5 ms·

If they want to get you, they will. Reading how they got him, but I wouldn't be surprised if NSA handed them the info informally and then the FBI had to find an

If they want to get you, they will. Reading how they got him, but I wouldn't be surprised if NSA handed them the info informally and then the FBI had to find another way to justify it. When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. Parallel construction http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE97409R20130805 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUKBRE9... and all.

untog 13y ago
When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. True, but "connecting the dots" is much easier when it's your job, and something you've spent decades practicing. Not to say that you're wrong, but there's no evidence to back you up. We might as well assume that the NSA is behind everything, ever.
- kevincennis 13y ago
  Not sure why this appears to have been downvoted. Seems like a pretty reasonable point, even if you happen not to agree with it.
- Larrikin 13y ago
  In this current age, its more likely that the NSA is behind it. We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help.
  - dubfan 13y ago
    Then at that point you are no better than 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers.
    - Larrikin 13y ago
      Theres no basis in reality for 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers though
      - fivethree 13y ago
        That's the point.
        intslack 13y ago
        Denying reality isn't healthy: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...
        fivethree 13y ago
        Delusions of Grandeur aren't either.
    - zero_intp 13y ago
      I see what you did there, Mr NSA. No seriously, the whole parallel construction dialogue for NSA feeding DEA tips is exactly the situation suggested here. Why do you equate published journalism with hoaxes and factually devoid crazies. It is insulting to a fairly civil discussion.
  - arjie 13y ago
    Ah, so the NSA's spying does have positive effects. It helped capture a drug king-pin who hires hitmen. I'd believed that dragnet capture of Internet traffic presents problems in trying to isolate relevant evidence, but you claim that this is not an issue. This certainly bolsters the claim that the NSA's surveillance is doing society good. I'm not comfortable with that, but there it is.
  - mikeryan 13y ago
    We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help. So we now have to prove a negative or the NSA did it? Logic has officially left the building.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  First and foremost, I didn't state as a definite fact. The rest of your argument ...oh well.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  It occurs to me: a great tool of a "know everything" government is the ability to exclude dots, leaving the dots which merely need connecting. Just like the sculptor's aphorism "I just remove everything that isn't the subject, and there it is", a near-omniscient police force can address a crime by eliminating everyone it knows wasn't involved (by their near-continuous presence on metadata, cell tower triangulation, security cameras, etc.), eliminating everywhere it knows the remaining 'dots' couldn't have been, and eliminating every action it knows couldn't have been performed ... leaving a very limited "negative space" for the inferred suspects to operate in. A lot of data to mine, but given NSA-levels of awareness, NSA et al could respond (legally!) to requests for information with a vast list of who/what/where wasn't involved, leaving a conspicuous implication of the guilty.
  - fleitz 13y ago
    Thats the general idea of police work, you start with everyone as a suspect and then use evidence to narrow it down. It tends to work well from a prosecutorial POV as well because anyone who is accused by that process has little evidence to exclude them.
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      General idea yes, but takes on new implications & scope when operating at NSA levels of universal surveillance exceeding police work by orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude.
- tedks 13y ago
  Well, we know the NSA is behind some things, or else it wouldn't exist. We also know this is an incredibly high profile case. It's in the interests of the DEA and FBI to lean on their contacts in the NSA, even. That said, the FBI is very good at what it does, and finding this sort of thing isn't just what the FBI does, it's what any investigator does. (I have personal experience with this area that I can't disclose, but trust me, everyone knows how to link usernames between websites.)
shazow 13y ago
I'm not sure one way or the other, and while it's clear that Ulbright was fairly sloppy, there are a few instances of serendipity: 1. The agent randomly (?) stumbling on a LinkedIn profile which matched the timeline/description of the Silkroad project, which prompted to seek another unidentified agent which had all kinds of juicy deets on the suspect. 2. CBP intercepted a package addressed to Ulbright containing a bunch of counterfeit official documents during a "routine border search". 3. Found Tor/PHP/curl-related posts on Stackoverflow from his real name account, but also says he changed his name/email to a fake one. Did they happen to stumble on it before he changed his name? Or had some kind of access to an earlier archive? Or cooperation from Stackoverflow? Unclear. I'll update more as I run into them. Super interesting read. Still, it's clear that they've done a ton of research on Silkroad and DPR. The notes are thorough and accurate. A job well done.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- teebs 13y ago
  I think that the main slip-up was the use of the same account on BitcoinTalk to both promo SR and to post his personal Gmail account to try to hire Tor experts. Everything else listed above sounded like it either came chronologically after that discovery (the CBP intercept) or it was a result of that discovery (the StackOverflow and LinkedIn accounts)
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > 1. The agent randomly (?) stumbling on a LinkedIn profile which matched the timeline/description of the Silkroad project, which prompted to seek another unidentified agent which had all kinds of juicy deets on the suspect. Sounds like parallel construction to give them a legal way to introduce evidence.
  - maxander 13y ago
    I'd imagine the NSA has crawlers that can parse LinkedIn profiles enough to make good guesses on who is likely to be involved in hacking, criminal entrepreneurship, etc., and to pull out relevant dates and other indications of ideological shifts or large secret projects. Cross-reference with banking records to show when someone is unemployed for a long time and yet still has unexplained funds... DPR was probably on a reasonably short list.
peregrine 13y ago
The most interesting part was trying to decipher what was got cleanly and what was got with PRISM. Stackoverflow is one not specifically mentioned as "obtained records from" just that those actions happened on stackoverflow. Non-public actions. Also why would stackoverflow keep a record about each username and email change, but not IP and access times? They never mentioned how he connected to SO or if he masked it. BUT they mentioned that in every other case.
- Geee 13y ago
  He possibly had those actions on record in his Gmail account, in which they would have easy access to.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  I imagine they had access to his gmail account and StackOverflow emailed him when he changed his account information. I would bet that the StackOverflow information came after they identified his gmail account (which had his full name in it!).
driverdan 13y ago
Had he not made some pretty amateur mistakes (like using his real email) he probably wouldn't have been caught. My guess is that email address is what lead to his downfall. Without a target the FBI wouldn't have much to investigate.

