Cybercriminals Has Heroin Delivered To Brian Krebs, Then Calls Police 187
Okian Warrior writes in about a package of heroin that found its way to the door of Brian Krebs. "'Fans' of [security researcher Brian Krebs] have shown their affection in some curious ways. One called in a phony hostage situation that resulted in a dozen heavily armed police surrounding my home. Another opened a $20,000 new line of credit in my name. Others sent more than $1,000 in bogus PayPal donations from hacked accounts. Still more admirers paid my cable bill for the next three years using stolen credit cards. Malware authors have even used my name and likeness to peddle their wares. But the most recent attempt to embarrass and fluster this author easily takes the cake as the most elaborate: Earlier this month, the administrator of an exclusive cybercrime forum hatched and executed a plan to purchase heroin, have it mailed to my home, and then spoof a phone call from one of my neighbors alerting the local police. Thankfully, I had already established a presence on his forum and was able to monitor the scam in real time and alert my local police well in advance of the delivery."
Re:WTH is Brian Krebs?! (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary switches between third-party and first-person perspective multiple times which is confusing.
Is this the quality standard we are to expect from Slashdot now?
Re:Krebs is a scam. (Score:1, Insightful)
He never approved my comment or provided any feedback. If he was an actual researcher, he wouldn't silence reasonable criticism towards him.
So he didn't bother or didn't have time to reply. How is that *silencing* criticism? Did he delete your comment? Also, researcher doesn't mean infallible person. It means person doing research, and people make mistakes.
Re:WTH is Brian Krebs?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Krebs is a scam. (Score:5, Insightful)
And so to you the only reasonable explanation is that he read your comment and covered it up, secure in knowing that no one else could catch that error, even though (assuming it's true) it would be obvious to millions of people.
Comments "awaiting moderation" are often never read by anyone and simply fall into a bucket. If they get moderated at all they can easily be inadvertently flagged as spam along with dozens and dozens of other actual spam comments.
Re:Krebs is a scam. (Score:4, Insightful)
even though (assuming it's true) it would be obvious to millions of people.
First of all, I greatly doubt his article was read by millions. Second of all, how many readers spoke Russian to spot the questionable moment? Very few, I must imagine.
Comments "awaiting moderation" are often never read by anyone and simply fall into a bucket.
That is certainly a valid thought. However, a few comments praising his research got approved both before and after mine. In addition, he commented on some of them in person. This is leading me believe that he did read my comment, even though I will never be able to prove it (great way to deal with the critique, Krebs!).
Re:Krebs is a scam. (Score:1, Insightful)
There seem to be a lot of Vasily Petrovs out there in the real world, just as there are a lot of John Smiths. What makes you think it's not a real person?
Re:Asshole blogger can has publicity stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still amazed the police gave a shit. Around here they normally just fob you off until the drugs actually arrive, then arrest you and take your DNA, computers, phones etc. Then finally when you get a lawyer they might drop the case (typically takes about six months if it's fast-tracked) and then after a few years you get your stuff back.
War on Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason why the war on drugs does more harm than good. This guy is lucky to be alive and was very fortunate to have the wherewithal to be one step ahead of the ne'er-do-wells. Anyone else would have had a very real chance of getting injured, maimed or killed by the local paramilitary police force. Let's not kid ourselves, it probably helps that he's white and privileged, too.
If we had sane drug policy, the worst that could have happened is having the drugs confiscated and getting a slap-on-the-wrist regulatory fine.
Neat little detail (Score:2, Insightful)
In the article it mentions a new name was set up "briankrebs7" and used to make the Silk Road purchase.
Further down in the screenshot it says in the upper right corner :
"Hi, briankrebs7"
It's a pretty important detail that he had control of this account and impressive that he was able to hack into it that quickly before the package arrived.
So it tells us a bit that the article doesn't. To what level has he pwn'd thecc.bz and how deeply does he get into these boards while investigating?
Would be funny if a spammer successfully charged him with hacking their servers. They could also claim that he set up the account and posted the whole thing on the forum after hacking their accounts to frame THEM.