A honeypot is a trap set to attract (or detect) some manner of interaction with an information system.
The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.
Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images…
The implications of the FBI’s hyperlink-enticement technique are sweeping. Using the same logic and legal arguments, federal agents could send unsolicited e-mail messages to millions of Americans advertising illegal narcotics or child pornography–and raid people who click on the links embedded in the spam messages…
Civil libertarians warn that anyone who clicks on a hyperlink advertising something illegal–perhaps found while Web browsing or received through e-mail–could face the same fate.
When asked what would stop the FBI from expanding its hyperlink sting operation, Harvey Silverglate, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. and author of a forthcoming book on the Justice Department, replied: “Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of ‘entrapment,’ and so expansive in their definition of ‘probable cause,’ there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit.”
Iranian HoneyPots
The Iranian authorities are creating a different type of honeypot to catch people who may object to the re-election of Ahmedinejad and his crowd.
But in recent days people believed to be members of the Iranian security apparatus have set up apparent decoy Web sites about the demonstrations to gather IP addresses that will allow them to locate the computer of anyone tricked into clicking on them. Others—again believed to be government agents—have begun what appears to be an active campaign to mis- and dis-inform through Twitter postings.
A Wisconsin woman has been convicted of disorderly conduct for posting her ex-boyfriend’s work telephone number and photos under the “casual encounters” section of Craigslist, encouraging men to “talk dirty to me.”
The 20-year-old has been ordered to write an apology and perform community service for the misdemeanor charge, and should consider herself lucky. She was originally charged with identity theft, a felony that would have entailed time in an unflattering orange jumpsuit.
Your mobile phone can become a slave bracelet if it is compromised by malicious software.
We have seen our share of weird cases involving Craigslist, but nothing like these: Continue reading ‘Craigslist Crooks’
A good look at how modern crooks operate from Michael Thomas at The Daily Caveat.
Hedge Fund Dirty Tricks and the HBOS Implosion
You’ll love this article from The Daily Telegraph - an inside look at the “dirty-tricks unit” of a London-based hedge fund. This story has all the good stuff - PIs, hacking, the obligatory sub-prime mortgage crisis connection, rogue traders, market manipulation - it’s one stop shopping.
An interesting post on B2B Sales Pipline:
Adam…asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone…
…this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test”…
Called him anyway…Cell Phone, with no company name provided…
…search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold - Adam works for a competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting, Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness protection program.
This kind of amateurish nonsense passes for Competitive Intelligence far too often.
Infamous hacker Kevin Poulson paid the defaulted Yellow Page accounts of escort services to get their defunct telephone numbers reactivated. He collected the profits and when the police became interested, only the original advertiser was on record with the telephone company. I once saw this done in a home renovation scam.
In Cynthia Hetherington’s excellent book, , she tells of a group of crooks who moved into an office recently vacated by an insurance company. They took-up the old phone number and began selling insurance.
When new policy holders complained about bad service to the insurance company’s head office, the scam was revealed, but the crooks had moved on.
It’s not just people who have their identity stolen.
I just found this:
“WikiLeaks.org is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.”
I’m not sure how I might use this site, but it does have some very interesting instructions on how to submit material anonymously.
I’m a firm believer in letting other people do my research. Why should I do ‘original’ work that has already been done. When we do research to assist reputation management a lot of work has been done for us by rumourmonger and rumor debunking sites like Snopes. However, some malicious rumors originate with jealous competitors and radicals and require extensive research to identify the source, intent, and motive.
For instance, rumors that one company or other is owned by the KKK or one CEO or another donates money to the Church of Satan have circulated for decades. However, the Internet have given such rumors wings.
Companies can be destroyed by malicious rumors. A soft drink marketed to minorities in northeastern US cities, was almost bankrupted by a rumor that the drink contained a chemical that would make black men sterile.
Rumors can put lives at risk. In 2005 a rumor spread by cell phone text messages caused violent riots in Pakistan. The rumor was that men would loose their manhood if they shook hands with a foreigner.
In Rumor in the Marketplace: The Social Psychology of Commercial Hearsay (Auburn House Publishing, 1985), the authors suggest a public and forceful denial of the rumor as soon as possible by using solid evidence backed by experts. Sometimes the expert evidence is expert research that debunks the rumor.