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How on earth are the sellers "cashing out" and how are they taking payments? Why can't the money be followed? If the NSA is such a powerhouse with billions of

by ck2 13y ago

How on earth are the sellers "cashing out" and how are they taking payments? Why can't the money be followed? If the NSA is such a powerhouse with billions of dollars of assets to track every electronic communication, why aren't they focusing their entire resources on people like the sellers? Or is it like the TSA where they just hassle the completely innocent people at the airport for show while the real criminals take other paths.

guyht 13y ago
It pains me to say this, but most of the time the hackers will ask for payment in bitcoin which makes tracking much harder.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  You mean the bitcoin that maintains a public record of every transaction ever made on the network? There are still ways to anonomously cash out (payments to an anonomous account that forwards the funds to a mixing service, for example), but bitcoin is not a silver bullet for getting away with it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
dasil003 13y ago
> If the NSA is such a powerhouse with billions of dollars of assets to track every electronic communication, why aren't they focusing their entire resources on people like the sellers? Because they didn't invest that kind of money to find the logs in a haystack that are eastern bloc cyber criminals. They are looking for a needle in a haystack dammit. A needle. (and possibly if some of their wives are cheating on them).
- Datsundere 13y ago
  "Is your wife cheating on you? Well you have the opportunity to figure out by joining the NSA today!"
dzink 13y ago
How are they "cashing out"? Once upon a time eastern european hackers used to run a IRC chats under a .CC domain. They would post a bunch of CC numbers with their info and random forum members would grab and test/empty the cards. If the responsibility for cashing out is distributed, likely the culprits can stay hidden in the crowd of purchasers. However a kid in Eastern Europe did get arrested at a shipping port because he was waiting on a Ferrari he ordered with stolen credit cards.
patmcguire 13y ago
They know who the people are, but if the perpetrator's home governments don't want to give them up (article refers to Ukraine) there isn't a lot that can be done. Do we know that they aren't cooperating? No, but you can just look at the forums in question without an invitation so it's not like it would be hard if they wanted to.
snowwrestler 13y ago
The NSA does not investigate crimes. It is part of the U.S. national intelligence apparatus, so it focuses on targets and topics of interest to military and diplomatic leaders. The FBI would be investigating this, and they are probably actively following these transactions right now. But since they are a criminal investigation agency, they will be focused mostly on carefully collecting evidence, so that it can be used in trials to obtain convictions. So: this exposes a gap in how the U.S. federal government approaches the Internet. The NSA is willing to react in real time to threats, but they don't care about crimes like carding. The FBI cares, but they seek to collect evidence, not react in real time. The result is that when it comes to real-time reaction to cybercrime, companies are largely on their own. I'm sure Target is spending a good bit of money on cybercrime and cybersecurity consulting firms right now.

by ck2 13y ago

guyht 13y ago

It pains me to say this, but most of the time the hackers will ask for payment in bitcoin which makes tracking much harder.

gizmo686 13y ago
You mean the bitcoin that maintains a public record of every transaction ever made on the network? There are still ways to anonomously cash out (payments to an anonomous account that forwards the funds to a mixing service, for example), but bitcoin is not a silver bullet for getting away with it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

dasil003 13y ago

> If the NSA is such a powerhouse with billions of dollars of assets to track every electronic communication, why aren't they focusing their entire resources on people like the sellers? Because they didn't invest that kind of money to find the logs in a haystack that are eastern bloc cyber criminals. They are looking for a needle in a haystack dammit. A needle. (and possibly if some of their wives are cheating on them).

Datsundere 13y ago
"Is your wife cheating on you? Well you have the opportunity to figure out by joining the NSA today!"

dzink 13y ago

How are they "cashing out"? Once upon a time eastern european hackers used to run a IRC chats under a .CC domain. They would post a bunch of CC numbers with their info and random forum members would grab and test/empty the cards. If the responsibility for cashing out is distributed, likely the culprits can stay hidden in the crowd of purchasers. However a kid in Eastern Europe did get arrested at a shipping port because he was waiting on a Ferrari he ordered with stolen credit cards.

patmcguire 13y ago

They know who the people are, but if the perpetrator's home governments don't want to give them up (article refers to Ukraine) there isn't a lot that can be done. Do we know that they aren't cooperating? No, but you can just look at the forums in question without an invitation so it's not like it would be hard if they wanted to.

snowwrestler 13y ago

The NSA does not investigate crimes. It is part of the U.S. national intelligence apparatus, so it focuses on targets and topics of interest to military and diplomatic leaders. The FBI would be investigating this, and they are probably actively following these transactions right now. But since they are a criminal investigation agency, they will be focused mostly on carefully collecting evidence, so that it can be used in trials to obtain convictions. So: this exposes a gap in how the U.S. federal government approaches the Internet. The NSA is willing to react in real time to threats, but they don't care about crimes like carding. The FBI cares, but they seek to collect evidence, not react in real time. The result is that when it comes to real-time reaction to cybercrime, companies are largely on their own. I'm sure Target is spending a good bit of money on cybercrime and cybersecurity consulting firms right now.