10 ms·

Mail from the (Velvet) Cybercrime Underground

137 points by andreipop 13y ago

marvin 13y ago
Would the claim "I didn't order this, someone wanted to frame me" hold up in court if this guy hadn't discovered this scheme?
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  I think that depends a lot on the time it takes you to call the cops and say someone just delivered 12 baggies vs flushing them down the loo as they kick in the door
- girvo 13y ago
  Oddly enough, it can work, if handled correctly. Opening the baggie was a bad move however, and if he didn't have a contact with the cops already, they may take it as intent.
- WestCoastJustin 13y ago
  Wife tried to frame husband for ricin letters, says FBI [1]. Close enough? [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/08/ricin-letters-husband-framed.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/08/ricin-letters-...
- nikcub 13y ago
  Blind mules are a huge problem in Mexico, where they are unwittingly used to courier drugs over the border. Most end up in prison and have to prove their innocence via public campaigns. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/americas/mexico-blind-drug-mules http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/americas/mexico-blin...
- agilebyte 13y ago
  I seem to remember that people on Tor recommend to not open a package you are not expecting. Do so only after a period of time passes. (of course the idea was to use the latter when you are expecting something illegal)
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
For me the two big takeaways are the cop who wanted to unplug from Google. This is likely to be a fairly sizeable minority of the world who used to know how it all worked - and just cannot be bothered to learn the new rules. I am not sure if that's a good or a bad thing - if grandpa is not online can be do video calls to the grandkids ? The second is of course - I do not monitor these boards and of course the next attempt will not be public. Not sure how to react if a dozen baggies got delivered. Hand it over to the cops I guess. It is the makings of an interesting real life DDoS attack on politicians for example
- girvo 13y ago
  Hand it over to the cops, but not before speaking to a lawyer, would be my tactic.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  This is likely to be a fairly sizeable minority of the world who used to know how it all worked - and just cannot be bothered to learn the new rules. I am not sure if that's a good or a bad thing - if grandpa is not online can be do video calls to the grandkids ? People have been reacting this way since computers were first sold to the public: They bitched and moaned until the last possible moment, but they are all using word processors and have iphones now. There will be no exodus.
Renaud 13y ago
You must be something right when you attract that much dedicated attention... I'm surprised at how personal these attacks are. Is it that common for public security figures to be at such risk ?
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  Skim through some of Krebs' past articles. He has publicly outed many "cyber-criminals" on his blog and typically provides plenty of proof to back up his assertions. These criminals, of course, don't really like that. I understand his motive for publishing details of things like this that are directed at him but it makes me wonder if another criminal reading it won't try to "one-up" the previous guy.
undoware 13y ago
I always get a kick out of Krebs' relationship with the thesaurus. "Miscreants" "goons" "fraudsters" Seriously, 'goons'? What is this, an Archie comic? But, yes, fascinating article, nonetheless. I dislike the man for reasons difficult to articulate, but there is no arguing with a story like this. Great read.
- e1ven 13y ago
  Not necessary related in this instance, but users of the Something Awful forum generally refer to themselves as "goons". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    Not to mention the Defcon goons: http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-goons.html http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-goons.html
ollybee 13y ago
While entertaining for us responding in such a public way will encourage further stunts from his adversaries. Kreb plays a dangerous game.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  That's one side of writing that blog post, but on the other side, if someone were to simply try this scheme again, but on a forum Krebs doesn't monitor, or more secretly, this particular blog post with a date will help his defence to show they tried this before. (At least that would seem to make sense to me, but I am not familiar with US regulations and when it comes to drugs they can apparently be .. somewhat counterintuitive) But yeah he is playing a dangerous game, and I think he is well aware of that. Also, I wonder, he must be monitoring at least tens of underground-forums or so, that must take a sizeable chunk out of his day? Especially depending on how fluent his Russian is. I hope he has an intern or something to help him out scanning those boards.
gedrap 13y ago
And that's really worrying. For me, it makes various threats and other cyber bullying look like a game. 'I wish you get cancer' yeah whatever f-off kid. But this one can easily ruin someones life. Or at least give enough stress to shorten it for a while. Not even talking about legal expenses to prove it's not yours. I mean... Police finds reasonable amount of Class A drugs at your place. 'it's not my' 'yeah right, everyone says that'.
nemesisj 13y ago
I really enjoyed this blog post for some reason - I think the frank dissection of how the whole plot was hatched was really interesting. The main takeaway for me is how worrying the chosen attack vector was, and what it says about the state of the USA. Think about it - the most effective way to remotely cripple someone you hate is to turn the USA's ridiculous drug enforcement apparatus on them. It's not a bomb or insults, or any kind of direct or overt physical harm, it's simply mailing them a narcotic and tipping off the police. What if this guy hadn't been monitoring things? He could very well have been in a nasty, highly stressful, possibly career ending situation simply due to America's stance on drug enforcement.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  Yep and the SWAT team service costs only about $20 through onion :(.
- X4 13y ago
  I also feel somehow guilty now, because I enjoyed that article too much.. That's crazy how much more power and impact a scene member can have on the life of someone. And it's so easy to do that.. Reminds me to a situation I was in: While coding during midnight and while important political and prominent people came to town, I felt some weird vibrations on my window. After touching it, it felt like something was making it vibrate very strong. Then came the shock, when I saw a drone targeting my window, unaware of it being armed or not.. I hid and waited until it moved to scan other buildings. unfortunately I didn't make a photo, but it had a large triangular red thing on it's nose (infrared?) and was able to stay at one position. I imagined that they could have thought that this is the highest building and having a perfect view to the scene from that window, it would be a preferred sniper position. But ordering heroin to a whitehat and spoofing calls from the neighbours to police..wow.. Getting threatened by the Government for whatever reason is seriously no more fun.
  - hnha 13y ago
    Field report #XJ-175882: Citizen responded fearfully to standard passive investigation. Suspect hid on sight of overseer. Further investigative action recommended. aka I am creeped out.
sidcool 13y ago
It's interesting how righteous the Silk Road guy sounds. He's using his power to cheat, and then he quotes about agorism and shit.
- codesuela 13y ago
  I think you mean the russian carder, the Silk Road heroin vendor sounds as professional as one can be in such a situation.
soapit 13y ago
What a waste of perfectly good heroin.
01Michael10 13y ago
It seems wrong to provide the non-HTTPS link of a security blog...
stfu 13y ago
This seems like a good starting point to deny having made any "orders" from the silkroad yourself. It's all some internet conspiracy! The same thing happened to Krebs."
X4 13y ago
How could Krebs protect himself, if someone ordered contract killers from the silkroad? I do hope that he get's some bodyguards, I never knew that infosec was a life-threatening job. I wish that it at least pays off for him, because it's surely a hard situation for his family. I couldn't take a breath, if I knew that my brother or sister was in danger. I think these criminals should be very thankful to have Kreb alive and not in jail, because a) they win more market, by getting rid of other criminals b) they learn howto he doxxed the other criminals and can protect themselves better. Maybe one of you has ideas on howto protect against that, then pleaes tell us

