THE HANDBOOK OF THIEVERY v2.0 17. May 2003 by Acidous Content ------- [ 01. Disclaimer ] [ 02. Thieves Equipment ] [ 03. Making Some Equipment ] [ 04. Your Home Base ] [ 05. Thieves Training ] [ 06. What To Do And What Not To Do ] [ 07. Planning And Doing A Job ] [ 08. Entry Methods ] [ 09. When Detected/Confronted ] [ 10. Dealing With Clients ] [ 11. Drugs ] [ 12. Ethics/Other ] [ 13. Dumpster Diving ] [ 14. Lockpicking Substitutes ] [ 15. Shoplifting ] [ 16. Worm Theft ] [ 17. Word From The Author ] 01. Disclaimer -------------- Acidous take no responcibility for what actions this handbook or any of the content of it may cause. Acidous will not take the blame for anything you do after reading this handbook. Everything you do is done by yourself, and can not be forced upon Acidous or any other individual but yourself. Be aware of that Acidous do NOT encourage to such actions which is dealt with in this book. 02. Thieves Equipment --------------------- A good thief needs good equipment, but a lousy thief also needs proper equipment. What type of equipment you need is set by what type of theft you are going to commit. The following list contains mostly the equipment you need for a normal job. Dark Clothes This is very important since most of your work will be done at night. They should be tight, this is because loose clothes slow you down, and they may also swing into some laser sensors, motion sensors or optic sensors. Your shoes must not have a special pattern on the sole. Gloves Black gloves which hinders your fingerprints from telling the police/investigators who you are. Never leave any prints. Flashlight The flashlight must not be anything big like those D3 flashlights. It must be small and handy, and must not slow you down the least. Lockpick This is in case you need to pick some locks. As you might understand, this could prove quite useful. Backpack Use a backpack to keep the items you steal in. The backpack must not be too big, and it should also sit on your back really good. If it's loose, then it's not the right backpack to use. It must also be dark. Toolbelt Keep the tools/items you might need when out on a job in a toolbelt. It will take too long to go in the backpack every time you need something. You must use as little time as possible on the job. Knife/Clippers For cutting wires, seals, phonelines, etc. Cordless Drill/Screwdriver For drilling up locks, making traps, unscrewing panels, etc. Rope Filament thread is the most recommended, but it is rather hard to get, so a fiber thread or any other thin, but yet very strong rope will also do. 03. Making Some Equipment ------------------------- Some of your thieves equipment can without too much trouble be made by yourself. The quality of this equipment depends on how much time you puts into it. Of course, a master thief would put much time into making his equipment, and would also perhaps put his own trademark to it, but that is just something which will lead the federals back to you. Easy Bomb This bomb is mainly for destroying locks, blowing of chains, creating diversions and the likes. What you do is you get some of those ground-based fireworks (Air Shot works great!) which shoot glowing balls up into the air and explode. Open them VERY carefully so that they don't go off. Take the round cardboard cylinder which is in the middle of it and remove it. This is the bomb. You will see a little part of fuse sticking out of it, if you do not run very fast, then I'll suggest you make it longer. Put it into the item/thing you want to blow up, light the fuse and run to a proper distance. It will make some light and then got off with a VERY loud bang. It is also great for use as grenades. Light them up and throw them. It won't hurt anyone much, but sure will fuzz them off and scare them. 04. Your Home Base ------------------ As a pro thief you will not be operating from your house. That would only make you get caught by the police. What you need is a thief headquarters, a safe place where you can stash all your equipment and gains from the jobs, but it must also be a place where you can build Easy Bombs and the likes(eg. Not a gas station). If there is an empty house or warehouse, which nobody use, on the other side of the city from where you live, then it will be the perfect location for your home base. But it still need a lot of work. First of all, people may stumble upon your base and discover your equipment, items from the raids, blueprints, etc. etc. etc. So what you need to do is to build several hidden rooms. You need at least 4 different medium sized hidden niches/rooms. Some good places to use are: -Beneath the floor -In the walls -The ceiling Do not use places like inside cabinets and in drawers, that is just too obvious places to hide your items. Beneath The Floor This is probably the easiest one, but it won't work at all if it's a concrete floor, or any materials of the likes. But a wooden floor will be just perfect. Here's what you have to do: First find an area where the wooden boards isn't too long, then gently remove the nails so that you do not destroy them, and also make sure you don't leave any marks in the wooden boards(Use a rather large flat piece of wood to put between the hammer and the boards). Then remove the board and use a shovel to dig a hole in the ground. Then put a plastic box in the hole, the top of the plastic box should be about 15-20 cm below the opening of the hole. Now put some of your stash in the hole and put the lid on the plastic box. Fill all around the sides of the box with earth, do not