1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,180 Okay, guys. Let's start our next talk. We shall here. So give him a big 2 00:00:07,180 --> 00:00:07,760 applause, please. 3 00:00:31,980 --> 00:00:40,180 Okay. Everybody hear me okay? Good to go? Cool. So speaking today on operational security 4 00:00:40,180 --> 00:00:48,720 lessons from the dark web, a few kind of mandatory disclaimers before we proceed. The usual views 5 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:53,820 and materials presented here do not represent any of my employer's past, present, or maybe 6 00:00:53,820 --> 00:00:59,100 future. I'm going to be talking about a number of dark web related criminal cases. 7 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:08,100 I'm not discussing guilt or innocence. What I'm going to be discussing is evidence that 8 00:01:08,100 --> 00:01:14,360 was provided and what operational security mistakes that outlines and how to apply it 9 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:23,800 for other enterprises. Also not going to be really discussing much the topic of parallel 10 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:28,900 construction. For anybody that doesn't know, parallel construction is a practice used by 11 00:01:28,900 --> 00:01:29,620 law enforcement. 12 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:37,340 Where if they are either unwilling or unable to divulge how information was gathered, say, 13 00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:44,320 by NSA surveillance, that sort of thing, they will essentially construct a parallel explanation 14 00:01:44,660 --> 00:01:49,280 that will be presented in court as to how the information was gathered. 15 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:58,200 A little bit about myself. About 25 years in technology. Shifted to security about 10 16 00:01:58,200 --> 00:01:58,700 years ago. 17 00:01:58,880 --> 00:01:59,920 Have done a 18 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:06,740 wide range of public and private sector work. Everything ranging from two person software 19 00:02:06,740 --> 00:02:13,040 startups up to multinationals. Currently working in the D.C. area. As you can see, 20 00:02:13,100 --> 00:02:20,780 I have the cutest dog in the world. Goals of this talk, as I mentioned a little bit, 21 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:27,860 examine a number of criminal cases, what mistakes were made, and how the lessons learned from 22 00:02:27,860 --> 00:02:29,980 those mistakes can be applied to security. I'm going to be talking a little bit about 23 00:02:29,980 --> 00:02:36,760 some non-criminal activities. Starting with probably the most high profile one, and I 24 00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:41,020 won't go into kind of the build-up to the case that much, and that's the Dread Pirate 25 00:02:41,020 --> 00:02:47,420 Roberts Silk Road case. Been in the news a lot. Most people are probably familiar with 26 00:02:47,420 --> 00:02:49,380 the case, at least at a high level. 27 00:02:50,340 --> 00:02:57,860 Ross Ulbruch was arrested at a library in San Francisco while working on his laptop. 28 00:03:00,220 --> 00:03:07,120 One of the primary security mistakes made there, he'd chosen to work at a library, use their Wi-Fi. 29 00:03:07,300 --> 00:03:08,080 Makes sense. 30 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:11,760 He was sitting at his table with his back to the room. 31 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:15,220 Couldn't see anybody come in, couldn't see what was going on. 32 00:03:15,640 --> 00:03:22,940 The FBI agents that were there to arrest him thought they probably needed to make sure they could get his laptop before he could lock it. 33 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:28,880 So they had a couple of FBI agents essentially getting into a screaming argument. 34 00:03:30,140 --> 00:03:34,020 He, we'd all do this, looked up from his laptop, looked around. 35 00:03:34,380 --> 00:03:37,240 There was someone standing almost right behind him before he knew it. 36 00:03:37,380 --> 00:03:38,380 Laptop's in their hands. 37 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:39,440 They take it back. 38 00:03:39,580 --> 00:03:40,340 They image the laptop. 39 00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:50,980 He had encrypted the drive on the laptop, which would have helped if he'd been able to keep the FBI from getting to it before locking in. 40 00:03:54,100 --> 00:03:58,220 One of the things he was accused of was ordering. 41 00:03:58,360 --> 00:03:58,780 Actually, it was. 42 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:01,320 Either five or six murders. 43 00:04:02,690 --> 00:04:04,020 At least one. 44 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:08,400 All of those were arranged through relatively anonymous means. 45 00:04:08,900 --> 00:04:13,740 At least one of the quote-unquote hitmen turned out to be a DEA agent. 46 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:16,500 I'll actually talk about him later. 47 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:21,780 In that instance, they actually faked the murder of the person in question. 48 00:04:22,860 --> 00:04:27,180 To the best of everyone's knowledge, no murders actually occurred. 49 00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:28,400 Payments were made. 50 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:29,920 But no murders actually occurred. 51 00:04:30,620 --> 00:04:34,820 There's an old New Yorker cartoon that probably everyone has seen that says, 52 00:04:35,340 --> 00:04:37,220 On the Internet, No One Knows You're a Dog. 53 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:40,240 After this, I'm considering there should be one that says, 54 00:04:40,340 --> 00:04:42,620 On the Internet, No One Knows You're Not Actually a Hitman. 55 00:04:47,060 --> 00:04:50,480 So, FBI was able to successfully image his laptop. 56 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:58,200 He had copious documentation on Silk Road activities on the laptop. 57 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:03,660 He had a personal journal on the laptop spanning many years. 58 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:06,140 Detailed his plans for Silk Road. 59 00:05:06,280 --> 00:05:07,920 Detailed activities on Silk Road. 60 00:05:09,060 --> 00:05:16,680 Also had a large volume of chat logs between him and other administrators on Silk Road 61 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:18,920 that were stored on his laptop completely unencrypted. 62 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:27,120 Interestingly enough, in the very early days of Silk Road, 63 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:33,880 he made a post, I don't remember where it was, using the handle Altoid. 64 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:37,340 Basically saying, hey, has anybody heard of this Silk Road thing? 65 00:05:37,500 --> 00:05:38,680 I think it's pretty nifty. 66 00:05:39,420 --> 00:05:43,320 Kind of, I guess, very early guerrilla marketing of Silk Road. 67 00:05:43,740 --> 00:05:50,740 He then later on needed some pretty basic coding assistance. 68 00:05:50,980 --> 00:05:56,680 Posted to, I think it was Stack Exchange, a site like that, under the same handle. 69 00:05:57,120 --> 00:06:01,680 But whatever board he was posting on to ask for programming advice 70 00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:08,700 automatically made public the email address that you had registered the account under. 71 00:06:08,780 --> 00:06:14,140 His email address that he used to register the account in that case was rossalbrook at gmail.com. 72 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:23,460 Some of the initial suspicion around him actually had very little to do with Silk Road itself. 73 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:26,880 He ordered, I think, nine fake IDs. 74 00:06:27,700 --> 00:06:29,260 From a shipper in Canada. 75 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:31,620 Very high quality fake IDs. 76 00:06:31,900 --> 00:06:32,640 They were shipped. 77 00:06:32,900 --> 00:06:38,120 The package set off some sort of alarm bells for Customs and Border Protection. 78 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:39,940 They opened the package. 79 00:06:40,100 --> 00:06:41,100 They discovered what was inside. 80 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:45,420 He had requested that it be shipped directly to the house he was living in in San Francisco. 81 00:06:46,380 --> 00:06:50,360 They showed up, knocked on his door, said, we'd like to have a little chat with you. 82 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:53,340 Weren't there to arrest him, just wanted to have a little chat. 83 00:06:53,540 --> 00:06:55,400 He said, no, absolutely not. 84 00:06:55,540 --> 00:06:57,040 Slammed the door in their face. 85 00:06:57,120 --> 00:06:59,340 Which is entirely his right to do. 86 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,620 But maybe shouldn't have had the IDs shipped to his home. 87 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:10,300 I mentioned earlier I wasn't going to talk about parallel construction. 88 00:07:10,620 --> 00:07:14,980 I'm going to make myself a liar for a moment and talk about parallel construction a little bit. 89 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:23,140 One of the things the law enforcement agencies investigating needed to do was try to find the actual servers in question. 90 00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:26,940 One of the back-end servers they were trying to find. 91 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:28,420 Turned out to be in Iceland. 92 00:07:29,510 --> 00:07:37,680 The official story on how that was found was that that server was misconfigured. 93 00:07:37,780 --> 00:07:48,620 So everything was served via Tor except the CAPTCHA on the login screen, which was transmitted over regular internet. 94 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:52,560 Rob Graham has a really good analysis of that. 95 00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:56,780 Points out why it's actually likely that probably wasn't. 96 00:07:57,120 --> 00:07:57,700 What happened. 97 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:05,300 But the thing he does point out is through analysis of the evidence the U.S. government released, 98 00:08:06,220 --> 00:08:10,480 the server in question was horribly insecurely configured. 99 00:08:10,940 --> 00:08:18,640 His theory, which makes sense to me, is that the server was actually found through widespread internet scanning by the NSA. 100 00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:25,680 Looking for a couple of things that could link this server back to Silk Road. 101 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:35,740 The server was allowing regular internet traffic, it just wasn't necessarily through the serving of the CAPTCHA. 102 00:08:37,500 --> 00:08:42,720 So, some lessons learned from this case, configure systems securely. 103 00:08:44,380 --> 00:08:54,420 If you're doing sensitive work and you need for whatever reason to hide what you're doing, don't reuse your personal identifiers. 