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Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#161
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, you do not want the Postal Inspectors showing up looking for you. Like, for real.

I once committed mail fraud when I was 17 years old. I had been using the return address as a destination address on envelopes to send mail to places for free without stamps. Finally got caught one day at the local branch. Postal Inspectors said I could face 20 to 30 years in federal prison.

In other words just not putting stamps at all, and the postal service would 'return' it to the address listed as return (which is actually your destination)?

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#162

I find myself looking at the guy's picture and telling myself "of course that is what he looks like!" But on the flip side, we all know it is a bad idea to judge a book by its cover. How many times can we all recall doing this and feeling bad when our snap judgement was incorrect? But look at the guy! What is it we are all picking up on in these comments. I am not the only one. Is there something about how he is posi…

The part I struggle with is what exactly he's trying to say with his dress. Like if it was classically formal, I could see that he's trying to convey maybe a trusted solid businessman. But this is more like.... street magician? I'm all for people doing interesting things with their personal style, but man his style sends a very weird message.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#163
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear why he needed to use fake names and forged signatures? Couldn't he just create legal LLC's in various states (Nevada is a good one) which don't expose the entities owners and use those to purchase the IPs from ARIN? Rinse and repeat.

I assume that he just run out of friends/colleagues/bodies who will run these companies. I do not know how many companies he created but 10 of them were fradulently incorporated.

You don't need friends/bodies. A single person can create as many LLCs as they want is my understanding.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#164

This highlights something tangential, but interesting nevertheless: Oftentimes getting embroiled in a civil lawsuit will, if impropriety is uncovered via the process of discovery, lead to separate criminal charges. The lesson here is that if you have something to hide, and it looks like you're going to be dragged into civil court (especially Federal civil court,) you should rush to settle or beg for arbitration behin…

Texan billionaire Robert Brockman sued an Australian for stealing $20 million from his trust in 2020 [1]. A few months later, he was indicted for hiding $2 billion of income from the IRS [2]. He died before trial took place anyway.. 1- https://amp.smh.com.au/national/australian-barrister-denies-... 2- https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ceo-multibillion-dollar-softw...

Did he actually die, or conveniently “die”? I guess it’s hard to know.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#165
post #39

The underlying crime was wire fraud, and it happened to be about acquiring IP addresses. He wasn’t prosecuted because he got too many, but for how he got them.

Yep. If he had real people or real companies buying these IP addresses (even if they are shell companies) he would be fine. Apparently he started like that but then he got greedy and said: fuck I will just invent some fake people. The actual criminal activity (fradulent affidavits, forged signatures) started in 2017.

At what point does using a fake name turn into a felony?

How about creating an email address using a pseudonym?

Or does it have to involve money? If someone uses a fake name to order a sex toy delivered (out of embarrassment) is that wire fraud?

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#166
post #141

Why do some CEOs take such ... interesting(?) ... photos? Is it supposed to present him in such a way (other than just me thinking that's odd)?

That looks like an old photo, the dress and hair are very reminiscent of early-mid 00s style.

Article says he's 40. 2023 - 40 is ...

Yeah, that can't be it.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, you do not want the Postal Inspectors showing up looking for you. Like, for real.

Yep, don't fuck with Postal Inspectors. Anecdotal, second-hand story I remembered being told by a former colleague with some significant time working in the Postal service: state or city police pulled over a contracted semi truck carrying mail from one station to the other on suspicion of running un-taxed cigarette shipments from a reservation manufacturer. Because the semi was contracted by the postal service, they…

That reminds me of a story from a good friend who works in the Idaho National Labs, which have some areas under rather tight security.

As the story goes, one of the scientists there copped a warrant high grade enough for the Federal Marshals to come by and make an arrest. They were stopped at one of the gates into a more secure area, asked their business, and told that security would send out the person in question. The Marshals balked at this and demanded to be let in to make the arrest, lest the fugitive make good an escape somehow. After security asked for their requisite clearance, which the Marshals could not provide, it continued to escalate. Fingering their pistol butts, the Marshals insisted they were on lawful business and must be let in, while the guards with rifles replied that by all means the Marshals might make their entry but as armed intruders into a secure laboratory they would promptly get shot.

The pissing match took long enough that the fugitive was finally marched up to the gate and taken into custody before it could escalate further, at this point I believe the Marshals were on the phone with their higher ups trying to plead their case to be let in.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Also, you do not want the Postal Inspectors showing up looking for you. Like, for real.

Story time? What makes Postal Inspectors so feared.

They are well trained, judicious and exacting in their conduct. They do not screw around and they do everything by the book. They're like what we wish regular police officers were.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#169
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is reasonable to not want your name plastered on a website run by vigilante cyber police who we have given quasi-law enforcement powers and the ability to de facto shut down ISPs (and in one case a ccTLD). It's even more reasonable when you realize they are incorporated in Andorra - good luck suing them if they get something wrong!

I've seen Microsoft, Yahoo and Google all blackhole IP blocks wrongly because they were mixed up with IPs operated by spammers but I've never seen Spamhaus do this, in fact they went absolutely out of their way (without any requests from us) to ensure that our lonely IP on a Toronto ISP that did a lot of shady stuff was excepted.

You and the parent are both correct, which is the problem. Spamhaus is notorious for inconsistent behavior, driven largely by the personal whims of individual employees.

Re: Tech CEO sentenced to 5 years in IP address scheme

#170

Honest question, why are we not all just on IPV6 now? It seems like at this point almost all the underlying hardware and software should support it? It seems like the only argument for sticking with IPv4 is NAT, but I can't think of a technical reason we couldn't do NAT with IPv6?

To first approximation, we are. Essentially all mobile networks are IPv6 now. Many wired client drops are IPv4 NAT behind an IPv6 pipe. Most datacenter-internal communication is IPv6, at least at the big players.

The only regime that is still "IPv4-by-default" is public facing servers, which (obviously) still need to present the old addresses for compatibility.

But that last 5% will still be around until we all die. There are just too many client devices out there that will never get an IPv6 update, and client devices tend to live much, much longer than you (or their designers!) think they should.

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