137 points by andreipop 13y ago

Would the claim "I didn't order this, someone wanted to frame me" hold up in court if this guy hadn't discovered this scheme?

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
I think that depends a lot on the time it takes you to call the cops and say someone just delivered 12 baggies vs flushing them down the loo as they kick in the door
girvo 13y ago
Oddly enough, it can work, if handled correctly. Opening the baggie was a bad move however, and if he didn't have a contact with the cops already, they may take it as intent.
WestCoastJustin 13y ago
Wife tried to frame husband for ricin letters, says FBI [1]. Close enough? [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/08/ricin-letters-husband-framed.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/08/ricin-letters-...
nikcub 13y ago
Blind mules are a huge problem in Mexico, where they are unwittingly used to courier drugs over the border. Most end up in prison and have to prove their innocence via public campaigns. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/americas/mexico-blind-drug-mules http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/americas/mexico-blin...
agilebyte 13y ago
I seem to remember that people on Tor recommend to not open a package you are not expecting. Do so only after a period of time passes. (of course the idea was to use the latter when you are expecting something illegal)

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

For me the two big takeaways are the cop who wanted to unplug from Google. This is likely to be a fairly sizeable minority of the world who used to know how it all worked - and just cannot be bothered to learn the new rules. I am not sure if that's a good or a bad thing - if grandpa is not online can be do video calls to the grandkids ? The second is of course - I do not monitor these boards and of course the next attempt will not be public. Not sure how to react if a dozen baggies got delivered. Hand it over to the cops I guess. It is the makings of an interesting real life DDoS attack on politicians for example

girvo 13y ago
Hand it over to the cops, but not before speaking to a lawyer, would be my tactic.
WalterSear 13y ago
This is likely to be a fairly sizeable minority of the world who used to know how it all worked - and just cannot be bothered to learn the new rules. I am not sure if that's a good or a bad thing - if grandpa is not online can be do video calls to the grandkids ? People have been reacting this way since computers were first sold to the public: They bitched and moaned until the last possible moment, but they are all using word processors and have iphones now. There will be no exodus.