104 00:08:55,680 --> 00:09:02,520 If you need to ship something securely, think about using a mail drop, something like that. 105 00:09:02,620 --> 00:09:03,700 Don't have it sent to your home. 106 00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:09,680 Also, don't send it from your home, which I'll get into a little bit later in one of the additional cases. 107 00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:13,820 Know who to trust. 108 00:09:14,160 --> 00:09:23,860 Now, this is a very difficult problem when you're dealing with an environment where people are at least somewhat anonymous. 109 00:09:23,860 --> 00:09:29,860 I mean, how do you find, well, I guess the question of how do you find a hitman you can trust, period, is a big one. 110 00:09:29,960 --> 00:09:36,060 But how do you find a hitman you can trust when you can't, do you ask for references for a hitman? 111 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:36,480 I don't know. 112 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:42,900 But how do you find a hitman you can trust when anybody can claim to be a hitman and you have no way of knowing if they are or not? 113 00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:48,660 This obviously goes a lot deeper than just hiring people to assassinate other people. 114 00:09:48,940 --> 00:09:51,860 But be aware of your surroundings, as I said. 115 00:09:51,860 --> 00:09:57,540 If you're in a potentially physically hostile environment, don't sit with your back to the room. 116 00:09:59,380 --> 00:10:05,080 And also, if there is a commotion and you need to look up, shut your laptop. 117 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:11,780 And if you're doing sensitive work as much as possible, don't document your activities. 118 00:10:12,580 --> 00:10:20,440 You're just providing basically free information for whoever your adversary is, be it a nation, state, whatever. 119 00:10:22,260 --> 00:10:29,680 Next case I wanted to look at is called, some that went under the, well, several aliases. 120 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:31,600 Primary alias is Willie Clock. 121 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:43,380 Young gentleman in Uganda, legal name Ryan Gustafson, had a pretty successful counterfeiting operation, 122 00:10:43,740 --> 00:10:51,840 which was discovered after someone was found trying to buy a $3.85, I think, cup of coffee with a counterfeit hot dog. 123 00:10:51,860 --> 00:10:52,820 $100 bill in Pittsburgh. 124 00:10:54,740 --> 00:11:00,020 Managed to trace back, they thought it was to Uganda, not sure who it was coming from. 125 00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:09,820 He, again, we see this a lot, reused personal email address. 126 00:11:10,140 --> 00:11:18,700 For one reason or another, I still don't understand why his Jack Farrell alias he set up a pretty full-fledged Facebook page for. 127 00:11:20,020 --> 00:11:29,680 The email address he used for that was the same email he used for his passport application for a legitimate U.S. passport. 128 00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:39,700 In addition, he put a profile picture on this fake Facebook page. 129 00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:42,200 Okay, you know, makes sense. 130 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:46,180 If you're creating a Facebook page, you want to make it look as realistic as possible. 131 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:48,680 But he used that. 132 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:57,020 He used a photo of himself that they were able to match via facial recognition to his state of Texas driver's license. 133 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:01,500 I have two issues here. 134 00:12:01,620 --> 00:12:05,760 If you're doing something like this, why are you creating a Facebook profile for your alias? 135 00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:11,060 And given that you probably will never be meeting people in person under that name, 136 00:12:11,220 --> 00:12:15,740 if you have to to make it look like a convincing person, just pick a random photo of somebody. 137 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:23,160 So again, we have the don't reuse identifiers issues. 138 00:12:23,340 --> 00:12:29,000 And if you're trying to set up a cover identity, for the love of God, don't use your real photo. 139 00:12:31,260 --> 00:12:34,740 This kind of now loops back to the Silk Road case. 140 00:12:37,620 --> 00:12:46,460 This, appropriately enough, the fake hitman who turned out to be a DEA agent was incredibly corrupt, among other things. 141 00:12:46,460 --> 00:12:49,040 Ended up stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. 142 00:12:50,560 --> 00:12:57,720 He was in contact with Dread Pirate Roberts under the alias Knob. 143 00:12:57,940 --> 00:13:00,980 That was a legitimate part of the investigation. 144 00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:07,560 He also, however, created two additional handles to communicate with Ross Ulbrich. 145 00:13:07,660 --> 00:13:10,760 French Made and then one called Death From Above. 146 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,440 Neither the French Made or the French Made, 147 00:13:16,440 --> 00:13:22,880 or Death From Above handles were part of the official investigation. 148 00:13:22,900 --> 00:13:27,760 They weren't endorsed by the people running the multi-agency investigation. 149 00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:38,420 He communicated as both French Made and Death From Above using his DEA work laptop. 150 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:44,300 Not only that, using his DEA work laptop that was set up because it was being used 151 00:13:44,300 --> 00:13:46,340 for the endorsed communication. 152 00:13:46,340 --> 00:13:47,140 His communication is Knob. 153 00:13:47,220 --> 00:13:49,060 It was set up to log everything. 