pack it more tightly than the normal earth around the box. Now put about 2 cm of earth on top of the box and then cover the area where you just put earth with some 1/2 cm thick wooden boards, and then fill the rest of the hole with earth so that it looks like nothing ever happened there. If you have any more earth left, use a vacuum cleaner to take it up, and dump it about 100 meters away from your base. Now, take the wooden boards which originally were on the floor and put them back in place, then use the same nails you pulled out earlier and hammer them gently into the boards again. Then gather some dust and the likes(not all from one place) and spread it over the area so that it blends perfectly in with the rest of the floor. This is one of the safest places to hide your stuff. In The Walls Remove the boards from the area on the wall in which you want to hide something. Remove the isolation and put the stash in where the isolation were earlier. Then put the boards back on and use the same nails as were there earlier. In The Ceiling: I really can't explain this, some houses already have rooms in the ceiling and it's very hard to explain for me when not many houses give you this opportunity. Use your imagination. Do not put all your equipment and blueprints in one hidden room and all your gains from different missions in another. Spread it out, so that you won't be totally ruined if someone find one of your holes/rooms. Entrances And Escape Routes One entrance won't do you no good, you need at least two entrances/exits to make sure you will not be trapped if the police come. They must be easy accessible and you must be able to move quietly and swiftly in them. If there is only one exit in the base, then make at least one more. But make sure it doens't look like an exit made for escaping only, make it seems like it was there originally, or hide it. When it comes to escape routes: plan them well! When in an emergency situation you must not hestitate with what is to be done. Always grab all your gadgets and other stuff before you follow the escape route. Sometimes it is even sufficient to hide. A hidingplace can ba made in the same ways as the item hiding way, only big enough for you to fit in. Another good way to secure your privacy is to find a room with a single door and no windows in. What you do is that you remove any signs of there being a door there and insert a wall. Use old materials which match the surrounding walls, and make it so that you can open it to get out, but it is not noticable that it is a door from the other side. Also soundisolate the walls to make sure someone doesn't knock on the wall and figure out it's a hidden room there, make the walls thick. Traps And Mechanisms Traps and alarm mechanisms are needed for you to fend of intruders. Only a trip-wire connected to a bell could prove useful as a very primitve alarm mechanism, but you could also rig up a huge computerized alarms network, but that would only let the police know you were there if they should find your base. Traps will also let the police know you were there, but you can make traps which you may disable and enable as you need them. And example of that is if the police know where you are and they come to arrest you. What you do it that you activate the traps, then hide all other evidence you were there before you use your escape route. The traps may fend of the police long enough for you to do what is needed to do, it may mislead them and the likes. 05. Thieves Training -------------------- It is a well known fact that you can never be a good thief without the proper training. You need to replace most of the slowing fat with muscles. Building Muscles Do push-ups, a lot of them. This will strengthen your arms and chest, it will alsomake you much more capable of defending yourself in a crisis situation. Start running/jogging to make your legs stronger. In a getaway situation, you might need to run fast and over a longer distance. Do sit-ups to strengthen your stomach. If hit in the stomach and your washboard is properly built up, then the attacker will get more hurt than you. Never overdo the training. You must not look like a giant monster. The trick is to be both strong and slim at the same time. Practise in moving swift and soundless. The more sound you make, the bigger is the chance for you to be detected. Martial Arts You should learn at least the basics of one martial art. Karate is not one of the martial arts you need to learn at first. Start in the direction of Taekwondo, which is much better for defending yourself than Karate. Try to only move on to the next martial art if you feel that you master the one you are doing enough to take on a person bigger than yourself. Picking Locks Practice picking the locks at your home. Start with easy ones, then move on to the harder locks. Read manuals on lock picking. Electronics & Alarms Study electronics, find out how different alarms work and how you can bypass, reprogram or destroy them. Also study how you can make other electronical items to go mad. 06. What To Do And What Not To Do --------------------------------- It is only when on a mission that you turn into the master thief you really are. At day, you dress up and act like a normal person, caring about everyday cares, and trying to do a good job. This section will explain how to act in your everday life if you do not want to get caught. Act normal, tend your garden, feed the cats, talk to neighbors, have a good time with friends. If you have a job, try to do it as good as you can, never overspeed or get caught for traffic violations or any other small crimes. Make you seem like a person who would never commit a crime. After a successful raid, never brag about it, do not go totally crazy. Relax, act like nothing happened. That will make it much harder for someone to track you down, plus that no one will suspect you for the crime. 