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Eyes Everywhere: Encryption programmer Paul Le Roux and his commando kill squad
- Arubis 10y agoI have been thoroughly enjoying this series; thanks for posting!
- nibs 10y agoThis is the best journalism I have read in a long time, and not just because of how interesting the content is. Well done.
- teh_klev 10y agoI agree, it's been a really engaging chunk of work and truly and utterly fascinating.
- jonknee 10y agoProbably because it's more of a screenplay/novel than conventional journalism (strictly style wise, it's a great story!). Entertaining, but very drawn out for the amount of useful information provided.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoI like how it makes no affronts to being 'objective' and is quite clear that the author doesn't expect to be believed outright due to the content and story, but will go ahead and fill in the holes in time. That's some great serial structuring. It's written very well, which, let's be honest, a lot of journalists are not equipped to do. By nature, reporting wants prose to service it, not the other way around (save for HST and "Gonzo" influence). It is a very captivating subject indeed!
- katiabachko 10y agoNew installment is here! https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal https://mastermind.atavist.com/the-next-big-deal
- xenophonf 10y agoIs this for real?
- monkeyshelli 10y agofeels like reading a script for an upcoming action based spy-movie. But I guess truth is stranger than fiction
- forgotpwtomain 10y agoThe difference is that in spy movies it looks cool and glamorous, not a bunch seedy dysfunctional ex-military types pretending life is like a james-bond flick. Maybe if someone like Tarantino got their hands on this.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoSomebody coming from the documentary side of things - Alex Gibney would be my pick - in order to 'nail' the grime and feel without resorting to lazy 70% f-bomb script dialogue and using pastiche from other, better directors, which is essentially Tarantino's calling card. Caveat: I think Michael Mann could pull it off though.
- ianhawes 10y agoMichael Mann is the ONLY director that could pull this off. Add in the twist in the end that Le Roux turned state's evidence and you've got a decent film.
- maxerickson 10y agoWhy Tarantino? I'd expect him to pay homage to some obscure filmmaker more than I'd expect him to bend a fairytale back towards reality. I'd go with a showrunner from "Justified" and yell at them not to make up too much of the mayhem. The "bad guys" on that show ring true to me, they are self serving, nihilistic and make poor decisions.
- 10y ago
- prefixlen 10y agoI absolutely hat cliffhangers, so I told myself to wait until the series is complete before reading. Is it done? Is this the last part?
- katiabachko 10y agolast one is coming next week.
- prefixlen 10y agoThanks!
- rodergas 10y agoWow!
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y agoPhuket, Thailand. Nice touch. Edit: Oh never mind it is pronounced like pucket.
- spearo77 10y agopoo-ket;-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuket_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phuket_City
- sametmax 10y agoThe page makes my browser crash.
- Fastidious 10y agoTime to switch browsers. Chrome v51 (dev) under OS X renders it flawlessly.
- djsumdog 10y ago..or you could file a bug report and fix what's causing the browser crash.
- djsumdog 10y agoMine too. Firefox, but only on my work machine. My home desktop is fine. I've had weird Firefox issues whenever there's video (like that banner at the top) and if I watch the output, it looks like GLX issues (my work laptop should just be either Intel integrated ... I wonder if the driver is crashing)
- TD-Linux 10y agoCheck out about:crashes, you can submit a dump to the trace servers and get a backtrace that will tell you where it's crashing, and make it easy to file a bug report. (if you're using a distro provided build, it might be more involved, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/How_to_get_a_stacktrace_for_a_bug_report https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/How_to_get_...)
- voltagex_ 10y agoWill the trace still be captured if the application goes into "Not Responding" mode under Windows and I have to kill it from Task Manager?