154 00:13:50,220 --> 00:13:54,720 So they have literal full video recordings of all of his communication. 155 00:13:55,780 --> 00:14:00,620 Pretending to be a hitman, trying to extort money out of him, so on and so forth. 156 00:14:01,100 --> 00:14:06,420 As I mentioned, he ended up attempting to abscond with a pretty large amount of money. 157 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:13,020 He transferred all of that into bank accounts that were in, 158 00:14:14,620 --> 00:14:15,860 let's just say locations, 159 00:14:15,860 --> 00:14:18,420 with not super strict banking secrecy laws. 160 00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:20,780 And he set them up in his own legal name 161 00:14:21,740 --> 00:14:24,820 with his full legitimate contact information, 162 00:14:25,060 --> 00:14:27,500 home address, phone number, you name it. 163 00:14:31,180 --> 00:14:38,440 So again, we kind of keep coming back to things around segregating your activities. 164 00:14:38,620 --> 00:14:41,760 Whether it's don't reuse identifiers or 165 00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:44,980 don't use, 166 00:14:44,980 --> 00:14:48,300 use a device that you know full well is going to be monitored 167 00:14:48,980 --> 00:14:50,880 to conduct sensitive operations. 168 00:14:52,980 --> 00:14:56,900 Additionally, if you're needing to communicate with someone 169 00:14:56,900 --> 00:14:58,300 and you don't want it traced back to you, 170 00:14:58,340 --> 00:14:59,680 consider the use of aliases. 171 00:14:59,740 --> 00:15:04,000 Although, once again, maybe don't use your personal photograph 172 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:08,900 if you're creating a social media presence for that. 173 00:15:10,100 --> 00:15:13,740 Next case I want to talk about is Shiny Flakes. 174 00:15:13,740 --> 00:15:18,260 This was a pretty large-scale drug trafficking operation based out of Germany. 175 00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:22,320 It was run by a 20-year-old actually out of his childhood bedroom. 176 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:28,380 When police arrested him, they confiscated about 48,000 euros in cash, 177 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:31,260 320 kilograms of various drugs, 178 00:15:31,460 --> 00:15:34,800 and reportedly, although this is somewhat debated, 179 00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:37,920 about 325,000 euros in Bitcoin. 180 00:15:39,020 --> 00:15:42,740 That then led to 38 additional raids following. 181 00:15:42,740 --> 00:15:44,280 Following that arrest. 182 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:46,700 He's since been convicted. 183 00:15:48,100 --> 00:15:50,980 One of the big mistakes that he made was 184 00:15:51,660 --> 00:15:55,100 almost every single shipment of drugs he sent 185 00:15:55,500 --> 00:16:00,000 was sent from the exact same DHL package station. 186 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:03,140 It was DHL package station 145, 187 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:05,220 relatively close to his home. 188 00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:10,360 It was in a location that was under ongoing CCTV surveillance. 189 00:16:11,740 --> 00:16:15,820 Once they figured that that's where the packages were coming from, 190 00:16:15,860 --> 00:16:17,080 narrowed down immediately 191 00:16:19,900 --> 00:16:22,400 what sort of area they needed to look in. 192 00:16:26,140 --> 00:16:29,600 The other mistake that was made was encryption, 193 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:31,900 or actually complete and total lack thereof. 194 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:37,820 He stored all of the information about customer transactions, 195 00:16:37,860 --> 00:16:40,140 plans for what he was doing, 196 00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:43,680 all that information in an unencrypted format 197 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:46,300 on an unencrypted hard drive on his laptop. 198 00:16:50,020 --> 00:16:54,120 Again, kind of linking back to Silk Road, 199 00:16:54,260 --> 00:16:57,880 he also had all of his plans for his activities, 200 00:16:58,700 --> 00:17:03,780 as well as an unencrypted list of all of his logins and passwords 201 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:08,260 for all of the various selling platforms he was using, 202 00:17:08,340 --> 00:17:09,500 all that sort of information. 203 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:13,340 So, lessons learned. 204 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:15,520 If you're shipping something sensitive, 205 00:17:16,180 --> 00:17:19,040 if you're, for instance, a whistleblower, 206 00:17:19,100 --> 00:17:25,580 and you need to send a large volume of paper documents to a reporter, 207 00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:28,960 maybe split those up into multiple shipments 208 00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:31,100 and scatter where you're sending them from. 209 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,320 Encrypt your data, and again, for the love of God, 210 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:37,360 don't document your activities. 211 00:17:39,380 --> 00:17:42,360 Very recent case was AlphaBay, 212 00:17:43,020 --> 00:17:47,200 which kind of became one of the successors of Silk Road. 213 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:51,000 That pretty much dominated the marketplace, 214 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:56,240 mostly in the area of selling and purchasing illicit substances 215 00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:58,700 following the shutdown of Silk Road. 216 00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:01,480 Servers for that were located in Quebec. 