07. Planning And Doing A Job ---------------------------- Planning the job is very important. If you do not plan it, then the possibility for failing dramatically increases. The Planning Phase: * Get blueprints of the facility you will be entering. * Set a time frame for the job, never exceed the time frame. * Plan routes and possible other routes in case the first one should fail. * Always have an emergency plan in case something goes wrong. * Check the guard lists, this can be done by dumpster diving (see own chapter on dumpster diving) * Check for cameras, motion detectors and other alarms. * Go through the whole plan many times to check if everything is right. * Memorize the plan, do not carry with you a plan description. A map may be brought if you are unable to memorize it. The Job Itself: * Follow the plan you made down to the last detail. Only use other plans when it fails. * Do not exceed the time frame, an unstructured job might turn into a total disaster. * Do not use the flashlight unless you really need to. * If there seems to be no solution, or something you did not plan comes up, improvize, it is the only way. * If any major problem comes up, halt the job and move out as fast as possible. * Do not leave a note or tag with your alias, it will only help the police to track you down. * Do not bring any lethal weapons at all, weapons may only tempt you to use them, use your mind and martial arts instead. * Do NOT kill anyone. Knock them unconscious, nothing more than that. Try at your best to avoid being detected. After The Job: * Destroy all plans, documents, items, from the planning of the job. Do not leave anything behind. * Do not brag about it. Not to friends, strangers, on the internet or anywhere. The government will track you down and take you. * Act like nothing happened, act normally concerned over the newspaper headlines. Make it seem like you do not have anything to do with it. 08. Entry Methods ----------------- There are many different ways to enter the premises in which your job will be concentrated in, and it is very important that your entry makes as little noise as possible, which causes the probability of detection to fall drastically. This section of the book will explain different ways to silently, and without causing too much attention, entering the premises in which you will be working in. Contact Plastics Contact plastics are those thick see-through plastic films with glue on one of the sides, and it is used on books(especially school-books) to stop them from falling apart. This contact plastic is very useful when entering through windows which must be broken. What you do is that you put the plastic on the window(with the glue to the window) so that it sticks to it. Then hit on the middle of the plastic with a hammer or any other hard object. The glass will break, but instead of breaking into a thousand pieces, making a lot of noise and falling to the ground making even more noise, it will this time stick to the glue on the plastic and make almost no sound at all. Then all you have to do is to remove the plastic and the window is open and ready to be climbed through. But of course, this method leaves good traces of you being there. Diamond Knife It is a well known fact that diamond is harder than any material you may be in posession of. So, a diamond knife will easily be able to cut through glass. There are many types of them, both cheap and expensive. If you are really serious about being a master thief, the obivous selection would be a expensive, but very good diamond knife. It should also be one of those which look like a compass(the compass which you make perfect circles with). It does not have to be big, since you are not supposed to use it for making big holes in the glass. What you do is that you place a small cupping glass on the part you will be cutting away, and then placing the knife on the glass and make a nice and round circle big enough for you to fit your arm through. Then remove the knife and take the glass piece away with the cupping glass. As you have might figured out, this method is mostly for when you are going to open something on the other side, and also that the cupping glass is for making sure the glass piece does not fall to the ground and make a loud sound which will attract attention. Card Readers There are more than one option when dealing with card readers. Most of these readers are based on reading magnetic stripes, something in which you may bypass by fooling/short-circuiting it or by using a fabricated or stolen access card. Using a fabricated/stolen access card is really the easiest way to get past the card reader. You can either secretly steal an access card from an employee or other person with a desired access level, and then using his card or using a magnetic card reader and writer to copy his card and then putting his card back without him noticing. Another solution of this type is to hack into their database, either locally or externally and creating a false account and then creating yourself an access card. Fooling/short-circuiting is the more stressing way, but it does not need much work earlier except learning how it works of course. What you need to do is to open the card reader and fool it by either short-circuiting it, something which in most cases sets of one or more alarms, or by inserting a new chip which makes it think you have access to the desired area. Of course, this fooling/short-circuiting method takes more time than stealing a card Breaking Open and Smashing Breaking open doors, windows, walls, etc. should always be your last option. You must always try to leave as little evidence and make as little sound as possible. Breaking and smashing things often cause a lot of noise and almost always attracts attention to you and your presence. 