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I just read one of the complaints, against the 22 year old "Rolex". It's not so much loose ends as loose everything. He didn't use a VPN or anything to mask hi

I just read one of the complaints, against the 22 year old "Rolex". It's not so much loose ends as loose everything. He didn't use a VPN or anything to mask his home IP, he discussed the hack on Discord, an unencrypted third-party platform, and reused a gmail address for the hack that he also used for a Coinbase account. Said Coinbase account being verified with his driver's license... I shouldn't be too surprised, but I still am. I would have expected, at the very least, all discussion being handled on Signal or similar, all access to involved accounts to be exclusively via a regular VPN or Tor, and only using a brand-new fastmail email for anything to do with the hack. Those are the very basic precautions. Curious aside: there's a bug in the complaint document. The affidavit is by a Special Agent with the US Secret Service, but the title page lists him as "Special Agent, FBI".

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
I don't know, tbh I'm still surprised. The Discord connection was known early on. I was really surprised anyone would do something like this and communicate over Discord about it. The fact that no VPN/Tor were involved, the fact that Gmail was involved... that's really crazy. It's hard to tell when being dumb ends and being self destructive begins? Is it possible to be this ignorant about the Internet while perpetrating something so big?
- rootsudo 6y ago
  Yes, many people consider facebook and Twitter "The Internet." and while they are just two giant tech companies publishing web apps. Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works."
  - Sebb767 6y ago
    > Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works." Yes, but the problem is that it didn't take someone who knows better to hack what is (used as) an official government communication platform. Or one of the largest social networks, or a company with thousands of engineers - take your pick; it's hard to put this in a good light.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

I don't know, tbh I'm still surprised. The Discord connection was known early on. I was really surprised anyone would do something like this and communicate over Discord about it. The fact that no VPN/Tor were involved, the fact that Gmail was involved... that's really crazy. It's hard to tell when being dumb ends and being self destructive begins? Is it possible to be this ignorant about the Internet while perpetrating something so big?

rootsudo 6y ago
Yes, many people consider facebook and Twitter "The Internet." and while they are just two giant tech companies publishing web apps. Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works."
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works." Yes, but the problem is that it didn't take someone who knows better to hack what is (used as) an official government communication platform. Or one of the largest social networks, or a company with thousands of engineers - take your pick; it's hard to put this in a good light.