Syrian hacker lives by his own code
Pirates software amid tight US sanctions
DAMASCUS - Abdul-Rahman Mahaini estimates that he has stolen millions of dollars' worth of software, hacking his way into the most complex programs in the world.
For a few bucks, the Syrian programmer will unlock the security codes for any program you send him via e-mail or online chat. But do not ask him to break into your former girlfriend's e-mail account or steal sales data from your competitor.
After all, Mahaini maintains, he is an ethical pirate, a devout Muslim who prays five times a day and breaks into software only because his country is under US sanctions and he has little choice.
Mahaini's life revolves around a software shop that he runs on Bahsa Street, Damascus' computer market. The business is a hive of young men asking one another for obscure software programs and the codes and serial numbers to unlock them. They orbit around Mahaini, 26, and his deputies - a kind of cyber-Robin Hood and his Merry Men who steal from the information haves and redistribute the loot to the have-nots. "If you try to deprive me," he said, "I will take it from you."
In 2007, piracy cost the US software industry $48 billion in potential revenue, up from $40 billion the year before, according to the Washington-based Business Software Alliance. The Arab world, where in some places more than 90 percent of software is pirated, is a haven for hackers.
But there is also a political dimension to their piracy. In Syria, which is under tight US banking sanctions that make online transactions and American software sales all but impossible, the hackers consider themselves heroes.
In Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, stealing or using pirated software is also viewed as part of the struggle against American power and policies prejudiced against Arabs and Islam.
"This is the way they're fighting back against American aggression," said Samir Hamade, a professor of information science at Kuwait University. "They say a lot of companies are giving money to Israel, so it's even better to use pirated software than licensed software since you're taking money from Israel."
Still, even by his own standards Mahaini treads ethically muddy waters. Although he will not break into your ex's e-mail, for a fee he is perfectly willing to steal software even for Western businesspeople who live in countries where licensed software is available.
Hamade says US software manufacturers invite piracy by pricing their products too high for the Middle East. In contrast, India sells academic textbooks at discounts as high as 80 percent in the Middle East to avoid copyright infringement.
Software industry executives dispute that theory.
"We have not found that there is a specific correlation between the price of a software product and the rate of software piracy in a market," wrote Cori Hartje, director of
Still, Mahaini has expanded his business to cash-strapped clientele in the West. His latest feat was to make pirated software mimic the original program so that it is eligible for automatic upgrades and support, which cost American companies more money.
His customers include Americans, who transfer as much as several hundred dollars at a time to his account in exchange for bargains.
"We're not stealing," he says. "We're taking advantage of their weaknesses."
