Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

krebsonsecurity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 197 posts

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#161

Post by tomjen3 »

nyolfen wrote: post #129
TacticalCoder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coelho landed on the radar of U.S. authorities in June 2018, when he tried to enter the United States at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The government obtained a warrant to search the electronic devices Coelho had in his luggage and found text messages, files and emails showing he was the RaidForums administrator Omnipotent I called complete, total and utter bullshit. That's a parallel con…

speaking of parallel construction, did you hear about the mass shooter on the brooklyn subway today? they said they ID'd him because he left his credit card at the scene.

That seems believable. You buy something with your credit card, but it into a pocket because you are distracted and it falls out.

Unless they meant he left it as a calling card, which I don't think they did, I don't see why that is suspicious, just another example of not having to make a single mistake.

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#162

Post by creakingstairs »

amatecha wrote: post #131
tyingq wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These people tend not to be the brightest. Well, for those that are bright, you don't hear anything at all. So it's hard to characterize all of them. I hear something similar on shows like Dateline about how not-bright the murderers are. Yet only about half of homicides are solved in the US every year.

Yes, so often you will hear the testimony of investigators like "if he hadn't [done single mistake], we never would have caught him". You can hear it in every true crime show like that.

Reminds me of the IRA statement to Thatcher:

> Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always

They just need to be unlucky once to go to jail.

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#163

Post by lordnacho »

hillsideduck wrote: post #83
PheonixPharts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people tend not to be the brightest. If they were, they'd generally find legitimate employment, A bit of survivorship bias at work here. Criminal activity is more so a function of risk tolerance than intelligence. However getting caught is certainly a function of intelligence. So your impression is that most criminals you read about being apprehended are people that seem to make many stupid mistakes. But this…

I'd further add to that, that in this case the criminal was only 21 years old. To be honest it is to be expected to mess up at some point with this much pressure at that age.

I think this is one of those "knowing what you don't know" problems.

Most 21 year old kids will not know enough about opsec to understand that they don't know shit about opsec. If you know a little bit you might think "if I just do X, Y, and Z I'll be safe". I suspect once you learn a bit more about the area you will quite quickly decide that it's not actually possible to get away with this kind of thing once the cops are onto you.

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#165

Post by paganel »

paulpauper wrote: post #99
frontman1988 wrote: post #31

Amazing how the perp started the website at 14 and gradually turned it into the top data leaks site in the world. To be able to build a multi million dollar illegal marketplace and not get caught for 7 years was quite an achievement in itself. Alas you just have to slip once and the party's over.

not really. unless it involves contraband, terrorism, or kid porn, the feds will not care that much. they will get to it eventually but it is not a top priority. Also they need many years to built an airtight case.

> contraband, terrorism, or kid porn,

One is not like the other two. To be honest I didn't know the Feds cared that much (comparatively speaking) about contraband. Is it because of some pressure coming from higher-up? (i.e. affected companies pressure the politicians they support => the politicians pressure the higher-ups in the FBI => those higher-ups pressure the regular agents).

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#166

Post by y4mi »

lordnacho wrote: post #163
hillsideduck wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd further add to that, that in this case the criminal was only 21 years old. To be honest it is to be expected to mess up at some point with this much pressure at that age.

I think this is one of those "knowing what you don't know" problems. Most 21 year old kids will not know enough about opsec to understand that they don't know shit about opsec. If you know a little bit you might think "if I just do X, Y, and Z I'll be safe". I suspect once you learn a bit more about the area you will quite quickly decide that it's not actually possible to get away with this kind of thing once the cop…

Proving the truth of the old adage again: it's luck not skill if you're getting out of an impossible situation - the skill is to never get into such a situation to begin with.

Applying that to this scenario: evading/postponing arrest after the cops started to look into you is luck, never giving them reason to look for/into you is what could be considered skill.

Or even more specific: it became luck as soon as it became clear that there was an admin. A lot of criminals that get caught want to be notorious however and build their "street creds".

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#167

Post by hutzlibu »

tyingq wrote: post #95
isk517 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to be slightly more intelligent than the people trying to track you in order to not get caught. I heard and read enough true crime stories to noticed that successful serial killers and incompetent law enforcement tend to go hand-in-hand.

I would guess that things like search history, email records, cell phone records and security cameras are a huge crutch for police these days. So avoiding those things probably gets you most of the way there.

" So avoiding those things probably gets you most of the way there."

How do I get anonymous internet access, from inside my cave?

More serious, the "best" way to do crime, is probably doing crime no one (in your jurisdiction) bothers enough to demand police action.

Which is why most(?) cyber gangs are operating from russia, kasachstan, etc. against the west.

Also your list misses IP logging from ISPs.

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#168

Post by rasz »

tomjen3 wrote: post #161
nyolfen wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

speaking of parallel construction, did you hear about the mass shooter on the brooklyn subway today? they said they ID'd him because he left his credit card at the scene.

That seems believable. You buy something with your credit card, but it into a pocket because you are distracted and it falls out. Unless they meant he left it as a calling card, which I don't think they did, I don't see why that is suspicious, just another example of not having to make a single mistake.

Dude is not all there https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtl9pjnppooRbj_YssCKxsA/vid...

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#169

Post by denton-scratch »

RajT88 wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #2

"Coelho landed on the radar of U.S. authorities in June 2018, when he tried to enter the United States at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. The government obtained a warrant to search the electronic devices Coelho had in his luggage and found text messages, files and emails showing he was the RaidForums administrator Omnipotent." Not really the sharpest knife in the drawer, to do things like th…

I am always surprised at how often people who know each other randomly run into each other in an airport. I mean, what are the odds? I only had it happen once, but it was nuts. A guy from my previous company I ran into randomly in Frankfurt while I was on my way to India. He lives in California, I live in Chicago. We were on the same flight to Bangalore . Our trips had nothing to do with each other, other than we bot…

So I know this particular guy named X; naturally I'm astonished to bump into him randomly on a specific flight from Y airport.

But I know 200 people, and I take ten flights a year, there are about 200 travellers on each flight, and such random bumpings don't happen more than once a decade. It's rather unlikely that I won't randomly bump into someone I know, on some flight, sooner or later.

But when it does happen, I'll still be surprised.

Re: RaidForums gets raided, alleged admin arrested

#170

Post by denton-scratch »

cwkoss wrote: post #113

This is pretty funny, imo: --- Not all of those undercover buys went as planned. One incident described in an affidavit by prosecutors (PDF) appears related to the sale of tens of millions of consumer records stolen last year from T-Mobile, although the government refers to the victim only as a major telecommunications company and wireless network operator in the United States. [...] The government says the victim fi…

Isn't T-Mobile the real "blunt knife" in this story?
Post reply on HN