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He Got Greedy: How the U.S. Government Hunted Encryption Programmer Paul Le Roux
- SEJeff 10y agoAnother absolutely fantastic article on this same guy: https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side
- lpbonenfant 10y agothey're all part of the same series of articles.
- dates 10y agoYES my lunch break is going to rule, reading this. i love this series so far!
- altotrees 10y agoSo excited to red this installment. So far, this series has been fantastic. I had no idea who Le Roux was three weeks ago, let alone his shadowy background and connection to tools I have used in the past. Thank you for the great work.
- Swinx43 10y agoThis has been a fantastic series of articles! I absolutely love this. Evan Ratliff is simply a superb writer in long form journalism.
- rpgmaker 10y agoDoes anyone know if this is the last installment or how many there will be?
- katiabachko 10y agoThere'll be seven in total. So, two more.
- ericjang 10y agoAmong the most closely-guarded troves of knowledge in the world are those pertaining to organized crime. This stuff is so dramatic and interesting because it is sort of "forbidden knowledge". I have high hopes for Quora (one of the YC portfolio companies) because they are trying to make accessible this sort of locked-up knowledge.
- th0ma5 10y agoWell, to continue reading, you'll have to log in, however.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoThe Q/A website that aggravates me the most by locking up knowledge is a YC company? Oh jeez... Well, I'll just avoid that topic when it comes up here. :) EDIT: Forgot to say I agree with you on the forbidden knowledge in organized crime being interesting. I've seen some myself and it's wild stuff. Atavist needs to do one on Berlusconi in Italy. ;)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- strictnein 10y agoI mean, it served Experts Exchange so well. Just look at how popular that site is these days.
- allenbrunson 10y agohacker news is not cool with link shorteners. most link shorteners (bit.ly, et al) are banned here. chances are good that the only reason this particular shortener isn't banned yet is because dang is not aware of it. should be replaced with this article's true url: https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-got-greedy https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-got-greedy
- Afforess 10y agoIs it really a link-shortener or just atavist providing a short perma-link? 'atav.st' == atavist.com?
- allenbrunson 10y agoit doesn't make any difference, if you think about why hacker news bans link shorteners: there should be one, and ONLY one, canonical URL for every article. if you allow two or more, then there is essentially no way to detect duplicate submissions. so i can pretty much guarantee that it is just a matter of time until atav.st is banned here.
- witty_username 10y ago> essentially no way to detect duplicate submissions No, the shortened URL can be followed.
- lstamour 10y agoTrue, if anything that should be a feature of HN. To try and follow a 403 and use that instead. The only examples I can think of in which this wouldn't be desired are articles you have to login to access, but that could be a short blacklist or whitelist. Of course once we're inspecting URLs for 403s, I can see a slippery slope to indexing and comparing content of submissions...
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
- DyslexicAtheist 10y ago"... Then the arms ship MV Captain Ufuk was intercepted off the coast, Sol told me, the DEA “knew that Le Roux was behind that shipment right away. Because La Plata Trading and Red White and Blue Arms”—companies tied to the shipment—“connected back to ABSystems, and the websites were registered to him. ...”* quite poor opsec skills obviously not as tech savy as they painted him
- unixhero 10y agoYesssss i have been waiting hard for the next part of the story. Ut's totally riveting. I would pay for more of this!!! [And or for future investigative journalism of this incredible scope]
- Taylor_OD 10y agoI love this series thus far. So interesting.
- fweespee_ch 10y ago> “He got greedy,” Jody continued. “He probably could have closed up shop in 2006 or 2007, been a rich millionaire, and never have been investigated at all.” This does seem to be a common thread with highly skilled and intelligent criminals. Their pride convinces them they can keep going when the truth is it is time to pull the ripcord years before they got caught and walk away with all the wealth a person would ever need to live happily ever after.
- roel_v 10y agoIt's the common thread among those that get caught. What's to say how many there are that do retire as millionaires before getting caught?
