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Mafia Boss Using Crook Crypto Captured

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the never-heard-of-pgp-and-email dept.

boggis writes "Discovery is running a story on Bernardo Provenzano, the recently arrested 'boss of bosses' of the Sicilian Mafia. He apparently wrote notes to his henchmen using a modified form of the Caesar Cipher, which was easily cracked by the police and resulted in further arrests of collaborators. Discovery's cryptography expert describes it as a code that 'will keep your kid sister out'."

15 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. If only.. by Ckwop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You see, now if you want to do secure pencil and paper ciphers here's how you do it.

    Self-shrinking generators are broken but the best attack requires an insane amount of plain-text. Far, far, more than you could ever generate by hand. If Mr Mafia had used this instead of a crappy cipher from two thousand years ago then he might not have been caught.

    Throughout history lives have literally depended on the strength of the cryptography people have deployed. I find it exciting that these times are still with us and are not mearly confined to the history books.

    Simon

    1. Re:If only.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Couldnt you just, like, flip a coin 108 times and use the results as a one time pad?

    2. Re:If only.. by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This was a cipher called Solitaire, which was created by Bruce Schneier. It has been horribly broken.

      What they need to do is fire up a dubbie and get one of these.

    3. Re:If only.. by myth24601 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What if they used a pole that was one thickness at the top and a different thickness at the bottom? The message could also be constructed so that the only characters that counted were the ones on the south side of the pole and the north side could contain a decoy message (and the east and west sides too for that matter)?

      --
      No matter where you go, there you are.
    4. Re:If only.. by aiabx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In order to wrap around a tapering pole and still present a coherent message, the spacing of the characters would have to be altered as the pole narrowed. An astute codebreaker could derive useful information from careful analysis of the spacing.
      As for the decoy messages, they might be a good way to present disinformation, but you still need to face the fact that the real message has been read by the enemy. If he has to carefully watch two gates on 4 nights, you've still lost the advantage of surprise.

      --
      Just this guy, you know?
  2. He should've at least read by gregarican · · Score: 3, Interesting

    this book. I found it an enjoyable yet educational walk through the history of encoding/decoding. Cool stuff. I guess Sicilian mobsters typically aren't Mensa members...

  3. Showing your hand: word to the wise-guys by thomn8r · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Now, right this minute, every other mobster is in a mad rush to implement a real crypto scheme. The cops, for the sake of some PR, have pretty much guaranteed that it will be harder to decode such communications in the future.

    There was an American mobster a few years ago who did something using PGP, and the only way the FBI were able to crack it was to bug his keyboard http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/06/mafia_tria l_to_test_fbi/

  4. Re:Not very smart by Alarash · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Well, to be fair, the guy lived in a stable, and was a grandpa. So I don't think he knew much about algorithms and stuff. But, even if he was a godfather that eluded the police for 43 years, I don't think he's smart. Even if he didn't have any knowledge about cryptology (-graphy? Gee, I never know), he should have hired somebody who did know about it as an "advisor". But then, there's a trust issue, and I'm not sure the poor guy would have survived after he advised on picking the correct encryption system.

    Or the godfather just wanted to play it old school all the way thinking it was the way to go. But then again, he lived in a stable.

  5. Wouldn't have helped in this case anyways... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Indeed the "pizzini" (cryptograms) have not been intercepted while in transit, but found at his home after his arrest (... which police made using other sources, unrelated to the pizzini...).

    Had he used a more secure algorithm, such as the one described, he would have needed to have kept the key (the appropriately shuffled deck of cards) somewhere, which police would just as easily have found at his home. Or we would have needed to remember the 108 bit number in his head, but somehow I doubt he would have gone through such length. He was a mafioso, not a memory genius.

    1. Re:Wouldn't have helped in this case anyways... by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think an appropriately shuffled deck of cards would be somewhat innocuous.

      If the police aren't looking for something like a deck-of-cards-as-key, then they won't find the key, all they'll find is a deck of cards.

      I only say this because I recall reading an article some years back about drug dealers storing their business information on USB thumbdrives & wearing them as necklaces or on keychains. The police would arrest the dealer, but since the police didn't know what they had, the thumbdrive was treated as any other possesion & sealed up till the dealer was released.

      You're still hiding your 'key', you're just hiding it in plain site & hoping no one sees it for what it is.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  6. Crude, maybe, but dumb, no way by FishandChips · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We cannot be sure that Provenzano's crude attempts at a code were intended to foil the police. Why should he care? By now, several hundred Mafia informers (the pentiti) have already told the police just about everything you could think of. Besides, pencil and paper have turned out to be quite a good system, probably yielding a fraction of the information that electronic eavesdropping would.

    The coded notes are more likely have been intended to prevent his fellow mafiosi from getting too close and knowing too much. There was nothing dumb about this man's rule as a godfather. He evaded capture for forty years, rebuilt the organization after the disasters of the Riina years, retained power by remaining as invisible to his fellow mobsters as he was to the authorities, and simply survived into his 70s in a "profession" in which many are lucky to reach their thirties.

    Yes, it's good news that another gruesome killer is behind bars. But the more worrying question is why the godfather found it unnecessary to take more stringent precautions, suggesting that clearing out the Mafia-infested lands of Western Sicily and the corruption-prone "public works" economy still has a very long way to go. It's going to take more than a few smart remarks about cryptography to do that.

    --
    Las qué passoun
    tournoun pas maï
  7. IT Consultant by Johnny+Mnemonic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Frankly, I'm surprised that someone who's responsible for moving around millions, or even perhaps billions, of dollars of ill-gotten gain won't spend $250K a year on a team of competent IT consultants. I wouldn't think it'd be too hard to find a bent IT guy to give advice on security, encryption, what can be recovered from a hard drive etc. Either they think they're too smart to be caught this way, or they think the cops are too dumb to break their encryption, or they just haven't modernized their business practices because they think the old ways still work.

    Interestingly, by all accounts Al Queda is much more technically savvy.

    --

    --
    $tar -xvf .sig.tar
  8. Re:Most interesting part... by Sigma+7 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...wasn't that he was using an obsolete code, but that the Italian alphabet is missing k, j, w, x, and y.

    Just how the heck can they express themselves without those letters? That must leave pretty big holes in their keyboards!


    For this, I turn to the advise of Mark Twain:

    A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
          by Mark Twain

    For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.


    He is completely correct - there's no need for letters if they sound like others. Bekause of this, I suggest that we should follow in his footsteps.
  9. And what offer was that? by mr_3ntropy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    8 jqe3 y8j qh 9rr34 y3 d97oeh[5 43r7w3.
    I made him an offer he couldnot refuse.

    wow.That missing space almost threw me off.
    Hey this ain't no ROT, you cheat.

    Helful links:

    http://www.infoplease.com/applets/xwordsearch.php
    http://www.fizzl.net/projects/crypto/
    http://www.mcld.co.uk/decipher/

  10. Re:Thought they always were spoke in vague terms by flyingsquid · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The Sicilian Mafia were pretty well protected even with lousy encryption. There's a culture that discourages anyone from talking about it, there's fear, and there's corruption in the Italian government.

    If you're interested in this kind of thing- or just looking for a good read- try picking up Excellent Cadavers. It's the story of two Italian judges who finally tire of the fear, the silence, and the corruption, and take on the Mafia; the article makes reference to this guy being involved in the murders of two judges and I assume that's who they're referring to. It's one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read- it really gets into the characters but also gets into the social underpinnings and economics of the Mafia. It's a tragic book because the judges end up assassinated, but it's also really inspiring because they refuse to back down, they refuse to compromise, and at the price of their lives they dealt a crippling blow to the Sicilian Mafia.