09. When Detected/Confronted ---------------------------- Beind detected and confronted is one of the things you must try your best to avoid. However, it is impossible to avoid detection in certain situations. When detected, it is very important that you stop the person(s) you are detected by from notifying others about your presence, and also make sure that you do not notify others of your presence. There is something which is important when confronted in battle with the person(s) who detected you. You must not make noise(i.e. screaming, yelling). Making much noise will only cause others to become aware of your presence and come to aid your opposers. Also try to render your opponent harmless/unconscious quickly and without sound. It is also very smart to be totally quite when fighting. Because if you are well trained in martial arts and also fight without making a sound, your opponent will think of you as a master within fighting, and fear you, something which will make him/her more insecure in what to do, something which makes him/her slower and more unsteady. It is a well known fact that screaming and making random loud noises will scare and surprise your opponent so that he/she will become more insecure, but it is not to be recommended in most situations. The use of chloroform have been widely used in movies and fantasy where the master thief is involved. However, chloroform is only used by unprofessional persons. The reason for that is that chloroform does not have a reliable effect. The effect varies from time to time and the person you use it on. Chloroform can actually kill a person because of the unstability in how it works on the human body. So therefore, chloroform is not to be recommended at all. 10. Dealing With Clients ------------------------ Since you will have trouble distributing and getting rid of famous and valuable artifacts when only working for yourself, you will need a rich and well-built clientele. There are many precautions which must be taken in concern when dealing with clients. They may be con-artists, federal investigators, or any other person/group of persons you may have come in trouble with. The trick is to always be smarter and take more precautions than the ones trying to trick and kill you. There is one thing that must be said clearly before you continue with this section; mostly everything you see in movies on how money transaction if performed will not work in real life at all. And always remember to run a background check on all your clients. Building Your Clientele Building a respected and rich clientele from scratch will be very hard in the beginning. You should not turn down any offer except for real dirt jobs like stealing spirits from one alcoholic for another alcoholic. It is of great importance that your first few missions become successful, something which of course is the hardest since it is your first missions. As more missions are completed successfully, you will gain more respect and get more clients. Respect is one of the most important things in the business. You will only get dirt jobs if you do not have respect and a good reputation. It is also important that no one really knows you. They just know that you are very good, one of the best, but not who you are, what you look like, and so on. Spreading the word of your services will mostly only be needed in the starting-up phase. If you hear from someone that they are spreading word of another offer, tell them about another offer which you heard of(of course it is yourself), you may also pay someone else to spread the word for you. Of course, paying someone for doing it is the most recommended in most situations. But keep in mind that the one spreading the word must never be in direct contact with you, not even in the same room. The reason for this last precaution is that if someone sees that you are becoming too successful, they might try to eliminate you from the game, and just about everyone has their own price before switching alliance. Getting Hired It is also of great importance that you never come in direct contact or even in the same room as any client. You should not even be in the same building, but instead use cameras, microphones and speakers so that you can always see, hear and talk to the client. Never accept a job or get to an agreement over the phone, and always use payphones, cellphones or satellite phones when contacting the client. Always remember that cellphones may be traced via the GSM tele network. Only tell the client where and when to meet you over the phone, and never keep the call open for more than 1 minute each time. Also change numbers between every client, so that they can not trace your cellphone using a number. Always watch for under-cover federal agents who try to arrest you and take you to jail. The reason for not being in the same room/building as the client is that they might have 50 other waiting for his signal to storm the building and arrest, kill or take you with them. Also never