- et2o 10y agoExactly
- alexandrerond 10y agoAnd those who don't retire and don't get caught too. Tbh, looking at the how long he lasted heading a global organization and his exploits, it seems not too unlikely that others can just pull it off.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoAnother great, fun write-up by Ratliff. I'm surprised by by a number of things which I'll comment on in a disorganized way. :) One is how often Israeli commandos turn up in these organizations. In parallel, there's their well-known effectiveness plus the risk of Mossad connections that can burn you. Mexican cartels, Colombian, Paul Le Roux... they all buy them up. Cheap, too. I'd like to hear their logic on that. That he was still producing 200kilos out of thin air was interesting. Operations are still going somewhere with possibly millions moving. Either his that are still running autonomously or others with him just having 3rd parties that can pull a huge transaction at once. His OPSEC sucks. I mean, I'm amazed that he didn't get caught earlier in some unrelated investigation using his real name and emails on all kinds of shady stuff. Many I know are too paranoid to do that thinking someone would connect dots. He did it and nobody connected dots until piles of high risk crimes added up with benefit of easy tracing. Even police said a little more obfuscation would've thrown them. This means we've overestimated the police's ability to connect dots on suspicious items. Just don't know how much. Spamhaus says a quarter of stuff came from this company. I read much in INFOSEC but never heard them connect it to something like this. Another "under the radar" aspect that's amazing. Plus, owning a registrar for spam cover is excellent example of subversion at protocol level. $200-400 million a year could buy tons of INFOSEC and OPSEC. He could've rebranded under a new company to move his name further from the transactions. He could've potentially paid his Israelis to straight up break in and steal/alter records. He could've dropped a few mil strategically in Brazil on key people to spot legal and financial risks along with strats people use to dodge or buy cops. Before he went there. Far as Liberian deal, he should've sent one of his well-paid, experienced people to negotiate that. At his level, he should never leave protection or associate himself with something that's tainted. And when busted, getting immunity to flip is a rational option in his situation but admitting to murders was just stupid. How about "An arrogant way of living?" Haha.
- fweespee_ch 10y ago> How about "An arrogant way of living?" Haha. Yeah, it is amazing how much his arrogance and pride seemed to play into his behavior. He could have exited this whole situation in Brazil [Retiring] a wealthy man and would have been largely immune since they didn't have the ability to get their hands on him. > His OPSEC sucks. I mean, I'm amazed that he didn't get caught earlier in some unrelated investigation using his real name and emails on all kinds of shady stuff. Many I know are too paranoid to do that thinking someone would connect dots. He did it and nobody connected dots until piles of high risk crimes added up with benefit of easy tracing. Even police said a little more obfuscation would've thrown them. This means we've overestimated the police's ability to connect dots on suspicious items. Just don't know how much. I found that amazing as well but I think it has to do with the fact he was basically a black market profiteer dealing in low level stuff. > Le Roux couldn’t have known that this new venture had made him a narco-terrorist in the eyes of the U.S. government. Until he had fled for Brazil, his case had been the province of the DOJ’s Consumer Protection Division, the federal prosecutors that handle pill-mill cases, and the Minnesota investigation team anchored by Kim Brill. The Consumer Protection Division likely doesn't have the resources to break even a criminal with essentially no OPSEC based on this. My guess is if he stayed out of hard drugs, arms, etc. he might have also stayed completely safe because it sounds like they simply couldn't handle him until it got kicked to the FBI/DEA/etc.
- nxzero 10y agoWeight of 342 bars of gold would be 4255-kg (9381-lb)... ...find it hard to believe the carrying capacity of an average taxi would support this.
- fencepost 10y agoIf you image search "gold bar" you'll find a lot of images other than the stereotypical large "Good Delivery" (400 troy oz ~12.4 kilos, Wikipedia has more details on the Good Delivery specifications). Apparently 1000g bars ("Kilobars") are common for trading, but there are images of "Credit Suisse" 100g bars that turn up as well.
- nxzero 10y agoRight, though given 342 "bars" are mentioned, market price of gold is known, and that in sum the bars were worth $2 million USD - it's possible to try to get a feel for if the weight and worth of gold "adds" up in logically. See my response to a comment on the same level as your comment for my attempt to look at the numbers.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoPlus them storing them in bags and carrying them so much. I can't recall if the gold bars can come in more convenient sizes and weights vs standard ones that are heavy. This was also a counterpoint in arguments against Book of Mormon discovery given calculations showed it was over 1,000lbs. Truly a miracle to get that sucker from point A to point B.
- bruckie 10y ago> arguments against Book of Mormon discovery given calculations showed it was over 1,000lbs [citation needed] This document catalogs historical statements about the physical characteristics of the Book of Mormon: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/JBMRS/article/download/19917/18482 https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/JBMRS/article/download... Summary: even if it were a solid block of pure gold, it would only weigh ~200 lbs. However, there's no strong historical evidence that it was pure gold, only golden in color. A plausible golden-colored alloy would end up at around ~60 lbs, which is consistent with historical claims about its weight. See the sidebar on page 21 for details.
