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Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

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Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#51
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always been fascinated by the idea that intelligence lies within a spectrum. Someone might be incredibly smart about a narrow topic or field, yet be blind to their own stupidity within another realm. I've been seriously bitten by this, and find it more scary than fascinating. Growing up, I thought people who followed cult leaders and charismatic narcissists were so stupid (still do), it appeared so transparent…

> I found myself to be equally gullible when intelligent people were abusive or outright dumb in other areas. This has been a challenge to unlearn, like learning an old dog to sit. Basically, our proxies for predicting people's character range from bad to terrible. oh I am 100% with you on this. I tried to elaborate but I just sound bitter and twisted, and that's probably true. But I've spent the last few years unlea…

I would like to hear more about your experience.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#54

I've always been fascinated by the idea that intelligence lies within a spectrum. Someone might be incredibly smart about a narrow topic or field, yet be blind to their own stupidity within another realm. To me, this seems like a classic example. To quote the press release: "During the execution of that search, SHARP made numerous false statements to FBI agents, including, among other things, in substance, that he wa…

It is very, VERY difficult to not answer questions from a trained law enforcement interrogator even if you a) are smart and b) know not to answer questions. I can't stress this enough.

It actually takes explicit training and practice, as it goes against every social habit and "instinct" we have developed throughout our entire adult lives.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#55
post #24
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>SHARP falsely stated, in part and substance, that someone else must have used his PayPal account to make the purchase. and to me it looks like somebody intentionally left breadcrumb trail leading to the guy. With cloud paying so nice these days nobody is going to risk that way for the paltry $2M (ie. less than 3-4 years earnings in Bay Area for the people like this). It looks like the stock price drop is the real "f…

Yes your point is valid. It doesn’t seem that they did find any unusual shorting activity though as is or used to be how they went about it in the old days.

[deleted]

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#56
post #16

Ubiquiti's stock price (NYSE: UI) dropped by over 25% from $380 to $290 during the week following news of its breach. That's almost $5 billion wiped off the company's market capitalisation because of this employee.

Probably could have been a lot less and/or recovered by now had Ubiquiti not also gone through great lengths to cover it up and actively avoid taking appropriate mitigation action. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/whistleblower-ubiquiti-b... I mean Nick Sharp certainly took a chunk out of them but there is more to the story for why the market lost that much faith.

Wait, is Brian's source for that article Nick Sharp himself? If so, then I don't know what to take away from that article.

Try re-reading it, but replacing every instance of "Adam", with "Nick" and see how it comes across.

I'd love to see Krebs follow up on this.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#57
post #44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I have yet to understand why people talk to law enforcement instead of staying silent so as to not implicate themselves.) When the FBI knock at the door you totally do the whole "no comment/talk to my lawyer" thing. But what happens next if you're actually part of an investigation is they hand you a grand jury subpoena (which they were going to do anyway, even if you just talked willingly, because they have already…

The difference is that every step after the initial "no comment" can/should be done with explicit guidance from an attorney, and no attorney in the country will have their client blatantly lie in front of the FBI or a grand jury despite there being solid evidence proving otherwise.

Most people don't understand that they can't explain themselves out of a legal investigation.

LEOs exploit this.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#58

> SHARP used a virtual private network service that he subscribed to from a company named Surfshark to mask his Internet Protocol (“IP”) address when he accessed Company-1’s AWS and GitHub infrastructure without authorization. How did they know it was SurfShark?

Presumably with an IP log by a router/IDS/ENS at the corporate or ISP level.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#59
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I have yet to understand why people talk to law enforcement instead of staying silent so as to not implicate themselves.) When the FBI knock at the door you totally do the whole "no comment/talk to my lawyer" thing. But what happens next if you're actually part of an investigation is they hand you a grand jury subpoena (which they were going to do anyway, even if you just talked willingly, because they have already…

> "it will likely help you at that point to be cooperative via guidance from your attorney" guidance from your attorney seems to be the critical bit of that - it's okay to talk, but with your lawyer present.

Your lawyer will do it in writing, after consulting with you privately.

Re: Former Ubiquiti employee charged with stealing data and extorting company

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about intelligence. When faced correcting a false reality you have created, it can be quite hard to decide to phase change into telling the truth. The lies that come out come from not being prepared and not being a very good liar. For people who lie like this, a good way to think about it is as though it were a disease. Actually intelligent people just don't do things like this, even if they have nefa…

> Actually intelligent people just don't do things like this Are you really claiming that intelligent people don’t commit crime or don’t lie? That seems incredibly naive.

I thought they were claiming intelligent people are better at lying in the course of committing crimes or otherwise.
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