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The Mob's IT Department
An anonymous reader writes: An article at Bloomberg relates the story of two IT professionals who reluctantly teamed up with an organized criminal network in building a sophisticated drug smuggling operation. "[The criminals were] clever, recruiting Van De Moere and Maertens the way a spymaster develops a double agent. By the time they understood what they were involved in, they were already implicated." The pair were threatened, and afraid to go to the police. They were asked to help with deploying malware and building "pwnies" — small computers capable of intercepting network traffic that could be disguised as power strips and routers. In 2012, authorities lucked into some evidence that led them to investigate the operation. "Technicians found a bunch of surveillance devices on [the network of large shipping company MSC]. There were two pwnies and a number of Wi-Fi keyloggers—small devices installed in USB ports of computers to record keystrokes—that the hackers were using as backups to the pwnies. MSC hired a private investigator, who called PricewaterhouseCoopers' digital forensics team, which learned that computer hackers were intercepting network traffic to steal PIN codes and hijack MSC's containers."
"hackers were intercepting network traffic to steal PIN codes and hijack MSC's containers"
So this was a MITM capture, or the PIN data was flying through unencrypted.
Life is not for the lazy.
"Pwnies" are probably PWN Plugs from Pwnie Express. The original models were basically Sheeva Plugs, a raspberry-pi esque computer inside a wall wart form factor.
It would be interesting to see if these guys received products or training from Pwnie Express, a well known infosec vendor.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
It should have been: "OMG!!!! pwnies!!!"
How much does the mob pay an IT worker? It might be better than legit companies.
You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
life > illegality
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Have you ever lived anywhere where there was a significant mob presence?
I haven't, and for good reason.
Your plan is a really great plan if you assume that the mob has absolutely no penetration whatsoever into the local police department.
I don't know why you'd assume such a stupid thing, though.
So here is how your suggestion really goes.
You walk into the local PD. On your way there, some kid recognized your face. He has instructions that say that if he sees a guy who looks like you walking into the police station, he calls a number and gets a bonus.
When you come home, something is different. Either your family is already dead, or, there's a note that makes it clear that your family is vulnerable and that you've fucked up - but there is still a chance to not get your family killed. Who knows what the knob is set at for the "first contact" - but there's a clear indication that you don't want to continue talking to the police.
Now, if someone inside that building is actually connected - and usually, somebody is - maybe they're the person who interviewed you. Maybe they're the person who looks at the signin/signout sheet at the station. Maybe they are somebody who files paperwork or types things up for other people.
Zillions of little people are needed to make the machine of government operate, and the mob targets precisely those people to be their eyes and ears. It uses combinations of carrots and sticks to keep them cooperating with mob goals, without letting them get too familiar with what those goals are or who is executing them.
Point is, if the mob has any power in your city, that includes eyes and ears within, or effectively within, the police department.
Part of the mob's effectiveness is that it destroys trust in the normal functioning institutinos of society. You never know for sure who is and isn't. It effectively isolate frightened individuals from the facets of society that might help or protect them. It always makes it seem like it's 1 person against the entire mob - it paints that same picture to lots of separate people.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
No, I live in Chicago.
Seriously though, growing up on Taylor Street in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood, we all knew who the mob guys were, and many of them were part of our extended families. I used to go fetch cigars for the old men who sat in front of the social club drinking espresso and they'd give me dollar bills and sage life advice. The barber and the tailor at Taylor and Loomis were both bookies.
Actually, in the case of the Chicago mob, they didn't destroy trust in those institutions, they replaced trust in those institutions for people who were blocked from having access to them. Today, if you want to get a bet down, you just have to go online or buy a lottery scratch-off ticket. Back then, you had to go see the barber. If you needed a loan, you saw the loan shark (who actually charged less interest than today's payday loan joints). If you needed the pothole in your street fixed, you went to talk to the precinct captain (who could be found putting down a bet with the barber or drinking espresso at the social club).
So see, the mob didn't destroy trust in normal functioning institutions of society, it created trust in people where the institutions of society didn't function properly.
Today, those old mob guys are almost all dead, and their kids went to med school or law school and are living out in the suburbs or on the North Side. All the mob's wealth has been laundered through the "normal functioning institutions of society" and their kids and grandkids are paragons of those functioning institutions. The mob here has always been the way immigrant populations assimilate. Do you think the fortunes of any of the great families in the US were built very differently? From Rockefeller to Kennedy to Romney, the fortunes are always built on something a little sleazy.
This all may be different where you are. This story happens to be about "the mob" in Belgium, which I can't even imagine. Maybe they control the black market waffles or something.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You walk into the local PD.
Walk. How 20th Century.
You establish some anonymous communications with FBI/CBP/etc. (or your nation's equivalent) at their HQ. Not the local police department on the Texas-Mexico border. The latter have mostly been pwned by the drug lords. So you exchange public keys with the FBI and establish yourself as an unwilling insider. You set up a deal for immunity and a contact name and pass phrase that you can drop when the DEA storms the facility and hauls everyone out (including yourself) in handcuffs when the gang is busted. Until then, nobody needs to know who you are. If talk inside the gang turns toward looking for a snitch, you can always go silent if it looks like your law enforcement contact might have been dirty. And at this point, nobody will know who you are IRL.
If there is a leak in HQ and you or your family end up dead, you can arrange a 'dead man switch' on a server that forwards all your correspondence to the New York Times, Guardian, Wikileaks, and anyone else willing to print an expose on corrupt law enforcement in bed with the mob.
Have gnu, will travel.