217 00:18:02,540 --> 00:18:07,000 The alleged administrator was living in Thailand, 218 00:18:07,360 --> 00:18:11,640 and I say alleged because there was very good evidence against him. 219 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:16,440 He chose to take his own life while awaiting extradition to the U.S. 220 00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:22,180 That was shut down this month, I think July 4th of this year. 221 00:18:22,580 --> 00:18:25,100 At its peak, they estimated that AlphaBay 222 00:18:25,100 --> 00:18:29,940 was making between $600,000 and $800,000 U.S. in revenue. 223 00:18:33,820 --> 00:18:37,340 Again, welcome messages and password requests 224 00:18:37,340 --> 00:18:39,760 reset messages for AlphaBay were sent 225 00:18:40,340 --> 00:18:42,480 using the administrator's Hotmail account, 226 00:18:43,140 --> 00:18:46,540 which was, I think, his name was Alex. 227 00:18:46,620 --> 00:18:49,160 I think the email address was 228 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:52,380 pimpalexnumericstring at hotmail.com, 229 00:18:53,180 --> 00:18:56,100 which he also used for lots of other personal communication, 230 00:18:56,360 --> 00:18:57,260 that sort of stuff. 231 00:18:59,620 --> 00:19:01,180 Again, lesson learned. 232 00:19:01,300 --> 00:19:03,880 Segregate your activities and your communications method 233 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:06,940 if you're performing some sort of sensitive activity. 234 00:19:09,100 --> 00:19:11,920 One last case that I wanted to talk about, 235 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:15,460 and this was a number of years ago. 236 00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:21,140 It's a little different in that it's not actually a dark web case. 237 00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,400 This was all performed on ClearNet. 238 00:19:25,060 --> 00:19:27,420 The arrest was made in 2014. 239 00:19:28,980 --> 00:19:33,920 A gentleman from Russia by the name of Roman Seliznev 240 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,520 went under these various handles. 241 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:38,040 What he would do is, essentially, 242 00:19:38,180 --> 00:19:39,640 when investigators got close, 243 00:19:39,780 --> 00:19:41,280 he would shut down operations, 244 00:19:41,660 --> 00:19:44,620 open up operations immediately on Carter forums 245 00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:47,040 under a new alias. 246 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,200 One of the ways that they initially started 247 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:51,900 suspecting that it was the same person 248 00:19:51,900 --> 00:19:55,320 is he would start up under a new alias 249 00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:57,060 on a Carter forum 250 00:19:57,060 --> 00:20:00,380 and immediately be elevated to the highest trust levels, 251 00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:04,900 which normally you wouldn't see in that sort of environment 252 00:20:04,900 --> 00:20:06,460 for a new seller. 253 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:09,260 He was arrested in 2014, as I said. 254 00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:12,120 He was on vacation in the Maldives, 255 00:20:12,140 --> 00:20:15,020 found with a laptop with just under 2 million 256 00:20:15,020 --> 00:20:16,460 stolen credit cards on it. 257 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,420 As I mentioned, the sites that he ran 258 00:20:24,420 --> 00:20:27,040 for selling stolen credit cards were on the ClearNet. 259 00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:29,360 When he registered the domains for those, 260 00:20:29,540 --> 00:20:31,920 he used his personal email address. 261 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:38,180 Most of the sites were served from a server 262 00:20:38,180 --> 00:20:41,560 from a provider in McLean, Virginia. 263 00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:47,100 He also used that server as basically his workstation. 264 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:49,800 He did things like make travel plans, 265 00:20:50,140 --> 00:20:50,980 order tickets, 266 00:20:51,840 --> 00:20:54,400 order tickets transmitting his passport number, 267 00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:55,780 those sorts of things. 268 00:20:56,640 --> 00:20:59,840 And, again, his, like we saw before, 269 00:21:00,100 --> 00:21:01,900 laptop had, 270 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,520 had a large volume of plain text passwords 271 00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:06,680 for his sites, that sort of thing, 272 00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,340 just stored unencrypted on the laptop. 273 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:14,860 Again, I'm apparently just going to keep hammering this point 274 00:21:14,860 --> 00:21:15,560 until I'm done. 275 00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:18,100 Don't document your activities, 276 00:21:18,220 --> 00:21:20,460 unless there's a really good reason for it. 277 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,080 And, again, segregate your activities. 278 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:27,280 If you're using a system for sensitive activities 279 00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:29,080 that you don't want traced back to you, 280 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:30,880 maybe don't use it to buy 281 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:33,800 airplane tickets for you and your wife to go on vacation. 