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.
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.
aka I am creeped out.
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
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.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/americas/mexico-blin...
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/08/ricin-letters-...
(of course the idea was to use the latter when you are expecting something illegal)
I'm surprised at how personal these attacks are. Is it that common for public security figures to be at such risk ?
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.
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'.
"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.
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
(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.
It's all some internet conspiracy! The same thing happened to Krebs."
