[HN Gopher] 'The Manipulaters' improve phishing, still fail at o...
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       'The Manipulaters' improve phishing, still fail at opsec
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2024-04-03 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (krebsonsecurity.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (krebsonsecurity.com)
        
       | bediger4000 wrote:
       | Great article. Krebs serves the story with a dose of judgement:
       | 
       | > these nitwits still fail spectacularly at hiding their illegal
       | activities
       | 
       | Seems to me that part of what makes a global internet hazardous
       | is the it is fully connected in a graph theory sense. Every
       | clinical sociopath can reach every other person on earth.
        
         | lupire wrote:
         | One person's nitwit is a other person's successful
         | cybercriminal.
        
           | tonnydourado wrote:
           | From the story, I wouldn't call them successful =P
        
             | andrewflnr wrote:
             | Successful enough to be at it for a long time, and to keep
             | making money. Successful enough to keep causing harm.
        
             | bryanrasmussen wrote:
             | The problem with engaging in an ongoing criminal enterprise
             | is that if you fuck up once you lose, whereas people can
             | fuck up normal businesses for years at a time.
        
         | jstarfish wrote:
         | > part of what makes a global internet hazardous is the it is
         | fully connected in a graph theory sense.
         | 
         | Nah, the bigger problem is that you can reach victims, but the
         | long arm of their law enforcement can't reach _you_.
         | 
         | You don't need OPSEC when you're judgment-proof. You can
         | operate in plain sight since nobody can do anything to you.
        
           | RajT88 wrote:
           | This. EuroPol/FBI have no jurisdiction in Pakistan. As long
           | as they don't target victims in their own country, they are
           | most likely able to act with impunity.
        
             | mikeyouse wrote:
             | Russia, China, and North Korea too -- at least two of those
             | have tacit if not open approval to target Westerners. I get
             | the sense that PRC is more constrained and less willing to
             | suffer the consequences of hosting random hackers but
             | Russia especially is just lawless as long as they're not
             | targeting Russians.
        
         | MR4D wrote:
         | Yeah, but it's an acyclic graph. :(
        
           | Terr_ wrote:
           | Hmm, I'm not sure about "acyclic", since maybe victims _can_
           | impose _some_ kind of retaliation on a scammer /spammer, but
           | the path back is either a much weaker link or involves more
           | hops that lose strength.
           | 
           | So maybe it's about comparing _flow_? Maybe the aggregate
           | (sum? average) of flow along paths they can use to harm a
           | victim are stronger than the reverse that a victim can use to
           | fight back.
           | 
           | Is there a discrete-math term for that? Delta of inversed
           | maximum flow something something?
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-03 23:01 UTC)