tell when or where the mission will be starting, the client must never know until the news hit the newspaper frontpages. Do not tell them where or when to get the goods before after the mission is over and you have placed the mission objective at the drop-off location and left the area. Watch our for fingerprints on equipment like cameras, microphones, speakers, and on the areas you are in. Never meet the clients at the same location, always swap locations so that they can not get a fix on where you will be going before you do. Money Transfer Getting payment for the job is the most important thing since you need money to live from(of course you have a normal day-time job to). As always, you must not be in the same area/building as the client coming with the moneym, and you should try to get an arrangement so that you get half or 1/4 of the money before the mission, and the rest after it is completed. Always get the money in small bills, never get large bills. You decide what kind of box/bag/briefcase the client will be carrying the money in. And arrange so that you, or someone you have payed will walk past the client on the street, and as he pass him stroke a "bug-detector"(detects signals going out, often used for tracing money and drugs by police) across the surface of the bag. If the bug-detector shows positive detection of signals, then abort the swap and contact the client telling him/her that the mission is aborted due to break of agreement. Also have many briefcases/containers which are identical to the ones the client is carrying the money in. Make several payed persons carry them around, and let one of them pick up the money. Make sure the money is placed at a location which can not be kept under surveillance from many places at once. Then make the person swap the empty briefcase with his own and walk away. Then make sure they swap cases between them many times to confuse the client is he/she is following, before bringing it to the drop-off point where you will be picking up the money. Do not pick them up in person, but try to make a sort of mechanism which dumps the money down a hole or the likes so that you can pick them up undisturbed. 11. Drugs --------- Drugs are one of the things which you must stay as far away from as possible. Just about every drug will make you an addict after consuming enough of it. Hard drugs makes you and addict easier than other drugs. Therefore it is obivous that it must be forbidden for you to use any drugs or other addictive drugs. For every drug or substance you use regularly, there is a new weakness. The following is a list of drugs and why not to use them. Hard Drugs(heroin, cocaine, etc.) These so-called hard drugs are the ones you will really have to watch out for. They give you a nice trip, and you feel fine and all that, but it will make you an addict extremely quickly. And the comedown, or the impact with the world as it may be called, has a tendency to make you depressed and strengthen your urge for more. It will also make you blunt and slow. Less Hard Drugs(marihuana, mushrooms, etc) Marihuana is not a good thing. You get high from it, something which will make you an addict, and it also contains many chemicals which are dangerous to your body. It will destroy your lounges, something which causes a decrease in your stamina. Mushrooms are also very dangerous because they can also cause drug dependencies, and it will destroy your body. Smoking Smoking is actually a real meanie within the drugs. It is legal in most countries(illegal in one country actually), and they cause a severe addiction, and they also drastically increase the probability for cancer. They also lower your stamina if they are used regularly, and may also give you emphysema, which is a lounge disease. Others Coffee is one of the less dangerous substances in which you may consume or use. But still, it is something you must not use regularly. Coffee may seem good to keep you awake, but the truth is that this drug may also cause addiction, and it also creates a health risk within different subjects. Alcohol isn't really addictive, but people will tend to drink much of it often. Alcohol dissolves fat, and it goes straight to the brain with the blood. It does its work on the fat in and around the brain and makes you blunt and slow. The alcohol attacking the fat around brain is the reason for you not remembering anything after drinking much the day before. Performance Improving Drugs The so-called Performance Improving Drugs, or PIDs, are drugs which do not cause direct addiction, and no direct disease. Examples of these are amphetamine, caffeine and anabolic steroids. Amphetamine is used to not get tired when running and using your body. This may seem handy at first, but it really is not. Amphetamine increases the blood circulation(heart rate) and body temperature. This combined with stress and major use of muscles may cause heat-stroke, or over-stress. Caffeine will stop you from feeling tired. This may also seem handy at first, but it may make you addicted to it, something which is not wanted at all. Anabolic Steroids are used for making the mucles "grow" very fast. It is not good at all when training to become a master thief because you do not get as strong as you would by training, and you will turn into a giant bulldozer of a person, something which is not good at all. 12. Ethics/Other ---------------- Of course you will think of a thief as a reckless being, without any ethics or rights-and-wrongs in life. But that is only true for the villains and small crooks. A real