untog 13y ago

When you know the end results, "connecting the dots" is much easier. True, but "connecting the dots" is much easier when it's your job, and something you've spent decades practicing. Not to say that you're wrong, but there's no evidence to back you up. We might as well assume that the NSA is behind everything, ever.

kevincennis 13y ago
Not sure why this appears to have been downvoted. Seems like a pretty reasonable point, even if you happen not to agree with it.
Larrikin 13y ago
In this current age, its more likely that the NSA is behind it. We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help.
- dubfan 13y ago
  Then at that point you are no better than 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers.
  - Larrikin 13y ago
    Theres no basis in reality for 9/11 truthers and moon landing hoaxers though
    - fivethree 13y ago
      That's the point.
      - intslack 13y ago
        Denying reality isn't healthy: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...
        fivethree 13y ago
        Delusions of Grandeur aren't either.
  - zero_intp 13y ago
    I see what you did there, Mr NSA. No seriously, the whole parallel construction dialogue for NSA feeding DEA tips is exactly the situation suggested here. Why do you equate published journalism with hoaxes and factually devoid crazies. It is insulting to a fairly civil discussion.
- arjie 13y ago
  Ah, so the NSA's spying does have positive effects. It helped capture a drug king-pin who hires hitmen. I'd believed that dragnet capture of Internet traffic presents problems in trying to isolate relevant evidence, but you claim that this is not an issue. This certainly bolsters the claim that the NSA's surveillance is doing society good. I'm not comfortable with that, but there it is.
- mikeryan 13y ago
  We are at a point where we need evidence that the NSA didn't help. So we now have to prove a negative or the NSA did it? Logic has officially left the building.
bsullivan01 13y ago
First and foremost, I didn't state as a definite fact. The rest of your argument ...oh well.
ctdonath 13y ago
It occurs to me: a great tool of a "know everything" government is the ability to exclude dots, leaving the dots which merely need connecting. Just like the sculptor's aphorism "I just remove everything that isn't the subject, and there it is", a near-omniscient police force can address a crime by eliminating everyone it knows wasn't involved (by their near-continuous presence on metadata, cell tower triangulation, security cameras, etc.), eliminating everywhere it knows the remaining 'dots' couldn't have been, and eliminating every action it knows couldn't have been performed ... leaving a very limited "negative space" for the inferred suspects to operate in. A lot of data to mine, but given NSA-levels of awareness, NSA et al could respond (legally!) to requests for information with a vast list of who/what/where wasn't involved, leaving a conspicuous implication of the guilty.
- fleitz 13y ago
  Thats the general idea of police work, you start with everyone as a suspect and then use evidence to narrow it down. It tends to work well from a prosecutorial POV as well because anyone who is accused by that process has little evidence to exclude them.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    General idea yes, but takes on new implications & scope when operating at NSA levels of universal surveillance exceeding police work by orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude.
tedks 13y ago
Well, we know the NSA is behind some things, or else it wouldn't exist. We also know this is an incredibly high profile case. It's in the interests of the DEA and FBI to lean on their contacts in the NSA, even. That said, the FBI is very good at what it does, and finding this sort of thing isn't just what the FBI does, it's what any investigator does. (I have personal experience with this area that I can't disclose, but trust me, everyone knows how to link usernames between websites.)