282 00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:37,080 The email address that he used for, 283 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:40,920 for registering websites was also used 284 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,160 for registering a PayPal account for himself 285 00:21:43,740 --> 00:21:45,140 and sending his wife flowers, 286 00:21:45,620 --> 00:21:46,980 which is a wonderful thing to do, 287 00:21:47,020 --> 00:21:48,700 but maybe use a different email address for that. 288 00:21:54,820 --> 00:21:55,260 So, 289 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:58,020 ooh, that ended a lot quicker than I expected. 290 00:21:58,100 --> 00:21:58,720 In conclusion, 291 00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,780 kind of a summary of the, 292 00:22:01,780 --> 00:22:04,000 the common lessons learned we see here 293 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:05,660 are configure systems securely, 294 00:22:05,940 --> 00:22:07,360 know who to trust, 295 00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:09,980 which obviously in an anonymized environment 296 00:22:09,980 --> 00:22:11,740 is very difficult to do. 297 00:22:11,900 --> 00:22:14,700 I don't have any solutions on that. 298 00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:15,900 If someone does, 299 00:22:16,100 --> 00:22:18,220 I would love to hear some ideas 300 00:22:18,220 --> 00:22:19,980 during the Q&A section. 301 00:22:20,620 --> 00:22:22,340 Always be aware of your surroundings. 302 00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:24,700 Don't document your activities, 303 00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:25,920 encrypt your data, 304 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,700 and, again, segregate your activities. 305 00:22:28,700 --> 00:22:30,320 And, and communication methods. 306 00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:32,240 Questions? 307 00:22:33,140 --> 00:22:33,660 Comments? 308 00:22:36,300 --> 00:22:36,980 Can you? 309 00:22:45,780 --> 00:22:46,420 Good day. 310 00:22:46,780 --> 00:22:47,660 That last, 311 00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:48,640 last case with the 312 00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:49,420 Yeah. 313 00:22:50,380 --> 00:22:51,680 Now, you mentioned he got elevated 314 00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:53,100 to the highest level of trust 315 00:22:53,100 --> 00:22:54,600 whenever he created a new account. 316 00:22:54,940 --> 00:22:56,240 Any idea on how that was done? 317 00:22:56,940 --> 00:22:57,460 The, 318 00:22:57,460 --> 00:23:00,280 the assumption is that he knew people on, 319 00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:02,640 when he would set up a new identity on a card or forum, 320 00:23:02,780 --> 00:23:04,760 he already knew people on those forums. 321 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:05,760 Again, we're kind of, 322 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,620 no, they did have established trust relationships. 323 00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:09,700 So, 324 00:23:09,700 --> 00:23:12,660 typically how it works on a card or forum is, 325 00:23:12,780 --> 00:23:16,340 is you register with a relatively low privilege account, 326 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:17,960 and until you can provide, 327 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:18,380 you know, 328 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,580 X number of stolen credit cards or something like that, 329 00:23:21,660 --> 00:23:23,140 they're worried you might be a Fed, 330 00:23:23,300 --> 00:23:26,360 so they're not going to give you access to everything. 331 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:28,380 So, anytime, 332 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:29,280 you know, 333 00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:29,580 I, 334 00:23:29,700 --> 00:23:32,640 my assumption is that he communicated with, 335 00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:32,980 you know, 336 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:34,220 administrators of the forum, 337 00:23:34,260 --> 00:23:34,400 said, 338 00:23:34,500 --> 00:23:34,680 hey, 339 00:23:34,740 --> 00:23:36,140 this is actually NCOX. 340 00:23:36,380 --> 00:23:37,040 And they said, 341 00:23:37,140 --> 00:23:37,360 okay, 342 00:23:37,420 --> 00:23:38,100 can you prove it? 343 00:23:38,180 --> 00:23:39,900 And he did whatever to prove it. 344 00:23:39,940 --> 00:23:40,280 And then they said, 345 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:40,480 okay, 346 00:23:40,580 --> 00:23:41,580 we'll bump you up to the top. 347 00:23:41,900 --> 00:23:42,260 Cool. 348 00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:42,720 Thanks. 349 00:23:43,060 --> 00:23:43,300 Yep. 350 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,540 In the case where he was shipping from one DHL station? 351 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:02,940 Yeah. 352 00:24:03,380 --> 00:24:03,900 So, 353 00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:05,440 would the recommendation just be to, 354 00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:05,660 like, 355 00:24:05,660 --> 00:24:06,620 drive out, 356 00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,160 use a different station? 