CICO-SILO14 “Made My Life a Living Hell” Says Black Man Studying Mobile App Development!
AGN.News
April 13, 2021
PHOENIX ARIZONA – Cyber criminals have allegedly continued to claim more victims. A Black man working to develop a simple way to create mobile applications says his “life has been a living hell on earth.” He says his program would create hundreds of jobs for veterans including seniors citizens, disable veterans including wounded warriors. The technology he has been working on has been a continued target of cyber criminals based in Arizona and California and beyond.
CICO-SILO14, as this group of cyber criminals are called, has targeted a Black man we’ll call “Marcus”. Marcus says he has been harassed both online and offline. He says he has been “terrorized non-stop” for years by a local group of cyber criminals and their agents inside tech companies.
Marcus says he has been trying to find ways to stop the harassment for years. It all came out of darkness into the light by chance. He received a text message from a friend during the Christmas holiday in 2014. It said, “Merry Christmas” to him from a familiar phone number, his friend. The problem was he was standing in a grocery store line talking to his friend at that very moment.
Marcus asked his friend did he send him a holiday greeting. He said, “No not yet … but I will, later in the week.” When he showed his friend all of the past holiday greetings he received from “him” (his number) he said “I didn’t send any of them.” Marcus said he was stunned. Who would “spoof” this number and send him messages. He said he changed phones, then phone numbers multiple times. None of that helped. Later he learned that was the “tip of the iceberg.”
That was just the beginning. From there Marcus says, he started getting phone calls with “fake” recorded messages from various “government agencies” and other groups. On the way home, one night, there was what appeared to be a police car waiting in front of his home. The “policeman” just wanted to see his driver’s license only. He said, “I don’t need the registration.” He went back to his car and made a phone call. Returned and asked which house I lived in. He said, thanks and drove off. Marcus said that seemed “odd”. Later his home was broken into.
Next, in March 2015, his domain account was locked by the largest domain company in the world. He was denied access to those domains (the domains he used in class). Without the domains it was impossible to continue in the class. The domain company required all kind of documents before they would unlock his account. After days and hours-long phone calls and what Marcus called “complying with a long list of requirements” he says he was granted access.
He says he was shocked that one of the top domain companies in the world would do something like this. Why was he shocked? Because he had been a customer for over 17 years. So he wondered why would the grand daddy of all domain companies treat him this way. That’s when “a light came on in his head” Marcus said. “Racial bias! Something you would not want to believe.” As it turned out it was much deeper than that.
Then came another shock. A top hosting company with the toughness of a crocodilian, hosting millions of sites be involved in this scheme. Marcus says he had been a customer for over 5 years. How could a company hosting his apps, allow over 125 mobile applications under development to be destroyed.
After many protests, via chat line and phone calls to customer support, the hosting company rep asked for his phone number. Little did he know he would be ignored thereafter. All calls went unanswered except one, the last one. The rep called the “website security ” company a scam when asked who could help protect the apps. He asked himself, “How can you call a help line and it’s never answered?” After that, he says, his calls went unanswered. All of those applications were a total lost! Those applications represented over five years of R and D (research and development) class work. It would take nearly a year to fix and repair those applications, Marcus says.
Did the hosting company offer to compensate Marcus for the lost? He said, “Absolutely not, even though I have never missed a payment. I had been a client since 2011, and look how I was treated by the company I trusted to secure my training apps. I must add, I did receive an apology for over-charging me for a service that was unrelated. Why, after all of these years am I now having all of these issues.”
Later, Marcus said a server administrator contacted him and told they were locking his accounts. He said they needed the exact IP address where I was before they would allow me to access the servers. Marcus said within 5 minutes his computer was hacked and destroyed. Later when he gained access to the server, the apps were destroyed. “That’s exactly what happened,” says Marcus.