- voltagex_ 10y agoCan't reproduce on Windows 10 on Firefox 42, but Firefox 36 on Windows 7 crashed to the extent that it's saying it can't find my profile. It's a work machine and I blame AppV.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoGlad to see this keep getting attention by way of this site. I saw Vice News also has a long-form piece, and even interviewed and referenced the author and the Atavist piece! This looks like the definitive write-up and account. I hope the potential film rights are lucrative. However, if Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant's screenwriting bible is any indication, the Hollywood system will most definitely find a way to monkey with the formula and deliver some kind of mutated...thing...for us. Many compliments on the fine journalism!
- celticninja 10y agoIt's a 7 part series I believe,not sure if you were saying this article is the definitive account, perhaps you meant the whole series.
- 15thandwhatever 10y ago> All of the teams’ email communications, with their macho posturing and detailed ops plans, were being simultaneously collected by the DEA’s Special Operations Division. Would that be the same division here that was pooh-poohed for parallel construction? http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...
- kobayashi 10y agoSuper excited to read this - I've been waiting with bated breath for episode 6. Anybody know how many there are likely to be in total?
- nicelynicely 10y agoOne more to come.
- uiri 10y agoHunter earned both a National Defense Service Medal and a Global War on Terrorism Medal. I just want to point out that these medals just mean that he was a soldier at some point between September 11, 2001 and now. Service medals are given out just for showing up.
- adolph 10y ago[Hunter's] home state named him a Kentucky Colonel, an honorific reserved for Kentuckians “unwavering in devotion to faith, family, fellowman, and country.” Wikipedia: The honor has been given to a broad variety of notable people . . . . It has also been bestowed upon various people who are not generally considered especially notable – they have been people from "all walks of life". . . . Under Governor Steve Beshear in 2008, so many commissions were being issued that state budget cuts led to a major change in the design of the commission certificate. The certificate was downsized from the 10-by-15-inch (25 by 38 cm) size to 8.5 by 14 inches (22 by 36 cm). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_colonel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_colonel
- Eiriksmal 10y agoPlus, it comes with a sweet license plate design only you and your Colonel fratnerity brethren can use. http://easypl8s.com/upnresize/pics/IMGm_800.jpg http://easypl8s.com/upnresize/pics/IMGm_800.jpg
- probablypat 10y agoI've met this guy. I used to live in Subic in the Philippines. I always thought he was a drunk that was lying about his past. Teaches me...
- tlack 10y agoTell us more! That's very interesting. Little quotes and details are fine, no long form journalism required :)
- rrggrr 10y agoYes, do tell...
- andersonmvd 10y agoPlease tell us more :)
- Worksheet 10y agoReally hoping the last part will shed some light on the closure of Truecrypt and the full story of the authorship. What is the Czech connection?!.
- altotrees 10y agoAnother great installment. It is more mind-bending to me each week, the level of planning, the number of ties Le Roux has to so many different places and people with varied histories and interests. Even assuming conservatively that only 50 percent of what is written is fact, it is still crazy to think about. It is quite a story, Le Roux going from a gangly teenager hunched over his computer to a man who is able to amass a small commando squad at a moments notice...it seems as though Hollywood would struggle to come up with such a plot.
- at-fates-hands 10y agoI wonder if you could call this guy a kind of a criminal renaissance man. The amount of criminal activity he was involved with and the things he did are mind bendingly complex. How you go from raising an army to invade a country, operating shady call centers in a myriad of countries, and ordering hits on reporters and real estate agents is anybody's guess. The crazy thing is he was running all of this by himself. I'm still puzzled how he managed to do it for so long.
- r0muald 10y ago> After a two-year stint, he spent another year with a similar outfit, Triple Canopy.(The Panama Papers leak recently revealed that Triple Canopy, which has received more than a billion dollars in U.S. government contracts over the past decade, operated a series of shell companies overseas.) This. One million times this is true journalism, making seemingly worthless bits of information into an expanding web of knowledge, where 99% readers would have no clue.
- rurban 10y agoNormal CIA business. The author missed to make this hint.
