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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

#231

Post by queuebert »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #88
kstrauser wrote: post #9

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.

Wire fraud, wire fraud, it's nearly always wire fraud. Elizabeth Holmes, George Santos, Charlie Javice, all the people who got fake Covid funds - wire fraud, wire fraud, wire fraud. In this day and age if you're committing fraud it's pretty hard for it not to be wire fraud given how everything is transmitted digitally. And penalties for wire fraud are extremely steep (up 20 years for each charge), and it automaticall…

It's often easier to prove this (or, even more often, tax evasion) than prove the alleged criminal activity. Either way, bad guy goes to jail, so the government is happy.

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

#232

Post by KMag »

KMag wrote: post #116
belter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPv4 addresses are like Socks. You can never have too many...

Back around the turn of the millennium, there was a company called AllAdvantage. They paid you to install spyware/ad injection software and watch you browse, and sold the add space and analytics to corporations. They'd pay you for... I think it was 48 hours of ad-injected spied browsing per month, and then stop paying you (but keep injecting ads and spying on you). There was also a pyramid aspect where you'd get some…

It's too late to edit, but I swear I know the difference between ad and add.

On a side note, I thought a naive shuffle with a well-seeded cryptographic-quality pseudorandom number generator was the most likely finding from his poker bot history archive. I thought the linear congruential generator and seeding with the current time were long shots. I was just hoping that the skewed distribution gave a measurable edge over bots and players that were playing under the assumption of a uniform distribution of cards.

Had I thought there was a reasonable probability of a popular poker site using a LCRNG seeded with the current time, I would have been much more persistent in my requests for the history data.

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

#233

Post by ganoushoreilly »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #160

> federal prosecutors in South Carolina, who in May 2019 filed criminal wire fraud charges against Golestan, alleging he’d orchestrated a network of shell companies and fake identities to prevent ARIN from knowing the addresses were all going to the same buyer. So the sentence is for the "Scheme", not the "IP Address". This is pretty unclear if you have only read the title.

What's crazy is this story went even further than what's been disclosed. He had working relations with know scammers/crime groups in the Middle east. If you want to read about how crazy this guy was, read the court docs for his divorce.. To say he was a piece of work is an understatement.

Edit: There's also numerous cases ongoing for fraud relating to loans / purchases under these companies. One of the things he did was buy dormant LLCs around the US so they'd have logenvity making it easier to secure loans.

Source: Worked with a National Paper on the story back when it started.

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

#234

Post by kens »

Arrath wrote: post #167
theideaofcoffee wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 version of that story that I read is much longer, by Funranium Labs. It is entertainingly written, but I wonder how much is urban legend: https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2018/09/the-fringes-of-regulat...

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

#235

Post by fsckboy »

hollerith wrote: post #203
civilitty wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the maximum they use to scare people with. Federal sentencing guidelines aren't that severe and a first time offender with something as mild as using the return address to send a few letters would plead out to a few hundred or thousand dollar fine and maybe probation, say nothing of the fact that the OP was underage . IANAL but to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud that ended in some serio…

>to get 20 years they'd have to commit a massive fraud . . . with some other mitigating circumstances. You mean aggravating circumstances.

just knowing that my neighbor was sending his mail this way would aggravate me!

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

#236

Post by ben_w »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #230
tpmx wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US justice system seems very odd to this European. Then I realize that if the EU project ever were to reach its presumed goals (by some), we'd probably end up with something pretty similar in terms of "oddness complexity".

Oh, it is absolutely wild, which I don't think is a very good characteristic for a legal system, especially one where the rule is that 'ignorance of the law is not a defense'.

I think we need a new take on that phrase, something like "ignorance of the law must not be a reasonable defence" — when the law is too complex for most people to understand, it is vulnerable to capricious enforcement, malicious compliance, and unwitting everyday violations being held against the politically undesirable.

Not only do I have absolutely no idea how to get from here to there, I also assume the degree of simplification I desire — to the point that normal people know what's going on most of the time — is the legal equivalent of saying "Twitter doesn't need 6000 employees because Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facebook by himself in college" in a software engineering context, and wrong for much the same reasons.

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

#237

Post by patapong »

DonHopkins wrote: post #40
goalonetwo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still time for the 50 under 50!

I'm still hoping to be nominated to the billion under billion. I'm working on my second million $... ...I gave up on my first.

Don't worry about the money - given that you are presumably under a billion years old, and I am sure you are one of the top billion most remarkable people on earth, you surely deserve a spot!

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

#238

Post by jonathankoren »

tpmx wrote: post #214
marcus0x62 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit more boring, but a co-worker once paid a contractor to install some blinds in his house, for a few thousand dollars. Dude took a down payment and then never delivered/installed the product, wouldn’t return their calls, etc. My coworker went to the local police, who wouldn’t do anything, but then his lawyer advised him to go to the postal inspector (he had mailed the check to the contractor.) The contracto…

The US justice system seems very odd to this European. Then I realize that if the EU project ever were to reach its presumed goals (by some), we'd probably end up with something pretty similar in terms of "oddness complexity".

I often think it’s because Europe doesn’t typically have federalism.

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

#239

Post by wqtz »

As far as I know the strategy he used - "Shell Companies + Phony Individual Information" can be used to purchase any form of assets. Usually, either federal law agencies ignores these activities mostly because how difficult it is to prosecute them. I am out of my depth here, but that is what I know. It is illegal but rarely people get punished for it. I don't think he is getting punished for the acquisition part, but for something else.

What makes ARIN so special? I am going to bet for other RIRs this is pretty normal. AFRINIC IPv4 has a hassle to transfer, and ARIN and RIPE IPs is the target. That leaves APNIC and LACNIC.

I believe, APNIC allocated MASSIVE IP ranges to government research agencies and government educational institution which are slowly being traded and re-registered under ARIN and RIPE.

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

#240

Post by spandrew »

theideaofcoffee wrote: post #145
kstrauser wrote: post #118

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…

Or... do?

77k fine for a net worth of $10-14 million from his businesses, and a 5 years sentence at a minimum security prison (with the likelihood of parole much earlier) is not a bad retirement plan.

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