- aws_ls 10y ago"In the early days of RX Limited, employees purchased individual web domains at public sellers like GoDaddy. Later, RX Limited spawned its own domain-selling company, ABSystems—the equivalent of opening a printing press for web addresses. But instead of selling those addresses to others, ABSystems generated them by the thousands, virtually for free, exclusively for RX Limited." This guy knew how to scale! Started/bought a domain registrar to generate the so many spammy sites needed to sell all those drugs. Another unrelated point. He found himself in a career crisis in 2002, and also discovered he was adopted, which according to this series (and some Australian media articles) disturbed him. And there are two distinct career paths before and after it. Although, I am filled with disgust at his actions, esp. he got people killed. But it also stuns me the amount of "progress" he did in a span of less than a decade from 2002 (assuming by 2011 he was done with it, sort of).
- nickbauman 10y agoI real-life Breaking Bad story.
- noir_lord 10y agoWould make a hell of a film, they'd inevitably screw up the technical accuracy on the computer side unless we could get the Mr Robot director on-board.
- hackuser 10y agoHalfway to the airport, however, Le Roux switched tactics, said Stouch. “He just essentially said he was no longer going to resist and that he would cooperate with our commands.” According to the DEA, Le Roux waived his Miranda rights somewhere over the Atlantic and agreed to tell them everything he knew. What miraculous luck that such a thing would happen, purely of his own free will.
- nxzero 10y agoPretty interesting interpretation of free will - and for that matter, luck.
- reitanqild 10y agoPretty sure parent was sarcastic (or something).
- nxzero 10y ago(plausible) I know, but I might deny it.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoSure, but I would imagine that in such a situation it would be quite rational to choose to coöperate.
- nxzero 10y agoPlease explain.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoIf they know what you're up to and you don't coöperate you still end up behind bars or executed. If you do coöperate, they might let you off the hook somewhat.
- venomsnake 10y agoOne of the things that annoys me about the series is we read only anout his botched stuff. None of the successes. He does not look like that big of a fish.
- arprocter 10y agoSomething which confuses me about the pharma sites is that most of the pills being sold seem pretty obscure, yet they clearly managed to earn a fortune
- 55555 10y agohttps://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity12/sec12-final204.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...
- arprocter 10y ago"Approximately 100 pharmacies across the country were using that same account number. All of them were predominantly shipping the same three drugs: Fioricet, Ultram, and Soma" Your article says the Russian sites mostly sold ED pills, which makes more sense to me, but it seems like Le Roux wasn't in that racket. Maybe I'm just not up to speed on prescription meds, but I would've guessed people would go for recognized things like Vicodin etc. over random muscle relaxers
- c6bb950be 10y agoThis is a very interesting story
- myrbergs_army 10y agoAuthor of the original story here, would be very interested in discussing further... evan [at] atavist [dot] net
- whoamipls 10y agoGood story. You missed a few things though The assassination my Michael lontoc, manager of red white and blue arms a Makati gun company owned by PLR. The crash of a cargo plane in Manila about the same time as capture of mv captain ufuk Billions of pesos worth of properties in the Philippines and Thailand including an island and a couple of beach properties as transit points Employing 24 prostitutes flown in from the south and housing them in different apartments in the Makati area Local purchase of high powered guns amuninition,c4 and detonators And So much more
- karambahh 10y agoEdited to protect parent's privacy
- c6bb950be 10y agoThanks for your thoughts, much appreciated.
- brotherjerky 10y agoI assume the original comment you wrote was edited, because this reply makes no sense otherwise.
- johnmoore 10y agoWhen is the movie lol
- johnmoore 10y agoThat story would make a class movie.
- viral_krieger 10y agoI wonder why he was so willing to talk.
- ljf 10y agoSo that he couldn't be prosecuted for the other crimes he committed. Once he admitted to this main crime they knew about, they said they wouldn't charge him with further crimes.
- bronz 10y agoI am fascinated by TruCrypt and Bitcoin -- they had a very big impact on the world but their authors are completely unknown. Are there any other instances of things like that?
- tlack 10y agoI'm collecting examples of situations like that. If you'd like to discuss in depth, please send me an email - it's in my profile.
- undefined0 10y agoDid you read the previous articles? Allegedly Paul Le Roux created TrueCrypt (because a domain name is linked to him or something like that). Even if he didn't create TrueCrypt, he definitely created the pre-forked version of it (which he was open about). It's got me curious as to whether Satoshi was really motivated by being anti-bailout or whether he created it for his own operations just as Paul allegedly created TrueCrypt for his.