- cvwright 10y agoThis is fascinating. We live in the cyberpunk future that William Gibson and others wrote about in the 1980's. The former US soldier in this article even sounds a bit like Gibson's character Armitage from Neuromancer.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago>> he former US soldier in this article even sounds a bit like Gibson's character Armitage from Neuromancer. I just started getting into Sci-Fi (particularly dytopian worlds) and my Dad recommended this book as a "must read". I'm halfway through it and love it so far.
- durandal1 10y agoThe trilogy was formative for 14 year old me.
- justinclift 10y agoAnother good "must read" is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasm_City The entire "Revelation Space" series is excellent too, if that one grabs you. :)
- Kristine1975 10y agoIf you like Neuromancer, you might like Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. It's even more high-tech and morally ambiguous, and writing style very much like Gibson's in Neuromancer.
- AnonymousPlanet 10y agoIt also reminds me of the "Stealing the Network" book series. Every chapter was written by a notable IT security person and features real technology and techniques. At times it reads like Phrack or the hacking account of Phineas Fisher. The protagonist's goal is to amass real world power. The books have subtitles like "How to Own a Country" and touch on arms dealing and small armies to protect your own illegal ass. Although I found it quite entertaining and educating (it introduced me to htop, e.g.), the writing is not top notch and it may be quite dated now (it's over ten years old).
- venomsnake 10y agoCouple of thoughts - I feel that those complicated stings are almost entrapment. And cannot help but feel just sad about some of the guys. The skills that they learn in the military are hardly marketable in the civil society. And the series fail to deliver - it started promising, but it lacks the big crimes and operations outside of the pill business. It is serialized novel of "Pivoting Bad with Mediocrity."
- Spooky23 10y agoIt's an unfortunate consequence of this never ending war stance. These guys end up getting damaged and discarded, and end up in bad places. I think the overnight creation of these powerful mercenary orgs will be a long lasting negative force with all sorts of ill effects.
- throwaway7767 10y ago> Couple of thoughts - I feel that those complicated stings are almost entrapment. And cannot help but feel just sad about some of the guys. The skills that they learn in the military are hardly marketable in the civil society. They agreed to murder for money, and you feel sorry for them? I agree that there are structural issues to address here - the conduit from ex-military to mercenary work seems to be quite active, and it's not healthy for society to allow that to continue. But these guys are accountable for their actions just like any adult in a free society - the fact that they were in the military does not absolve them of that responsibility.
- venomsnake 10y agoWe trained them to be killers. Two of the guys were there for the money for the bills. Hunter was the psycho. Are they responsible - yes. Did society failed them - absolutely.
- acqq 10y agoCan anybody explain me if the online pharmacy business PLR had was legal or not and if not, why? Why was DEA after him? Thanks.
- 21 10y agoObviously it was not. You could get prescriptions from corrupt doctors without actually seeing them or fulfilling the requirements for those drugs. Basically you filled a form and they issued a prescription which then affiliated pharmacies filled.
- acqq 10y agoWhy are doctors corrupt if they just fulfill the need of the clients? The clients know what they need, but having a "big visit" to the doctor would cost more. This is a compromise. The doctor spends less time, charges less but wins on the volume. If the clients use the medicines legally (e.g. for themselves) and know what they need I don't see a problem.
- nathannecro 10y agoWhat if the clients are wrong? What if they think they need something, but it turns out that they have a bad interaction with the drug? There is a reason doctors undergo training and are held legally liable for mis-prescription. The service may not have been illegal when only looking at the patients being served (I have no idea) but it was certainly illegal from the doctor's side. Not to mention...highly unethical from the medical side. All the doctors involved should have had their licences revoked.
- 21 10y agoSo if I declare that I need a powerful anesthetic like Propofol, the doctor should just give me a prescription like that? What's the point of requiring a prescription then? The previous article said that those forms were rubber-stamped. No matter what you declared, you got your prescription. And regarding clients using the medicines legally, that's like saying that sellers of explosives shouldn't check their clients, because it's the clients responsibility to use them legally.