4 ms·

If you check his previous blog posts, you'll see that Brian Krebs spends a lot of time trying to find some pretty nasty individuals. Doing it in person, in a st

by donkeyd 11y ago

If you check his previous blog posts, you'll see that Brian Krebs spends a lot of time trying to find some pretty nasty individuals. Doing it in person, in a strange country probably causes some direct danger, but I'm pretty sure he's on some lists already.

throwaway583467 11y ago
yeah, I'm going to go with "he is making all of this up." The only way I would have written a factual - as in, not blatantly made up - blog post like we just read (absent basically any mention whatsoever of personal danger) is if the whole thing really took place in Southeast China, oh, and in 1996, oh and it wasn't ATM machines it was vending machines - and it wasn't bluetooth it was FM radio. With literally every detail changed. Throw in a picture of a hotel in Mexico and you're good to go. The alternative, that he is just making all of this up, seems just so much more plausible. I've now also watched the video. I don't know - would bluetooth signals from deep inside a machine - as you can see, in the video, the bluetooth transmitter is occluded by an entire printed circuit board - go all the way across the lobby to reach him? (as in the video) Secondly, since it is SO innocuous to take out a cell phone in front of an ATM (I would have zero qualms doing this) to check, wouldn't this post have generated literally hundreds of comments from people checking an ATM and finding said signal? Nobody would mind doing that. (By the way, I don't have an issue with the "laziness" of the solution he purportedly uncovered, i.e. transmitting a bluetooth device signal with the default name, as it is not obvious how to make a transmitter turn on only in response to a signal from a commodity cell phone that has nothing incriminating on it. So technologically it seems to be okay for me.) But the whole story doesn't really add up. Someone else here mentions that supposedly he regularly reads some spammer forum where they coordinated sending him cocaine in the mail and then SWATting his house. This just seems so incredibly unlikely to me - i.e. a fabrication. How many forums can one person read? It just seems to be made up. (Unless he changed huge amounts of details to other, similar details). But that seems unlikely.
- throwaway583467 11y ago
  EDIT: Kindly respond to the point I raise below, if you disagree. How would a bluetooth transmitter from inside a metal enclosure that is not designed to pass wireless signals, be easily read from across a lobby? It's way out of range! In the video, do you really expect him to be able to read the ATM from across the lobby (given your experience with bluetooth, and as you can see, earlier in the video he shows the chip snuggled under a PCB, deep inside a metal enclosure?) I mean signal drops with square of distance. Bluetooth has a basic range of "typically less than 10m" (32 feet) or quite a bit less than those machines seem to be, even though those machines were not designed to be good transmission enclosures. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6y2soOp8Y&t=4m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6y2soOp8Y&t=4m45s What's more likely: 1. That: - That that phone is picking up a commodity bluetooth signal from that distance that we see, and - The iPhone doesn't pick up said signal even if the iphone is next to it. Or: 2: That - He has two bluetooth transmitters near the phone he is using - He mentioned that an iPhone doesn't work so that people aren't surprised when they can't reproduce anywhere. Also, notice that the original text includes NO reference to what is in Part 2, which makes me think he is writing it in such a way that he leaves part 2 open to addressing any concerns incredulous people might raise. Most of the video is just still shots from sources you can see online. There's no recording of a meeting taking place. It just looks like some guy, with an over-the-top story and zero concern, whatsoever, for his safety. If others here think my analysis is unwarranted, could you address the specific issues I raise? EDIT: Please stop downvoting me without a response. If you address my specific concerns I'm happy to delete this comment.
  - robin_reala 11y ago
    You’re getting downvoted because Brian has a long and storied history as a security researcher and consultant. He has very little to gain from making a story like this up, and quite a lot to lost. Also, if you really believed your arguments then why make them from a throwaway account? Regarding your issue with metal enclosures, there’s plenty of non-metal or thin-metal windows: the screen for one.
    - throwaway583467 11y ago

by donkeyd 11y ago

throwaway583467 11y ago

yeah, I'm going to go with "he is making all of this up." The only way I would have written a factual - as in, not blatantly made up - blog post like we just read (absent basically any mention whatsoever of personal danger) is if the whole thing really took place in Southeast China, oh, and in 1996, oh and it wasn't ATM machines it was vending machines - and it wasn't bluetooth it was FM radio. With literally every detail changed. Throw in a picture of a hotel in Mexico and you're good to go. The alternative, that he is just making all of this up, seems just so much more plausible. I've now also watched the video. I don't know - would bluetooth signals from deep inside a machine - as you can see, in the video, the bluetooth transmitter is occluded by an entire printed circuit board - go all the way across the lobby to reach him? (as in the video) Secondly, since it is SO innocuous to take out a cell phone in front of an ATM (I would have zero qualms doing this) to check, wouldn't this post have generated literally hundreds of comments from people checking an ATM and finding said signal? Nobody would mind doing that. (By the way, I don't have an issue with the "laziness" of the solution he purportedly uncovered, i.e. transmitting a bluetooth device signal with the default name, as it is not obvious how to make a transmitter turn on only in response to a signal from a commodity cell phone that has nothing incriminating on it. So technologically it seems to be okay for me.) But the whole story doesn't really add up. Someone else here mentions that supposedly he regularly reads some spammer forum where they coordinated sending him cocaine in the mail and then SWATting his house. This just seems so incredibly unlikely to me - i.e. a fabrication. How many forums can one person read? It just seems to be made up. (Unless he changed huge amounts of details to other, similar details). But that seems unlikely.

throwaway583467 11y ago
EDIT: Kindly respond to the point I raise below, if you disagree. How would a bluetooth transmitter from inside a metal enclosure that is not designed to pass wireless signals, be easily read from across a lobby? It's way out of range! In the video, do you really expect him to be able to read the ATM from across the lobby (given your experience with bluetooth, and as you can see, earlier in the video he shows the chip snuggled under a PCB, deep inside a metal enclosure?) I mean signal drops with square of distance. Bluetooth has a basic range of "typically less than 10m" (32 feet) or quite a bit less than those machines seem to be, even though those machines were not designed to be good transmission enclosures. Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6y2soOp8Y&t=4m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6y2soOp8Y&t=4m45s What's more likely: 1. That: - That that phone is picking up a commodity bluetooth signal from that distance that we see, and - The iPhone doesn't pick up said signal even if the iphone is next to it. Or: 2: That - He has two bluetooth transmitters near the phone he is using - He mentioned that an iPhone doesn't work so that people aren't surprised when they can't reproduce anywhere. Also, notice that the original text includes NO reference to what is in Part 2, which makes me think he is writing it in such a way that he leaves part 2 open to addressing any concerns incredulous people might raise. Most of the video is just still shots from sources you can see online. There's no recording of a meeting taking place. It just looks like some guy, with an over-the-top story and zero concern, whatsoever, for his safety. If others here think my analysis is unwarranted, could you address the specific issues I raise? EDIT: Please stop downvoting me without a response. If you address my specific concerns I'm happy to delete this comment.
- robin_reala 11y ago
  You’re getting downvoted because Brian has a long and storied history as a security researcher and consultant. He has very little to gain from making a story like this up, and quite a lot to lost. Also, if you really believed your arguments then why make them from a throwaway account? Regarding your issue with metal enclosures, there’s plenty of non-metal or thin-metal windows: the screen for one.
  - throwaway583467 11y ago