- danso 10y agoI'm assuming that this submission's headline differs from the original ("He Got Greedy") to make it more useful for HN readers...but I wish it were how other reputable news sites, such as The Washington Post, constructed their linkbaity headlines: `the-short-answer: the linkbait phrase` As a reader, it makes me no-less interested in the content.
- dredmorbius 10y agoIf your story's so weak that disclosing basic who / what / where information in the headline kills its value, you don't have a story. Drives me nuts. https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/7juQbQ5B45X https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/7juQbQ5B...
- cornchips 10y agoAltgeld Garden Drug Co was in the middle of an interesting location... One of two registered... Altgeld Gardens is one of "Chicago Housing Authority’s largest housing development." --- Altgeld Garden Drug Co., Chicago – pharmacy license (054-003512) revoked and Erskine A. Cartwright III, Chicago – pharmacist license (051-033091) suspended for 30 days followed by probation for two years after information came to the Department's attention that from on or about the Fall of 2006 continuing to on or about the summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, pursuant to orders received electronically issued by physicians for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet. Additionally, the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing. [1] ---- Street Address: 912 e 131st st, EVERGREEN PARK, Il 60805, US Website Address: RXINFODEPOT.COM^^VIAGRACHEAP.COM Company Email: gamble8@msn.com [2] Now a thrift store: st vincent de paul... Le Roux :-P --- email above is associated with C-21 Dabbs & Associates [3] maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.607956,-87.8476405,3a,50.4y,88.19h,77.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s55dlJbV4C59beOXaBWsY7g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/@41.607956,-87.8476405,3a,50.4y,... ---- "Mr. Erskine A. Cartwright entered into rest on Sunday, February 23, 2014" [4] --- The other registered location is 974 East 133rd St [5] --- re c21 dabbs president - Karen Capriotti, Richton Park – real estate managing broker license (471-015345) automatically revoked for violating the terms of a non-disciplinary order issued by the Department on April 8, 2013. [6] --- Erskine A. Cartwright, contributor of excellence to the Xavier University [7] --- disciplined in 2011 Probation 01/01/2012 12/31/2013 after information came to Department's attention indicating that from on or about the Fall of 2006 and continuing until on or about the Summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, p ursuant to orders received electronically issued by physiicans for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet; the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing. Suspension 12/01/2011 12/31/2011 after information came to Department's attention indicating that from on or about the Fall of 2006 and continuing until on or about the Summer of 2007, the pharmacy dispensed a substantial quantity of prescription drugs, including controlled substances, p ursuant to orders received electronically issued by physiicans for patients who are alleged to have ordered the drugs via the internet; the Department was not notified 30 days in advance of the pharmacy's closing. [8] --- This just keeps on going.. He was married to Maggie Bell Cheatham Cartwright, mayor of the city of Keysville: http://augustafuneralnotices.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Erskine-Cartwright-.pdf http://augustafuneralnotices.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/... --- 1 https://www.idfpr.com/Forms/DISCPLN/1112_dis.pdf https://www.idfpr.com/Forms/DISCPLN/1112_dis.pdf 2 http://www.subiz.us/biz-il-58953.html http://www.subiz.us/biz-il-58953.html 3 http://illinois.cevo.us/company/c-21-dabbs-s-associates.html http://illinois.cevo.us/company/c-21-dabbs-s-associates.html 4 http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/augustachronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=169870252 http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/augustachronicle/obituary.a... 5 http://www.manta.com/c/mm7dlxl/altgeld-gardens-drug-co http://www.manta.com/c/mm7dlxl/altgeld-gardens-drug-co 6 https://www.idfpr.com/forms/discpln/2013_09dis.pdf https://www.idfpr.com/forms/discpln/2013_09dis.pdf 7 http://www.xula.edu/mediarelations/XUGold_Summer2011.pdf http://www.xula.edu/mediarelations/XUGold_Summer2011.pdf 8 https://www.idfpr.com https://www.idfpr.com
- smellf 10y agoIs this the same Paul Le Roux who wrote the original software that TrueCrypt was based on? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E4M
- DonPellegrino 10y agoIndeed! It was explained in the 3rd article of this series: https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side https://mastermind.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side
- cbHXBY1D 10y agoYes. This is the fifth installment of the series investigating his life. The other episodes mention how his code inspired TrueCrypt. The title for this submission should really have done a better job at explaining this is a series.
- katiabachko 10y agoThe final episode here: https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal