If the Cartels have such a hole on media down there, then how did such a detailed account of this story get out?
She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
51–60 of 218 posts
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#52Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? This is the death if a person who tried to stand against an overwhelming force. To try and stand against the cartels where the police didn't dare and instead of honouring her work or get death you mock her for not using tor. If you seriously think that lack of cybersecurity is the problem then at least use this to highlight the lack of good easy to use sec…
In the epilogue one of his books (maybe "the drowned and the saved"?), Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi describes giving a talk to a group of schoolchildren. One boy asked him to describe the layout of the camp, and then described how he would have escaped if he had been in Auschwitz. Nothing Primo Levi could say would convince the boy that escape was impossible.
Now I'm not saying that it was impossible for this citizen journalist to hide her identity, but the comments strike me as having a similar tone. People are simply assuming that her capture and death was preventable, because it is psychologically difficult to face the alternative. Namely, that only by accepting personal risk, was this woman able to stand up to the cartels. Even if the technology to protect her identity existed, maybe a person in this woman's situation would be very unlikely to know about it.
Of constructive suggestions are great, although I'm not qualified to judge their technical merit.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#53Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? This is the death if a person who tried to stand against an overwhelming force. To try and stand against the cartels where the police didn't dare and instead of honouring her work or get death you mock her for not using tor. If you seriously think that lack of cybersecurity is the problem then at least use this to highlight the lack of good easy to use sec…
Victim-blaming is bad, but there is also a need for discussion of precautions that might have prevented victims from becoming victims in the first place. I think the answer lies in the tone that is used, as well as acknowledgement that sometimes precautions only become clear after the fact, and that victims who don't choose to take all precautions they could (for whatever reason) are still victims who should not be victims.
For example, this lady made what (I think is) a reasonable assumption that a pseudonym was a good enough way of protecting her identity. It wasn't a bad assumption, but because of what happened to her, we should discuss additional precautions so that people like her might fare better in future.
Another thing to consider in this discussion is that sometimes people like this lady know that they are taking a big risk, may end up murdered, but bravely proceed to take their actions anyway.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is why we need not only password locks and full encryption but panic passwords and hidden logins on every piece of electronics we own. Yeah, that would have saved her against Mexican drug cartels and a $50.000 dollars reward.
Yes, it literally would have since they found out who she was by looking through her phone after kidnapping her for an unrelated death of a cartel member. Try and read the article before you comment.
how in the hell would a password have helped? The sort of people who kidnap folks and shoot them in the head won't hesitate to cut a finger off or use 120v to ask your password.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is why we need not only password locks and full encryption but panic passwords and hidden logins on every piece of electronics we own. http://xkcd.com/538/
Thank you for not reading my post: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/hotsec08/tech/full_paper...
It's still quite naive to think that if this were common practice that the torturers would not torture you until they were convinced that you gave them the _real_ password. Or they might give you the option of giving the real password the first time and make whatever final decision the "quick" or "painless" version rather than the long, drawn-out, most painful version.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#56Why are the majority of the comments here blaming the victim? This is the death if a person who tried to stand against an overwhelming force. To try and stand against the cartels where the police didn't dare and instead of honouring her work or get death you mock her for not using tor. If you seriously think that lack of cybersecurity is the problem then at least use this to highlight the lack of good easy to use sec…
Cognitive dissonance, just-world fallacy and hammers and nails.
It's difficult to read a story a soul-crushingly horrible as this and just wallow in the hopeless unjustness of it all. Coping mechanisms kick in. To preserve the comforting world view that people are in charge of their destiny, tragedy is avoidable and the world makes some sense it becomes necessary to demonstrate that the outcome was predictable and avoidable. That the victim failed themselves.
With HNs user base that manifests as a critique of information security practices.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CIA working with cartels abroad is not mere rumor. There is substantial evidence that this takes place. Unfortunately, nobody in this world has the combination of power, opportunity, and desire to take the CIA down for its crimes. They are the closest thing to a god that has ever existed; and organization that is profoundly beyond the grasp of society at large. They smite as they see fit, and there is nothing tha…
> There is substantial evidence that [the CIA works with cartels abroad]. Would you be able to point out some references?
read about dark alliance -- the cia was running cocaine and fueled the crack epidemic to help kill women and children in south america. Yay 'murica!
edit: maybe start here [1]. Reagan's administration was complicit after congress cut off funding for their war crimes in south america.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_traffic...
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point, the cartels have diversified far beyond drug trafficking. http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023032777045793...
And the mob survived the end of alcohol prohibition in the US. It nevertheless weakened them.
The mob in the US didn't even reach its height until the Commission was formed and that was 2 years before the end of Prohibition. The Commission lasted for more than 50 years after the end of Prohibition. What really needs to happen in Mexico is a concerted effort between Mexican and American authorities to crack down on the cartels.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for not reading my post: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/hotsec08/tech/full_paper...
It's still quite naive to think that if this were common practice that the torturers would not torture you until they were convinced that you gave them the _real_ password. Or they might give you the option of giving the real password the first time and make whatever final decision the "quick" or "painless" version rather than the long, drawn-out, most painful version.
Again thank you for not reading my post and the links therein:
Kerckhoffs' principle: The details of the authentication system that is in place is public information and known to all participants, including Oscar. Alice and Bob retain a shared secret (e.g., a password or set of passwords) that is both private and the foundation upon which the security of the system rests.
Observational principle: Alice communicates with Bob over a semi-private channel that can be observed by Oscar prior to the password being secured (i.e., encrypted or hashed). Namely, Oscar can observe the password(s) used by Alice and could even enter in Alice's password himself, after coercing her into revealing it.
Iteration principle: Unless explicitly prevented by the underlying system, Oscar is not bound to a single instance of coercion against Alice. He may force Alice to authenticate multiple times. Combined with the observational principle (Assumption 2), Oscar can force Alice to use a different password each time.
Forced-randomization principle: Oscar can choose to eliminate any strategy Alice may employ through the order in which she reveals the passwords she knows. For example, Oscar may force Alice into writing down a set of passwords so that he can randomly choose the order in which to iterate through them. The assumption is that this option is available to Oscar, not that he will necessarily employ it.
Re: She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder
#60This is why we need not only password locks and full encryption but panic passwords and hidden logins on every piece of electronics we own. That no mobile OS offers these yet is pathetic. When twitter and facebook don't let you connect anonymously from tor, this is what the result is. If you have a major website that is used by dissidents and journalists in countries such as Mexico or Iran and you don't have a plain…
Encryption and password locks are pointless against a cartel, presumably they will employ rubber hose cryptanalysis to get any information they want.
Seems like one solution would be to have a web browser that keeps no history, and use that to log into Twitter and report about cartels instead of an app that automatically logs you in or keeps history, or gives away the fact you have a twitter account they will demand to know about.
There's also schemes like this which could be helpful to at risk journalists https://www.ccsl.carleton.ca/~askillen/mobiflage/ unless you are kidnapped while in PDE mode.
If it's any small comfort, whoever was seen involved in this kidnapping is now a liability, as this case has brought a lot of heat so they were almost certainly finished off in the desert by their own cartel compadres to avoid potential snitching. The blog borderlandbeat has countless posts of mass executions the cartels do on their own guys as everybody except the capos are disposable.
edit: Likely cartels have employees at telecoms in Mexico to look up logs for them, there's prob no easy solution. It wouldn't be expensive for them to hire anybody to exploit journalists with old carrier builds that are never updated either http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/09/16/shocking-android-...