8 ms·

It's strange to me that people who make a habit of doing fantastically illegal things on the internet are always so sloppy about it. Even if they don't have the

It's strange to me that people who make a habit of doing fantastically illegal things on the internet are always so sloppy about it. Even if they don't have the technical ability to break into their neighbor's wifi or set up a long range antenna to connect to an open access point they can still get a burner smartphone and drive to a Starbucks. Back when I used to torrent my TV shows I didn't even let my piracy laptop touch my home network and I never used that machine for anything other than downloading.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jandrese 7y ago
Or the only people who get caught doing illegal stuff on the internet are the ones who are sloppy and give themselves away.
dmschulman 7y ago
Confirmation bias. Imagine all of the criminals out there who are running operations so well oiled that they leave little exposure for being caught.
thinkloop 7y ago
Upvoted. Another perspective is that if you are smart enough to know, then you're smart enough to know it's an impossible mission against state actors given enough time and would never try it. Downloading a movie at a Starbucks is one thing, running a 24/7 hosting operation without every accidentally leaking a single piece of data is nigh impossible.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I expect they thought they were doing the right thing by using Tor.
zelly 7y ago
> drive to a Starbucks Didn't help Ross. It's a bad idea to do illegal stuff in public.
- HideousKojima 7y ago
  Ross was dumb enough to get fake passports/ids shipped directly to his home address
  - not2b 7y ago
    He made lots of stupid mistakes. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stup...
  - edm0nd 7y ago
    While Ross did do some bad things, I do not think it is enough to warrant a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole. El Chapo, an actual drug cartel member who is directly responsible for thousands of deaths, only got a single life sentence. Ross got screwed on his sentencing and it is totally unjustified. Free Ross!
    - saber6 7y ago
      You're insane. His site facilitated numerous drug deals for profit. He also paid bitcoin in what he thought was a hit-job (he was duped). This dumbass can rot in prison. Screw him.
      - ieS7rpVU 7y ago
        There is nothing wrong with facilitating drug deals and there is not a shred of evidence to support the other allegation. An allegation from the US government means absolutely nothing to me. It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody.
        saber6 7y ago
        > It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody. The United States Government (USG) enjoys a monopoly of violence (consent of the governed). However, a citizen (or group of them -- org/corp) does not enjoy such rights. Your comparison is invalidated.
jascii 7y ago
I suspect that if you have a useful understanding of information security there are better/easier/less risky ways to make money then crime..
gwbas1c 7y ago
Where there's a will, there's a way. The internet is designed to send data from point A to point B. Keeping point A and point B truly anonymous means that the internet won't work. Tools like Tor don't really protect you, it's more like they make it hard enough to figure out who you are that only people with strong incentives will track you down.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  > Keeping point A and point B truly anonymous Read and write encrypted packets to alt.anon ?
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    Single point of failure: all you have to do is compromise alt.anon.
Analemma_ 7y ago
> It's strange to me that people who make a habit of doing fantastically illegal things on the internet are always so sloppy about it. This is completely the wrong way to think about it. Remember the Defender's Dilemma: to run an illegal business like this, your opsec needs to be perfect: every single possible channel of information leakage (including the "unknown unknowns"), every minute, every hour, every day, forever. You need to be lucky every time, the feds only need to be lucky once. When you focus on the specific mistakes that people made and thus call them "sloppy", you're missing all the things they did right; you might not have made those mistakes if you were in their position, but you would've made different mistakes.
agoristen 7y ago
We don't actually know for sure that he was doing "illegal things". He was running a hosting company ("Ultra Host") on the public facing web and later launched Freedom Host as a side business, or perhaps better described as a charitable hosting service to contribute to the Tor network. Freedom Host offered FREE hosting to people on the Tor network. What liability does he have if other people use his host for illegal things? From what I understand he was never personally involved in any of these activities. One can argue that he had to know about it, perhaps so, but the way he's being portrayed by LE and media is as if he was the kingpin of child porn. That's far from the truth. Freedom host served half of the Tor network, including perfectly legitimate services like Tormail, wikis etc. I think his mistake in not cloaking the identity used to purchase servers can be explained this way: He was never planning to host CP starting out (or do anything else illegal for that matter). He probably thought universally recognized no-liability laws would apply to Freedom Host just as any other hosting business. Perhaps he later went down a darker path, but at that point it was too late. The fact that he now pleads guilty means absolutely nothing however. Remember, he was extradited from his country to USA, and while he should never have been sent there, he now have to adapt to the way the "justice system" works over there and it works kind of like this: 5000 years in jail or take a plea deal and get away with 15-30 years. Even if he is innocent, you need to realize that when you're facing a kangaroo court and subsequent rotting away in jail for life it might be better to pick the lesser evil.
- hatmatrix 7y ago
  According to [1] > Freedom Hosting has long been notorious for allowing child porn to live on its servers. In 2011, the hactivist collective Anonymous singled out the service for denial-of-service attacks after allegedly finding the firm hosted 95 percent of the child porn hidden services on the Tor network. In the hearing yesterday, [FBI Agent] Donahue said the service hosted at least 100 child porn sites with thousands of users, and claimed Marques had visited some of the sites himself. [1] https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/
alasdair_ 7y ago
>or set up a long range antenna to connect to an open access point Sure, this works for torrenting TV shows. If you are the number one peddler of child porn on the planet however, this won't help you for very long. The FBI (or whatever national police force is trying to find you) will just go to the access point, realize you're connected remotely and triangulate your position with (essentially) some signal-strength meters in much the same way the FCC tracks down particularly disruptive unlicensed broadcasters.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jandrese 7y ago

Or the only people who get caught doing illegal stuff on the internet are the ones who are sloppy and give themselves away.

dmschulman 7y ago

Confirmation bias. Imagine all of the criminals out there who are running operations so well oiled that they leave little exposure for being caught.

thinkloop 7y ago

Upvoted. Another perspective is that if you are smart enough to know, then you're smart enough to know it's an impossible mission against state actors given enough time and would never try it. Downloading a movie at a Starbucks is one thing, running a 24/7 hosting operation without every accidentally leaking a single piece of data is nigh impossible.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I expect they thought they were doing the right thing by using Tor.

zelly 7y ago

> drive to a Starbucks Didn't help Ross. It's a bad idea to do illegal stuff in public.

HideousKojima 7y ago
Ross was dumb enough to get fake passports/ids shipped directly to his home address
- not2b 7y ago
  He made lots of stupid mistakes. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stup...
- edm0nd 7y ago
  While Ross did do some bad things, I do not think it is enough to warrant a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole. El Chapo, an actual drug cartel member who is directly responsible for thousands of deaths, only got a single life sentence. Ross got screwed on his sentencing and it is totally unjustified. Free Ross!
  - saber6 7y ago
    You're insane. His site facilitated numerous drug deals for profit. He also paid bitcoin in what he thought was a hit-job (he was duped). This dumbass can rot in prison. Screw him.
    - ieS7rpVU 7y ago
      There is nothing wrong with facilitating drug deals and there is not a shred of evidence to support the other allegation. An allegation from the US government means absolutely nothing to me. It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody.
      - saber6 7y ago
        > It's also quite ironic that an organization that has assassinated numerous people are attempting to destroy the reputation of one of their enemies by claiming that he attempted to assassinate somebody. The United States Government (USG) enjoys a monopoly of violence (consent of the governed). However, a citizen (or group of them -- org/corp) does not enjoy such rights. Your comparison is invalidated.

jascii 7y ago

I suspect that if you have a useful understanding of information security there are better/easier/less risky ways to make money then crime..

gwbas1c 7y ago

Where there's a will, there's a way. The internet is designed to send data from point A to point B. Keeping point A and point B truly anonymous means that the internet won't work. Tools like Tor don't really protect you, it's more like they make it hard enough to figure out who you are that only people with strong incentives will track you down.

pinkfoot 7y ago
> Keeping point A and point B truly anonymous Read and write encrypted packets to alt.anon ?
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  Single point of failure: all you have to do is compromise alt.anon.

Analemma_ 7y ago

> It's strange to me that people who make a habit of doing fantastically illegal things on the internet are always so sloppy about it. This is completely the wrong way to think about it. Remember the Defender's Dilemma: to run an illegal business like this, your opsec needs to be perfect: every single possible channel of information leakage (including the "unknown unknowns"), every minute, every hour, every day, forever. You need to be lucky every time, the feds only need to be lucky once. When you focus on the specific mistakes that people made and thus call them "sloppy", you're missing all the things they did right; you might not have made those mistakes if you were in their position, but you would've made different mistakes.

agoristen 7y ago

We don't actually know for sure that he was doing "illegal things". He was running a hosting company ("Ultra Host") on the public facing web and later launched Freedom Host as a side business, or perhaps better described as a charitable hosting service to contribute to the Tor network. Freedom Host offered FREE hosting to people on the Tor network. What liability does he have if other people use his host for illegal things? From what I understand he was never personally involved in any of these activities. One can argue that he had to know about it, perhaps so, but the way he's being portrayed by LE and media is as if he was the kingpin of child porn. That's far from the truth. Freedom host served half of the Tor network, including perfectly legitimate services like Tormail, wikis etc. I think his mistake in not cloaking the identity used to purchase servers can be explained this way: He was never planning to host CP starting out (or do anything else illegal for that matter). He probably thought universally recognized no-liability laws would apply to Freedom Host just as any other hosting business. Perhaps he later went down a darker path, but at that point it was too late. The fact that he now pleads guilty means absolutely nothing however. Remember, he was extradited from his country to USA, and while he should never have been sent there, he now have to adapt to the way the "justice system" works over there and it works kind of like this: 5000 years in jail or take a plea deal and get away with 15-30 years. Even if he is innocent, you need to realize that when you're facing a kangaroo court and subsequent rotting away in jail for life it might be better to pick the lesser evil.

hatmatrix 7y ago
According to [1] > Freedom Hosting has long been notorious for allowing child porn to live on its servers. In 2011, the hactivist collective Anonymous singled out the service for denial-of-service attacks after allegedly finding the firm hosted 95 percent of the child porn hidden services on the Tor network. In the hearing yesterday, [FBI Agent] Donahue said the service hosted at least 100 child porn sites with thousands of users, and claimed Marques had visited some of the sites himself. [1] https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/

alasdair_ 7y ago

>or set up a long range antenna to connect to an open access point Sure, this works for torrenting TV shows. If you are the number one peddler of child porn on the planet however, this won't help you for very long. The FBI (or whatever national police force is trying to find you) will just go to the access point, realize you're connected remotely and triangulate your position with (essentially) some signal-strength meters in much the same way the FCC tracks down particularly disruptive unlicensed broadcasters.