That dude knows what's up. (Image: Krebs on Security)

Got a massive pile of stolen money lying around? Happens to us all. You just need the right people to help launder it. And that, of course, is where the Internet comes in.

Security blogger Brian Krebs points to the advertisement above, which is making the rounds on Russian forums for cyber criminals. He reports that the flyer (featuring an anime-style illustration of a dude who looks like he's about to take allll your money) promises "willing and ready foot soldiers for hire in California, Florida, Illinois and New York." Translation: They've got a whole network of folks on the ground in the U.S., ready to help you move your loot into your international bank account.

It's actually easier said than done getting money stolen virtually out of America and into offshore bank accounts. High-priced merch has to be picked up and hawked somewhere, and you can't simply transfer tens of thousands of dollars out of a bank account without raising a red flag. Often the solution is to recruit unknowing "money mules" through shady work-from-home schemes, but that runs the risk they'll realize something's up and bolt.

These "foreign agents" call themselves “nerazvodni” or “not deceived,” meaning they know what's up, and so they're ready and willing to keep their shit together and stay quiet. As Mr. Kreb puts it: "These are mules that can be counted on not to freak out or disappear with the cash." Customers even get access to a dashboard where they can monitor their accomplices' progress.

That makes them very, very valuable, which means they can charge up to 45 percent for their services. Hey, know-how don't come cheap.

In a sensible move, however, the organization works by reference only. So unless you've got someone in the underground to vouch for you, looks like you're shit outta luck.

Groupon Cat, feral as ever.

In 2011, Wall Street caught friending fever. It was a hell of a year for social media IPOs, as investment banks welcomed themselves into the money-hungry arms of Computer Nerds, Many Of Whom Should Have But Didn't Know Better. Of course, there were a few winners that weren't said banks, as well as a few you've never heard of. In 2012, Facebook will lead one of the largest tech IPOs pretty much ever, and the largest year of tech IPOs since 1999. What did we learn? Mostly, that for every bet, there's a sucker who's as desperate for money as most people apparently are for friends. So:

Who won, who lost, and who debuted on the market without anyone really knowing?

Mashable put together a great list, but they ranked it by the size of the IPO itself. The largest? Russian search engine Yandex, at $1.3B. But to switch their list up, we've ranked said tech IPOs by their gains and losses from their original IPO pricing—the cost per share as they were each set to debut on public markets—along with their position in size on Mashable's list:

1. LinkedIn (LNKD) +37.2% (5/19)
2. Bankrate (RATE) +36.5% (6/19)
3. Jive Software (JIVE) +27.9% (12/19)
4. Angie's List (ANGI) +26% (15/19)
5. Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU) +17.9% (10/19)
6. Zillow (Z) +15.2% (17/19)
7. Groupon (GRPN) +13.1% (4/19)
8. Carbonite (CARB) +11.2% (18/19)
9. FriendFinder (FFN) +0.7% (19/19)
10. Zynga (ZNGA) -5% (2/19)
11. HomeAway (AWAY) -14.8% (8/19)
12. Yandex (YNDX) -20.8% from its IPO Price (1/19)
13. Pandora Media (P) -37.4% (7/19)
14. 21Vianet Group (VNET) -39.7% (9/19)
15. Jiayuan.com International (DATE) -45.6% (16/19)
16. Phoenix New Media (FENG) -51.9% (14/19)
17. Demand Media (DMD) -59.8% (13/19)
18. Tudou Holdings (TUDO) -63.6% (11/19)
19. Renren (RENN) -76.4% (3/19)

We plugged the top and bottom four into Google Finance:

You'll note that as of today, only two of the top four best IPO debuts are still trading above their initial gains. Even more interesting, these are arguably the three most high-profile social media IPOs of the year:

Two (Zynga, priced at $10, and Groupon, priced at $20) are largely considered failures on the market.

One (LinkedIn, priced at $45) held above their initial post-IPO selling point better than anyone else.

Now, which one do you want to put your money into? If you answered anything but "Zynga," you're wrong.

Remember what your parents (should've) taught you: There's no such thing as Getting Rich Quick (without some element of crime involved). The only winners who really made money off of LinkedIn dumped it as soon as they purchased it, or in May, when it peaked. They were not uber-savvy consumer investors like you and I who could call the highest point of a social media IPO like buffalo scouts who can put their ear to the ground and know what the heard is eating that day. No. They were psychotic day traders and people with access to proprietary trading software and people with the cynicism to know better. Anybody looking for a long-term investment who didn't get in on Day 1 and sold at That Perfect Time got generally screwed, at their own hands, mind you!

Those who listened to the press about Zynga—they have a psychotically productive work culture and the way they're intertwined to social networks like Facebook in the same way their investment bank underwriters are with the fate of global finance (a sure path to monetary success)—have held on, and are so far being (however slowly) reminded why they invested in the first place if they weren't on the Social Media IPO Euphoria Bandwagon. Their fate has yet to be fully written—things could still go really bad, like a tray full of vowels in the hands of even the best Words With Friends player—but it's also the most promising of the three.

The lessons from 2011 in Social Media IPOs are clear:

1. Don't buy on Day 1.
2. Don't believe the hype. Ever.
3. If you're a human being who doesn't invest with a monolithic institution, you will never show up to this gunfight with anything more than a knife.
4. If you have a social media company, chances are your IPO will not go extraordinary well. Consider this before going public.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

The great SOPA scrub: lobbying money!

SOPA, short for the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill making its way through Congress, fueled by Hollywood's lobbying dollars. Essentially, it would give the American government the opportunity to hit the kill switch on any domain accused of hosting violations of copyright, sight-unseen and without due process. That would be bad. The Internet knows this, Important People On The Internet know this, and they seem to be working very hard to make people aware of it.

Unfortunately, their efforts—at least as far as money is concerned—might not be enough to match the power of Hollywood's lobbying cash.

Check out just how lucrative it is to support SOPA if you're in Congress. Via Maplight.org, who did all the wonderful math on this matter:

Since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, the 32 sponsors of the bill have received almost 4 times as much in campaign contributions from the movie, music, and TV entertainment industries ($1,983,596), which support the bill, as they have received from the software and Internet industries ($524,977), which believe the language goes too far.

Regardless of who you think has the money, it would appear only one of these two groups in opposition to one another know how to spend it.

And it's not the geniuses with all the great numbers-driven algorithms.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek