Slashdot Mirror
Reporting From the Web's Underbelly
mspohr writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about Brian Krebs (Krebs on Security): 'In the last year, Eastern European cybercriminals have stolen Brian Krebs's identity a half dozen times, brought down his website, included his name and some unpleasant epithets in their malware code, sent fecal matter and heroin to his doorstep, and called a SWAT team to his home just as his mother was arriving for dinner.' His reporting is definitely on the edge. 'Mr. Krebs, 41, tries to write pieces that cannot be found elsewhere. His widely read cybersecurity blog, Krebs on Security, covers a particularly dark corner of the Internet: profit-seeking cybercriminals, many based in Eastern Europe, who make billions off pharmaceutical sales, malware, spam, frauds and heists like the recent ones that Mr. Krebs was first to uncover at Adobe, Target and Neiman Marcus.' The article concludes with this: 'Mr. Joffe worries Mr. Krebs's enemies could do far worse. "I don't understand why he hasn't moved to a new, undisclosed address," he said. "But Brian needs a bodyguard."' (He does have a shotgun.)"
Chances are with as high of a high profile as he has, they'd just find him wherever he moves.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
No kidding? To-date it seems to have only been reported to be a series of interconnected tubes. Who knew? Has anyone done a study of this? One can only wonder where this all leads to. There can be no good outcome.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
A thought just came to me: If drugs are sent to his home often enough while he has plausible deniability, if the SWAT turn up often enough without cause... at which point does this man have immunity from law's scrutiny? At some point, the police will begin to just roll their eyes and tell him to just flush the coke down the drain, won't they? It's only human.
At that point... think of all the possibilities.
He needs a whole new identity to be able to keep wearing the Brian Krebs persona as a modern day Superhero
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The smart ones are the coders who write the malware, not the criminal morons who use it. The chances of some east european knuckle dragging thug flying to the US , getting through security, tracking this guy down and doing him some harm is pretty slim. I'd be more worried about mafia closer to home who probably also use the malware but being smarter tend to be better at concealing their activities.
What with the recent harsh criticism of Slashdot, I see once again that despite mentioning the fact that the guy has a blog, the editors cannot be bothered to do a simple search and put the link into the story. No, I don't want someone to reply and add the link, that's not what I'm talking about. The lack of self-awareness is just shocking, but then again I suppose that's why commenters are abandoning this site in droves. I'll be off myself shortly, I expect.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This is a good example of where you need a fast-cycling firearm with decent capacity. Either of the AR / AK platforms would work, as well as a variety of (much more expensive) newer styles. Heck, even a Mini-14.
A shotgun will take care of one guy well enough, but if it's four, you are in deep shit real fast with only 8 or so rounds in a slow loading plaftorm.
A Russian can be an Eastern European while an Eastern European can also be a Russian. I don't see the problem. Besides, the actual criminals that Krebs is covering don't seem to mind the mingling, case in point: A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware
From the second to last paragraph:
Group-IB goes on to link that account to a set of young Russian and Ukranian men who appear to be actively engaged in a variety of cybercrime activities, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and protests associated with the hackivist collective known as Anonymous.
So I guess until the Eastern European criminals themselves make the distinction, you'll have to live with it. Or clean up at home.
... whatever
It is inevitable, third world technology would reach a critical mass and then overtake the West. Now the brutal dog-eat-dog competition in the third world has created really tough breed of criminals and now they are the cutting edge in criminal behavior.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I spent a couple of holidays in an eastern european country known as a major source of e-crime. I have fond memories of time spent in internet cafes trying to complete an assignment while traveling. One place was like a dingy smoke-filled crack den, with cigarette butts floating in an old coffee cup, broken chairs, filthy keyboards where the keys didn't match the characters on the screen, and some guy paying for something with a fist full of fake Rolexes. That was the busiest internet cafe for whatever reason. I wish I could understand what those guys were talking about. At another internet cafe I had an old granny playing online pokies to my left, and some some barely 20 year old guy maintaining his porn site while his girlfriend sat on his lap to my right. Good times :-)
I fully recommend you visit a few internet cafes if you're traveling through eastern europe. They are very cheap, anonymous, and nobody asks any questions. Just leave your credit card, passport, camera, cellphone, whatever is worth stealing in a safe place before you visit.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence