Future Crimes
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15 At the Chaos Communication Congress: Darlene Storm, “Hackers Exploit SCADA Holes to Take Full Control of Critical Infrastructure,” Computerworld, Jan. 15, 2014; Vortrag: SCADA StrangeLove 2, http://events.ccc.de/.
16 One well-known hacker database: Shodan HQ, home page, accessed Feb. 9, 2014, http://www.shodanhq.com.
17 Several such incidents: “Cyber War: Sabotaging the System,” 60 Minutes, June 6, 2011. For the criminal angle, see David Shamah, “Hack Attacks on Infrastructure on the Rise, Experts Say,” Times of Israel, Jan. 30, 2014.
18 President Obama when he noted: Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Securing Our Nation’s Cyber Infrastructure,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary, May 29, 2009.
19 Each plays its role: “War in the Fifth Domain,” Economist, July 5, 2010.
20 Let’s not forget two hackers: Phil Lapsley, “The Definitive Story of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Phone Phreaking,” Atlantic, Feb. 20, 2013.
21 As time passed, other notable hackers: Kevin D. Mitnick and William L Simon, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker (New York: Little, Brown, 2012).
22 Poulsen’s ingenious 1990 hack: Jonathan Littman, “The Last Hacker,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12, 1993.
23 For example, in October 2013: “Adobe Hack: At Least 38 Million Accounts Breached,” BBC, Oct. 30, 2013.
24 But what changed in that attack: Brian Krebs, “Adobe to Announce Source Code, Customer Data Breach,” Krebs on Security, Oct. 3, 2013.
25 Yep, the company that is selling: Darlene Storm, “AntiSec Leaks Symantec pcAnywhere Source Code After $50K Extortion Not Paid,” Computerworld, Feb. 7, 2012.
26 Traditional organized crime groups: The Hague, Threat Assessment: Italian Organized Crime, Europol Public Information, June 2013; Nir Kshetri, The Global Cybercrime Industry: Economic, Institutional, and Strategic Perspectives (London: Springer, 2010), 1; Chuck Easttom, Computer Crime, Investigation, and the Law (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2010), 206.
27 These newly emerging: Mark Milian, “Top Ten Hacking Countries,” Bloomberg, April 23, 2013.
28 New syndicates: Brian Krebs, “Shadowy Russian Firm Seen as Conduit for Cybercrime,” Washington Post, Oct. 13, 2007; Verisign iDefense, The Russian Business Network: Survey of a Criminal ISP, June 27, 2007.
29 RBN famously provides: Trend Micro, The Business of Cybercrime: A Complex Business Model, Jan. 2010.
30 ShadowCrew operated the now-defunct Web site: Kevin Poulsen, “One Hacker’s Audacious Plan to Rule the Black Market in Stolen Credit Cards,” Wired, Dec. 22, 2008.
31 Founded by the notorious criminal hacker: James Verini, “The Great Cyberheist,” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 10, 2010.
32 The number and reach: John E. Dunn, “Global Cybercrime Dominated by 50 Core Groups, CrowdStrike Report Finds,” CSO, Jan. 23, 2014.
33 One such notable example is Anonymous: In deference to Guy Fawkes, the English Catholic who in 1605 planned to assassinate King James and blow up Parliament with gunpowder.
34 The group’s motto: “ ‘The Corrupt Fear Us!’ Massive Anonymous ‘Million Mask March’ as It Happened,” RT, Dec. 24, 2013; “Anonymous (Group),” Wikiquote.
35 When MasterCard, Visa: Lauren Turner, “Anonymous Hackers Jailed for DDoS Attacks on Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal,” Independent, Jan. 24, 2013.
36 Anonymous is strongly against: Karol Snapbacks, “Anonymous Explaining Why They Hacked PSN/Sony,” YouTube, April 22, 2011; Quinn Norton, “Anonymous Goes After World Governments in Wake of Anti-SOPA Protests,” Wired, Jan. 25, 2012; Lisa Vaas, “Anonymous Bullies Sony and Nintendo over SOPA Support,” Naked Security, Jan. 3, 2012.
37 Anonymous views itself: Quinn Norton, “How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks, and Takes Powerful Organizations Down,” Wired, July 3, 2012.
38 Even some of the group’s most ardent critics: “Hackers Take Down Child Pornography Sites,” BBC, Oct. 24, 2011.
39 In recognition of their growing power: Barton Gellman, “The World’s 100 Most Influential People: 2012,” Time, April 18, 2012.
40 Their burgeoning influence and capabilities: “Snowden Leaks: GCHQ ‘Attacked Anonymous’ Hackers,” BBC, Feb. 5, 2014.
41 Meanwhile, terrorist organizations too: For detailed information on terrorist and jihadist use of technology, see the United Nations Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force report Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes, May 2011.
