.. DREW: Yes, that’s exactly the model. A lot of it is a scam, to be honest.. JACK: Yeah, and not all of these sites actually pay out either. So you’re lucky if you even get Robux for your work. If a thirteen-year-old really wants a few Robux and sees a way to get them for free, they’ll click on a link without hesitation, install some software, or sign up for something and give their email address and phone number. Drew’s friends had set up an ad server and ran Google Ads to make it easier for kids to find and visit the server and click on all the links to earn Robux.. DREW: The profit margins were insane. It cost him about $6 to pay a kid, which in turn made him about $50. He had about 2000 kids a month and made $1000 to $2000 a day from it – really! That was cool to witness. He’s about my age; around fourteen, fifteen, and he does this every single day.. JACK: Suddenly it was no longer about playing Roblox, but about turning kids into a commodity and making money off them – kids who were willing to watch ads to get Robux. As I said, that’s just the surface. You can imagine all kinds of tricks to exploit the backend, for example copying a popular Roblox game and then somehow disabling the original so everyone switches to your game because yours is running. Now you’re getting paid Robux – and there are all kinds of black-hat strategies that are discussed in special hacker forums – and that’s exactly where he