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For anyone who doesn't follow infosec: This guy is responsible for two of the most impressive hacks recently and still hasn't been doxed or arrested. And so th
by mmaunder 11y ago
For anyone who doesn't follow infosec: This guy is responsible for two of the most impressive hacks recently and still hasn't been doxed or arrested. And so the linked doc is awesome if only for the opsec tips it provides. And it provides much more than that. It really gives you some perspective on how much work an attacker will put into breaking into your network and the kind of structured approach they're taking. Plus it's very hands on and is educational and current whether you're black or white hat. If you read nothing else in infosec this month, read this.
- richard_mcp 11y agoWhat was the other hack?
- mmaunder 11y agoGamma International.
- nerdy 11y agoHe's likely to be identified as he gets more brazen. Even authoring this volume of text is risky, and there are other notes from the same author linked within. Spelling can be used to approximate region and phrases or errors such as "the hard of the business" ("heart of") and "passtime" ("pastime") are even stronger markers. Of course there's no way to tell if these are unintentional or planted errata. I'm grateful for the information. It's incredibly interesting, but it might come at great expense to the author.
- CamatHN 11y agoWho exactly would be trying to track him down? Is there some global force that would be active on him?
- nerdy 11y agoHT, Gamma, victims we aren't aware of, or any government who could believably threaten to prosecute then offer a deal for cooperation? Some people even do it out of curiosity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11304752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11304752
- CamatHN 11y agoThats the thing, HT or Gamma without the co-operation of international law enforcement presumably would have a very hard time finding these people in a legal manner. So whats going on up there.
- 21 11y agoHT Gamma can file a complaint with the relevant authority, just like any other hacked company, and this could trigger an international LE operation. So I'm not sure what your trying to say.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- espadrine 11y agoThis text is a translation. The original is in Spanish. It might have its own mistakes and traces, although I am not knowledgeable to detect country-specific patterns. http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A Presumably, given that they talk about EU culture^W^W^W^W (see comment below) have a https://securityinabox.org/es/… https://securityinabox.org/es/… link, the author is from Spain, which would make it easier to pinpoint an origin, as Spain has a wider spectrum of language differences than in most other Spanish-speaking countries. Since there is a link to http://madrid.cnt.es/ http://madrid.cnt.es/, they maybe live in the capital, which weighs 3 million inhabitants.
- zydeco 11y agoThat's an error on the translation, "EEUU" is the Spanish acronym for "Estados Unidos", referring to the United States of America, not the EU (in Spanish, "UE" for "Unión Europea")
- josemrb 11y agoAfter reading the original doc, by the style used and some slang (although it could be on purpose), I would say the author is from Chile. I'm glad to find people that still fight the system in this side of the world.
- dazhbog 11y ago"weones culiaos" sounds pretty Chilean indeed!
- peeb 11y agoI would be willing to bet they are from Italy. I am Italian and they wrote about some stuff that you would know only if you followed Italian news. They could be dropping some contradictory clues, BTW. I could definitely see that.
- 21 11y agoDid you verify that the stuff you refereed to as only being known if you follows Italian news is not on the net? Don't those Italian news outlets have websites? This guy seems to be pretty good at googling around for stuff.
- Esau 11y agoYou comment about spelling and phrases reminds me of the NYT's Dialect Quiz Map. I tried it and it was accurately able to guess where I was originally from. While not useful by itself, I could see it being handy as part of an overall investigation.
- adanto6840 11y agoHadn't seen it before and so looked it up -- pretty neat. Unfortunately the "results page" was broken, but the individual questions & associated heatmaps were still very interesting. Thanks! http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/...
- dorfsmay 11y agoOr even evaluating the frequencies of words, as well as the frequencies of juxtaposition of words.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoThe Unabomber was turned in by his brother and sister in law who recognized his writing.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoYep. There's even automated techniques for spotting it with decent accuracy.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoHe's (or she ;) has skill although I can't say how special. What I'll give Fisher are two things: 1. Great choice of targets where the leaks are less questionable in terms of ethics. 2. A great write-up with references that could benefit attackers, defenders, and students alike.
- cypherg 11y agoPhineas Fisher has already publicly outed himself as an Italian security researcher. He openly shares his first and last name on his website.