shazow 13y ago

I'm not sure one way or the other, and while it's clear that Ulbright was fairly sloppy, there are a few instances of serendipity: 1. The agent randomly (?) stumbling on a LinkedIn profile which matched the timeline/description of the Silkroad project, which prompted to seek another unidentified agent which had all kinds of juicy deets on the suspect. 2. CBP intercepted a package addressed to Ulbright containing a bunch of counterfeit official documents during a "routine border search". 3. Found Tor/PHP/curl-related posts on Stackoverflow from his real name account, but also says he changed his name/email to a fake one. Did they happen to stumble on it before he changed his name? Or had some kind of access to an earlier archive? Or cooperation from Stackoverflow? Unclear. I'll update more as I run into them. Super interesting read. Still, it's clear that they've done a ton of research on Silkroad and DPR. The notes are thorough and accurate. A job well done.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
teebs 13y ago
I think that the main slip-up was the use of the same account on BitcoinTalk to both promo SR and to post his personal Gmail account to try to hire Tor experts. Everything else listed above sounded like it either came chronologically after that discovery (the CBP intercept) or it was a result of that discovery (the StackOverflow and LinkedIn accounts)
darkarmani 13y ago
> 1. The agent randomly (?) stumbling on a LinkedIn profile which matched the timeline/description of the Silkroad project, which prompted to seek another unidentified agent which had all kinds of juicy deets on the suspect. Sounds like parallel construction to give them a legal way to introduce evidence.
- maxander 13y ago
  I'd imagine the NSA has crawlers that can parse LinkedIn profiles enough to make good guesses on who is likely to be involved in hacking, criminal entrepreneurship, etc., and to pull out relevant dates and other indications of ideological shifts or large secret projects. Cross-reference with banking records to show when someone is unemployed for a long time and yet still has unexplained funds... DPR was probably on a reasonably short list.

peregrine 13y ago

The most interesting part was trying to decipher what was got cleanly and what was got with PRISM. Stackoverflow is one not specifically mentioned as "obtained records from" just that those actions happened on stackoverflow. Non-public actions. Also why would stackoverflow keep a record about each username and email change, but not IP and access times? They never mentioned how he connected to SO or if he masked it. BUT they mentioned that in every other case.

Geee 13y ago
He possibly had those actions on record in his Gmail account, in which they would have easy access to.
Aloisius 13y ago
I imagine they had access to his gmail account and StackOverflow emailed him when he changed his account information. I would bet that the StackOverflow information came after they identified his gmail account (which had his full name in it!).

driverdan 13y ago

Had he not made some pretty amateur mistakes (like using his real email) he probably wouldn't have been caught. My guess is that email address is what lead to his downfall. Without a target the FBI wouldn't have much to investigate.