master thief will have his ethics and obey them. A true master thief will have respect for church and religion. One should not take things or do things which affect the church or religion unless one are truly sure it is the right thing to do. Also, never take from old, ill or poor people. They need all the money they have and do not need another worry on their head. But one of the most important things is that you know your own ethics, and create your own rules to follow. And please, do not become reckless as so many others before you. Another thing which is important to hinder the police or anyone else from capturing you is to not have a pattern. Do jobs at random locations and not in a specific order, do not leave a trademark or anything else that my lead the investigators to you. 13. Dumpster Diving ------------------- Dumpster diving is very informative. The nice thing is that you can find all kind of stuff in a dumpster. In public paper-dumpster one can find social security numbers, names, addresses, porno-mags, magazines you didn't even know exist. And in those large company dumpsters one can find all kinds of info about the company, passwords, security lists, etc. etc. Now, on to the diving. There are a few security subjects you need to take care of before and while going on a dive. Make sure there is nobody around to see you, also make sure there is no cameras around when you dive. Kinda boring getting busted when diving. Well, anyway, if someone should see you, make sure they won't be able to identify you later on. Wear dark clothes at night. If someone sees you, run as fast as you can, and try to always face away from them. In that way they won't see your face, and won't be able to give a positive ID on you. 14. Lockpicking Substitutes --------------------------- Lockpicking often takes time, time which you do not have. Then a substitute for lockpicking could be necessary. The following methods may leave marks of destruction, but they are good if either don't have the time or you simply cannot pick locks(of course you MUST know how to pick a lock to become a professional thief). 15. Shoplifting --------------- Okay, shoplifting is Easy, just stuff the shit in you bag, backpack, whatever, but getting out is harder, those sensors at the entrance sets of and an alarm if the stuff you are lifting haven't got the "chip" disabled. There are many ways to get through this sensor, and here's three of them The Most Risky Way When no one is at the counter, put your merchandise on the counter, then take it off, the counter has a machine that disables the "chip". Stuff it back in your bag and walk out. The First Less Risk Way Get yourself one of those machines that disables the "chip" and make it portable if you have to, take it to the shop, get some stuff you like, use your machine on it and put it in your bag, then walk out of the shop, and the alarm won't go off. The Second Less Risk Way Get yourself a lead bag(Aluminium foil might also work), or a bag with lead-walls on the inside(easy to make) put the stuff you want to lift in the bag and walk out, the sensors at the entrance can't "see" through the lead shielding, something that makes it think there is nothing there. Another Less Risk Way This method doesn't work in all shops. Many shops have equipped their merchandise with "invisible" alarms. Anyway, here's how to do it. You need one of those metal clippers, or perhaps if you can get one, one of those things they use in the store to cut off the alarms. This is the type of alarm they most often use in cloth stores. It is a big white chip or an ampoule filled with paint(sometimes they even use both). Clip them off and do whatever you want to with them,(ie. put them in someones pocket). 16. Worm Theft -------------- You can also use the computer to steal a lot of money. This works only if you already know how to hack your way into a bank, or get a worm inside the banks computer system in some other way. What you need to do is to make a worm which steals only a few cents each time a transaction is performed, in that way it is less likely the bank will detect the worm at all, because it only steals such small amounts. The worm must also put the money in many different accounts, because then if one of the accounts get's taken down, the other account will still have a lot of money on them, it will also make the worm harder to detect. Here's a simple example on how much money you can make by doing this. Let's say that 1000 people uses their accounts every hour, and that the worm steals 5 cents for every transaction/withdrawal. m = 1000x * 5 / 100 So, for one week that will be: m = (1000 * 168) * 5 / 100 m = 168000 * 5 / 100 m = 8400 $ And that is not a bad weekly salary at all. 17. Word From The Author ------------------------ This handbook was written purely for educational purposes, and is not intended for readers below the age of 18. But after all, I don't care how old the readers are, and that is because this book is put on the internet, and I do not care wether you read it or not. IF the instructions in this book is followed, it may cause in the serious fellony of making you a pro thief, if you are dedicated enough that is, and it also may cause you to make alot of money, but there of course is the risk of getting caught. Remember the old saying: "There is always someone better". Feel free to send me an e-mail if you have something which you think should be added to the next release of the handbook, or if you just want to say Hi. -Acidous (acidous_@hotmail.com) 17.05.03 (17. May, 2003)