357 00:24:08,420 --> 00:24:08,920 Well, 358 00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:09,580 I, 359 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:11,740 I think the recommendation is actually not only, 360 00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:14,300 not just drive out to a remote location, 361 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,480 but a number of remote locations. 362 00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:17,560 You know, 363 00:24:17,580 --> 00:24:18,860 using the whistleblower example, 364 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:19,780 because, 365 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:20,480 I mean, 366 00:24:21,220 --> 00:24:22,680 you're all free to do what you want to do, 367 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,640 but I'm kind of focusing this on non-criminal enterprises. 368 00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,640 Using the whistleblower example, 369 00:24:28,060 --> 00:24:28,480 you know, 370 00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:32,660 you have 10 reams of paper that you need to get to a reporter. 371 00:24:33,180 --> 00:24:33,660 Maybe, 372 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:34,620 and I'm just picking, 373 00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:35,260 you know, 374 00:24:35,260 --> 00:24:35,960 a number at random, 375 00:24:35,980 --> 00:24:38,080 maybe split that into 10 separate shipments. 376 00:24:38,620 --> 00:24:40,020 Not necessarily drive to, 377 00:24:40,060 --> 00:24:40,360 you know, 378 00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:42,300 10 cities each 100 miles from you, 379 00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:42,820 but, 380 00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:43,760 you know, 381 00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:45,480 a couple of different towns, 382 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:47,340 maybe one a bit remote, 383 00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:48,180 that sort of thing. 384 00:24:56,380 --> 00:24:58,640 I know for a number of these cases, 385 00:25:00,500 --> 00:25:01,460 correlation of, 386 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:01,740 like, 387 00:25:01,740 --> 00:25:02,500 the timing of, 388 00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:02,720 like, 389 00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,500 when these users were active was one of the, 390 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:05,960 like, 391 00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,920 factors that led to them being taken away and captured. 392 00:25:11,140 --> 00:25:11,340 So, 393 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,260 what would you recommend for, 394 00:25:13,300 --> 00:25:13,480 like, 395 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:14,920 defending against correlation attacks? 396 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:15,280 And, 397 00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:15,460 like, 398 00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:16,280 I know that, 399 00:25:16,340 --> 00:25:16,540 like, 400 00:25:17,380 --> 00:25:17,860 using, 401 00:25:17,980 --> 00:25:18,260 like, 402 00:25:18,260 --> 00:25:21,440 encrypted traffic in a public place is often suggested, 403 00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:21,900 but, 404 00:25:21,940 --> 00:25:22,100 like, 405 00:25:22,620 --> 00:25:23,280 that can still be, 406 00:25:23,360 --> 00:25:23,480 like, 407 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:25,940 can be, 408 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:26,420 and, 409 00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:26,880 you know, 410 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:31,920 this kind of touches on the whole parallel construction thing that I referenced earlier. 411 00:25:32,580 --> 00:25:33,200 You know, 412 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:33,700 the concern, 413 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:34,020 obviously, 414 00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:35,740 depending on who you're worried about is, 415 00:25:35,900 --> 00:25:36,140 you know, 416 00:25:36,180 --> 00:25:40,680 do you have a nation-state attacker that is going to be able to easily break whatever 417 00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,580 transmission encryption you're using? 418 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,120 I think probably the best thing is, 419 00:25:46,340 --> 00:25:46,980 you know, 420 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,220 I go back to the Ross Ulbrich case and him being arrested at the library. 421 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:55,320 I honestly think him working from the library was probably a pretty good idea. 422 00:25:56,220 --> 00:26:01,040 Him not being aware of his surroundings was one of the things that led to his conviction. 423 00:26:02,100 --> 00:26:02,580 But, 424 00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:08,700 going somewhere where you can essentially hide in plain sight along with a lot of other 425 00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:09,280 traffic, 426 00:26:09,940 --> 00:26:10,680 coffee shop, 427 00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:11,000 library, 428 00:26:11,180 --> 00:26:12,240 that sort of thing. 429 00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:12,680 And, 430 00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:13,240 but again, 431 00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:13,800 I mean, 432 00:26:13,820 --> 00:26:17,100 this kind of comes back to the shipping issue. 