Going back to October 5, 2017 at 5:05 pm, came a flood of malware on the repaired applications. Almost immediately a “website security” company (referred to earlier by the hosting rep) offered via email to “protect” the applications, for a monthly fee. In the process of “protecting” the apps they destroyed 63 applications. Who are these “protectors” who would allow this to happen? As part of the sales “pitch” he was told to Google one application a see the malware. All of this, I later learned, was part of the setup to destroy even more apps. Marcus said, he realized, “My worst fears came true. All of these people were working together to destroy my program.”
This was a security company working under contract with the hosting company. Then Marcus said he found out they were “harvesting personal data” for hackers. This began what Marcus called, made “life a living hell on earth” for a black mobile app developer. After refusing to pay “protection money” for nothing, the harassment increased 10,000 times via phone calls, spear-phishing email, and text messages.
Marcus says, his applications were destroyed over and over again for the next year. From October 2017 through this month (April 2021) his applications have experienced over 238,000 hacking attempts (some apps successfully destroyed and others not so much). That has to be a world record!
Some hacking attempts have been over 600 in one day on one application. Many have occurred over hundreds of times per day, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week without letup. There is evidence that point to a coordinated effort to communicate with “embedded agents” in these companies to perform these cyber attacks. In other words, this was part of an interstate conspiracy among individual “agents” in several companies working for a leader or manager in a “legitimate company” to prevent these applications from coming to market.
The total of offline and cyber crimes Marcus says he has endured includes, home burglary, stolen equipment, auto burglary, car damage, thousands of sexually explicit “spear phishing” emails, malware infested popup ads, spear phishing text messages, hacked and destroyed computers, hacked and destroyed cellphones, four attempted murder by staging “fake auto accidents” which were really attempted homicides made to appear accidental (last one on December 23, 2020), aggravated stalking, harassing phone calls (as many as 53 calls in one day from the same phone number, and many more criminal acts.
There are several indications that may indicate “racial bias” as one motive. First, as this all began, Marcus say he was told, “The Internet belongs to white people.” Secondly, has said, he was called racial slurs like “Monkey” by one of the hackers (a clear reference to race) early on. Then there is the financial component. Death threats have been made and threats to life and limb brings to the surface financial gain. These domains were the initial target. Marcus said he believes they are still the target.
Marcus says, “They have made my life a living hell. It’s hard to sum up years of harassment and destruction by “embedded agents” (working for legitimate companies) of hate in just a few words.”
Marcus learned why changing phone or phone numbers didn’t help. These hackers had “embedded agents” in mobile networks which allowed them to access via associates personal data of their targets.
One thing for sure, Marcus says, “He will continue on his mission, despite these continued efforts, to help veterans and others learn how to create mobile applications in this ever changing technical world despite the ongoing racial and financially motivated hate crimes he’s experienced over many years.”
OMS Security says this probably is the work of the cyber criminal group called CICO-SILO14 (a reference to unknown individuals) who have targeted his programs for years. It appears they may want to destroy his program or devalue it. If so, OMS says, “Now having some of CICO-SILO14 cyber activities exposed gives hope to victims that the end of their pain is near”. As award winning writer, Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
In the meantime, our special gratitude goes out to everyone who share our common goal to share current local and global news and who believes in press freedom.
If you believe in press freedom and want to begin a career in journalism, please let us know by clicking on the envelope below.
COVID-19 PREVENTION
Everyone is being urged by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC.gov) to get vaccinated, wear masks, practice social distancing, and wash hands as a way to cut down on the transmission rate.
For more information on local responses to the novel coronavirus also called … COVID-19, contact your local healthcare provider, visit coronavirus.gov or visit cdc.gov for the United States response to the coronavirus.
News you can use! Enjoy the best of news from your community by Alphabet Global News.
ALPHABET GLOBAL NEWS
Reliable. Trusted. Local. News.
On Mobile … Fast!
Written by
AGN.News Team
Disclaimer: This post does not represent the views or viewpoint of the owner of AlpLocal.com, AGN News or its representatives or reporters. Any content which references any person, entity or group with similar names, descriptions, or business interest in any geographical location or similar businesses is merely a coincidence and not directed at said business. AGN News is compiled from submissions by contributors or other sources.