42 “do the things you”: Paul Tassi, “ISIS Uses ‘GTA 5’ in New Teen Recruitment Video,” Forbes, Sept. 20, 2014.
43 Internet reconnaissance and research: Thomas Harding, “Terrorists ‘Use Google Maps to Hit UK Troops,’ ” Telegraph Online, Jan. 13, 2007; Caroline McCarthy, “Report: JFK Terror Plotters Used Google Earth,” CNET, June 4, 2007.
44 For instance, “Ramzi Yousef”: Jack Kelley, “Terror Groups Hide Behind Web Encryption,” USA Today, Feb. 5, 2001.
45 Widely available online are documents: Gabriel Weimann, How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet, United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 116, March 2004.
46 In a striking example of how dangerous: “Search of Tsarnaev’s Phones, Computers Finds No Indication of Accomplice, Source Says,” NBC News, April 23, 2013.
47 “The trio reportedly made fraudulent”: Counter-terrorism Implementation Task Force, Countering the Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes, May 2011, 18.
48 Even the infamous 2002 Bali bombing mastermind: Q&A with Tom Kellermann, “Internet Fraud Finances Terrorism,” Discovery News, Feb. 11, 2013.
49 Samudra was technologically savvy: Alan Sipress, “An Indonesian’s Prison Memoir Takes Holy War into Cyberspace,” Washington Post, Dec. 14, 2004.
50 Terrorists seem to be getting: Jeremy Scott-Joynt, “Warning Signs for the Funding of Terror,” BBC, July 20, 2005; Gordon Rayner and David Williams, “Revealed: How MI5 Let 7/7 Bombers Slip Through Their Fingers,” Daily Mail, May 1, 2007.
51 The Filipino hacking cell: Associated Press, “Filipino Police Arrest 4 Suspected AT&T Hackers,” CBS News, Nov. 27, 2011; Somini Sengupta, “Phone Hacking Tied to Terrorists,” New York Times, Nov. 26, 2011; Daily Mail Reporter, “Four Filipinos Arrested for Hacking AT&T Phone ‘to Fund Saudi Terror Group,’ ” Daily Mail, Nov. 28, 2011; Jennifer Rowland, “The LWOT: Phone Hacking Linked to Terrorist Activity,” Foreign Policy, Nov. 29, 2011.
52 Though the average Internet user: Marc Goodman and Parag Khanna, “The Power of Moore’s Law in a World of Geotechnology,” The National Interest, February 2013.
53 Though a $50,000 criminal: Siobhan Gorman, August Cole, and Yochi Dreazen, “Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009.
54 In May 2013: Ernesto Londono, “Pentagon: Chinese Government, Military Behind Cyberspying,” Washington Post, May 6, 2013.
55 Over the years, it has been reported: Ellen Nakashima, “Confidential Report Lists U.S. Weapons System Designs Compromised by Chinese Cyberspies,” Washington Post, May 27, 2013.
56 According to an FBI report: Marcus Ranum, “Cyberwar Rhetoric Is Scarier Than Threat of Foreign Attack,” U.S. News and World Report, March 29, 2010.
57 Of course it is not just the American military’s: Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima, “Chinese Cyberspies Have Hacked Most Washington Institutions, Experts Say,” Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2013.
58 Moreover, a 2009 report: John Markoff, “Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries,” New York Times, March 28, 2009; Omar El Akkad, “Meet the Canadians Who Busted GhostNet,” Daily Globe and Mail, March 30, 2009; Tom Ashbrook et al., “Unmasking GhostNet,” On Point with Tom Ashbrook, WBUR, April 2, 2009, http://onpoint.wbur.org/2009/04/02/unmasking-ghostnet.
59 China has also been accused: David E. Sanger, David Barboza, and Nicole Perlroth, “Chinese Army Unit Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.,” New York Times, Feb. 18, 2013.
60 The Times hired the pr
ivate: Mandiant Corp., “APT 1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units,” Mandiant.
61 In 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek: Michael Riley and Ashlee Vance, “Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 15, 2012.
62 All told, between thefts: Lisa Daniels, “DOD Needs Industry’s Help to Catch Cyber Attacks, Commander Says,” Department of Defense News, March 27, 2012; David E. Sanger and Mark Landler, “U.S. and China Agree to Hold Regular Talks on Hacking,” New York Times, June 1, 2013.
63 According to Akamai’s: Ian Steadman, “Reports Find China Still Largest Source of Hacking and Cyber Attacks,” Wired UK, April 24, 2013; David Belson, The State of the Internet, 3rd Quarter 2013 Report, Akamai Technologies.
64 A message issued by a Chinese: Michael Riley, “Hackers in China Breach UN, Olympic Committee Networks, Security Firms Say,” Bloomberg, Aug. 4, 2011.
65 According to the former FBI director: Threat Working Group of the CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity, “Threats Posed by the Internet,” CSIS, Oct. 28, 2008.