433 00:26:17,360 --> 00:26:17,860 You know, 434 00:26:17,900 --> 00:26:21,640 if you always go to the same Starbucks that's two blocks from your house, 435 00:26:23,220 --> 00:26:23,700 yeah, 436 00:26:23,700 --> 00:26:27,420 you're going to be somewhat hidden in the other traffic occurring at the Starbucks, 437 00:26:27,580 --> 00:26:29,320 but it's not that difficult to go, 438 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:30,720 okay, 439 00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:32,440 so we watch everybody at the Starbucks, 440 00:26:32,660 --> 00:26:33,980 and we think it's this guy. 441 00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:34,220 Now, 442 00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:34,680 what is, 443 00:26:34,700 --> 00:26:35,140 you know, 444 00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:35,900 what is he doing? 445 00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:36,400 Right, 446 00:26:36,420 --> 00:26:39,040 because if you're the only person on tour at that time. 447 00:26:39,120 --> 00:26:39,520 Right. 448 00:26:39,980 --> 00:26:40,420 Okay. 449 00:26:41,140 --> 00:26:41,580 So, 450 00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:43,280 locations are very important. 451 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:43,760 Yeah. 452 00:26:44,100 --> 00:26:44,540 Yeah, 453 00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:45,960 and mixing up the locations, 454 00:26:46,020 --> 00:26:46,420 as I, 455 00:26:46,420 --> 00:26:47,400 as I referenced. 456 00:26:49,060 --> 00:26:49,500 So, 457 00:26:49,500 --> 00:26:51,500 you mentioned the segregation of activities. 458 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:52,880 Do you recommend, 459 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:53,540 you know, 460 00:26:53,540 --> 00:26:54,600 physical separations, 461 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:55,020 for example? 462 00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:55,380 Always. 463 00:26:55,860 --> 00:26:56,700 Different computers? 464 00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:57,320 Different, 465 00:26:57,340 --> 00:26:58,800 entirely different computers. 466 00:26:59,100 --> 00:27:00,180 Different networks, 467 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:00,640 and? 468 00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:01,600 If, 469 00:27:01,660 --> 00:27:02,380 if possible, 470 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:02,860 yes, 471 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:03,220 but, 472 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:03,660 I mean, 473 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:04,580 at the very least, 474 00:27:04,580 --> 00:27:05,020 different, 475 00:27:05,060 --> 00:27:06,540 very different computers, 476 00:27:06,660 --> 00:27:07,720 different logins, 477 00:27:08,380 --> 00:27:09,060 you know, 478 00:27:09,060 --> 00:27:09,460 different, 479 00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:10,920 use different email addresses. 480 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:11,880 You know, 481 00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:12,040 I, 482 00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:14,240 almost every single one of these cases, 483 00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:17,480 one of the pivotal things was the reuse of a personal email address. 484 00:27:17,900 --> 00:27:18,080 I, 485 00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:19,540 I also heard someone saying, 486 00:27:20,140 --> 00:27:20,660 we, 487 00:27:20,660 --> 00:27:23,160 we should also set up separate networks, 488 00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:23,520 you know, 489 00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:24,080 network access, 490 00:27:24,100 --> 00:27:25,980 or ISPs at home, 491 00:27:26,120 --> 00:27:27,420 even if you are using VPN. 492 00:27:27,740 --> 00:27:28,660 What would you do? 493 00:27:29,020 --> 00:27:29,540 Yeah, 494 00:27:29,660 --> 00:27:29,880 I mean, 495 00:27:29,900 --> 00:27:30,140 there's, 496 00:27:30,140 --> 00:27:32,720 there's certainly some advantage in, 497 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:33,640 in that, 498 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:35,440 although you do run the risk of, 499 00:27:35,660 --> 00:27:37,620 so now they see that there's, 500 00:27:37,620 --> 00:27:38,160 you know, 501 00:27:38,180 --> 00:27:39,060 at this location, 502 00:27:39,180 --> 00:27:41,340 there's basically two different traffic flows. 503 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,840 They still know that one of them is whatever sensitive activity you're, 504 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:46,640 you're performing. 505 00:27:47,260 --> 00:27:47,780 Again, 506 00:27:47,940 --> 00:27:48,160 I, 507 00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:48,980 I come back, 508 00:27:49,020 --> 00:27:49,300 kind of, 509 00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:50,480 to that hide in plain sight, 510 00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:51,680 strategy. 511 00:27:52,140 --> 00:27:52,360 So, 512 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:52,800 so, 513 00:27:53,120 --> 00:27:54,240 In fact, 514 00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:55,960 Anyone else? 515 00:27:59,460 --> 00:28:00,020 Okay. 516 00:28:00,260 --> 00:28:01,320 Thank you very much. 517 00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:07,440 And I'll be back with some more end of the conversation. 518 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:07,460 Thank you for listening. 519 00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:07,620 Bye. 520 00:28:07,620 --> 00:28:07,660 Thank you.