Renaud 13y ago

You must be something right when you attract that much dedicated attention... I'm surprised at how personal these attacks are. Is it that common for public security figures to be at such risk ?

jlgaddis 13y ago
Skim through some of Krebs' past articles. He has publicly outed many "cyber-criminals" on his blog and typically provides plenty of proof to back up his assertions. These criminals, of course, don't really like that. I understand his motive for publishing details of things like this that are directed at him but it makes me wonder if another criminal reading it won't try to "one-up" the previous guy.

undoware 13y ago

I always get a kick out of Krebs' relationship with the thesaurus. "Miscreants" "goons" "fraudsters" Seriously, 'goons'? What is this, an Archie comic? But, yes, fascinating article, nonetheless. I dislike the man for reasons difficult to articulate, but there is no arguing with a story like this. Great read.

e1ven 13y ago
Not necessary related in this instance, but users of the Something Awful forum generally refer to themselves as "goons". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  Not to mention the Defcon goons: http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-goons.html http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-goons.html

ollybee 13y ago

While entertaining for us responding in such a public way will encourage further stunts from his adversaries. Kreb plays a dangerous game.

tripzilch 13y ago
That's one side of writing that blog post, but on the other side, if someone were to simply try this scheme again, but on a forum Krebs doesn't monitor, or more secretly, this particular blog post with a date will help his defence to show they tried this before. (At least that would seem to make sense to me, but I am not familiar with US regulations and when it comes to drugs they can apparently be .. somewhat counterintuitive) But yeah he is playing a dangerous game, and I think he is well aware of that. Also, I wonder, he must be monitoring at least tens of underground-forums or so, that must take a sizeable chunk out of his day? Especially depending on how fluent his Russian is. I hope he has an intern or something to help him out scanning those boards.

gedrap 13y ago

And that's really worrying. For me, it makes various threats and other cyber bullying look like a game. 'I wish you get cancer' yeah whatever f-off kid. But this one can easily ruin someones life. Or at least give enough stress to shorten it for a while. Not even talking about legal expenses to prove it's not yours. I mean... Police finds reasonable amount of Class A drugs at your place. 'it's not my' 'yeah right, everyone says that'.

nemesisj 13y ago

I really enjoyed this blog post for some reason - I think the frank dissection of how the whole plot was hatched was really interesting. The main takeaway for me is how worrying the chosen attack vector was, and what it says about the state of the USA. Think about it - the most effective way to remotely cripple someone you hate is to turn the USA's ridiculous drug enforcement apparatus on them. It's not a bomb or insults, or any kind of direct or overt physical harm, it's simply mailing them a narcotic and tipping off the police. What if this guy hadn't been monitoring things? He could very well have been in a nasty, highly stressful, possibly career ending situation simply due to America's stance on drug enforcement.

agilebyte 13y ago
Yep and the SWAT team service costs only about $20 through onion :(.
X4 13y ago
I also feel somehow guilty now, because I enjoyed that article too much.. That's crazy how much more power and impact a scene member can have on the life of someone. And it's so easy to do that.. Reminds me to a situation I was in: While coding during midnight and while important political and prominent people came to town, I felt some weird vibrations on my window. After touching it, it felt like something was making it vibrate very strong. Then came the shock, when I saw a drone targeting my window, unaware of it being armed or not.. I hid and waited until it moved to scan other buildings. unfortunately I didn't make a photo, but it had a large triangular red thing on it's nose (infrared?) and was able to stay at one position. I imagined that they could have thought that this is the highest building and having a perfect view to the scene from that window, it would be a preferred sniper position. But ordering heroin to a whitehat and spoofing calls from the neighbours to police..wow.. Getting threatened by the Government for whatever reason is seriously no more fun.
- hnha 13y ago
  Field report #XJ-175882: Citizen responded fearfully to standard passive investigation. Suspect hid on sight of overseer. Further investigative action recommended. aka I am creeped out.

sidcool 13y ago

It's interesting how righteous the Silk Road guy sounds. He's using his power to cheat, and then he quotes about agorism and shit.

codesuela 13y ago
I think you mean the russian carder, the Silk Road heroin vendor sounds as professional as one can be in such a situation.

soapit 13y ago

What a waste of perfectly good heroin.

01Michael10 13y ago

It seems wrong to provide the non-HTTPS link of a security blog...

stfu 13y ago

This seems like a good starting point to deny having made any "orders" from the silkroad yourself. It's all some internet conspiracy! The same thing happened to Krebs."

X4 13y ago

How could Krebs protect himself, if someone ordered contract killers from the silkroad? I do hope that he get's some bodyguards, I never knew that infosec was a life-threatening job. I wish that it at least pays off for him, because it's surely a hard situation for his family. I couldn't take a breath, if I knew that my brother or sister was in danger. I think these criminals should be very thankful to have Kreb alive and not in jail, because a) they win more market, by getting rid of other criminals b) they learn howto he doxxed the other criminals and can protect themselves better. Maybe one of you has ideas on howto protect against that, then pleaes tell us