66 In late 2012, a previously unknown: Nicole Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi Firm, U.S. Sees Iran Firing Back,” New York Times, Oct. 23, 2012.
67 At stake, 260 billion gallons: Jim Finkle, “Exclusive: Insiders Suspected in Saudi Cyber Attack,” Reuters, Sept. 7, 2012.
68 Within minutes, the drive’s viral payload: Reuters, “Aramco Says Cyberattack Was Aimed at Production,” New York Times, Dec. 9, 2012.
69 Shamoon erased 75 percent: Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi Firm, U.S. Sees Iran Firing Back.”
70 The Cutting Sword of Justice claimed: Reuters, “Aramco Says Cyberattack Was Aimed at Production.”
71 American intelligence officials suspect: Siobhan Graham and Danny Yadron, “Iran Hacks Energy Firms, U.S. Says,” Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2013; Michael Lipin, “Saudi Cyber Attack Seen as Work of Amateur Hackers Backed by Iran,” Voice of America, Oct. 25, 2012. 33 Numerous marquee banks: Jim Finkle and Rick Rothacker, “Exclusive: Iranian Hackers Target Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citi,” Reuters, Sept. 21, 2012.
72 A hacker group: Paul Wagenseil, “Bank of America Website Hit by Possible Cyberattack,” NBC News, Sept. 19, 2012; Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes, “Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 12, 2012.
73 The widespread denial-of-service: Nicole Perlroth and Quentin Hardy, “Bank Hacking Was the Work of Iranians, Officials Say,” New York Times, Jan. 8. 2013.
74 In order for your call: The world population is about 7 billion. If every single person in the world except you picked up a phone and called your bank (transmitting, say, about 10 bytes to place the call) and then immediately hung up on it, and they did that every second for the duration of the attack, that would be about 70Gbps (gigabits per second). If someone on the planet really wanted to talk to the bank, he’d have to get in line behind those 7 billion callers.
75 “a few yapping Chihuahuas”: Perlroth and Hardy, “Bank Hacking Was the Work of Iranians.”
76 Programs such as PRISM: Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, “Boundless Informant: The NSA’s Secret Tool to Track Global Surveillance Data,” Guardian, June 11, 2013; Kevin Drum, “2 Gigantic New NSA Revelations?,” Mother Jones, July 2, 2013; Catherine Dunn, “10 Most Shocking NSA Revelations of 2013,” Fortune, Dec. 27, 2013.
77 While living in Moscow: “Obama Knew of NSA Spying on Merkel and Approved It, Report Says,” Fox News, Oct. 27, 2013; Catherine E. Shoichet, “As Brazil’s Uproar over NSA Grows, US Vows to Work Through Tensions,” CNN, Sept. 12, 2013.
78 Moreover, Snowden divulged: “US Spy Agency ‘Taped Millions of French Calls,’ ” Local, Oct. 21, 2013; Kristen Butler, “NSA Taps Half-Billion German Phone, Data Links per Month: Report,” UPI, June 30, 2013; Eric Pfeiffer, “NSA Spied on 124.8 Billion Phone Calls in Just One Month: Watchdog,” Yahoo! News, Oct. 23, 2013.
79 Snowden’s leaks also served: Te-Ping Chen, “Snowden Alleges U.S. Hacking in China,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2013; Lana Lam, “Edward Snowden: US Government Has Been Hacking Hong Kong and China for Years,” South China Morning Post, June 13, 2013; “New Snowden Leak Reveals US Hacked Chinese Cell Companies, Accessed Millions of SMS—Report,” RT, June 23, 2013.
Chapter 3: Moore’s Outlaws
1 According to the International Telecommunication Union: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Users in the World,” Internet World Stats, Dec. 31, 2013, http://www.internetworldstats.com/.
2 Though it took nearly forty years: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Growth Statistics,” Internet World Stats, Feb. 6, 2013, http://www.internetworldstats.com/.
3 The greatest growth: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Users in the World, Distribution by World Regions,” Internet World Stats, Feb. 5, 2014, http://www.internetworldstats.com/.
4 And while half the world: Doug Gross, “Google Boss: Entire World Will Be Online by 2020,” CNN, April 15, 2013.
5 The concept was named: Marc Goodman and Parag Khanna, “Power of Moore’s Law in a World of Geotechnology,” National Interest, Jan./Feb. 2013.
6 Incredibly, it literally: Cliff Saran, “Apollo 11: The Computers That Put Man on the Moon,” Computer Weekly, July 13, 2009.
7 The modern smart phone: Peter Diamandis, “Abundance Is Our Future.” TED Talk, Feb. 2012.
8 As a result of mathematical repercussions: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence, March 7, 2001.
9 “law of accelerating returns”: Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin, 2006).
10 Early criminal entrepreneurs: Evan Andrews, “6 Daring Train Robberies,” History.com, Oct. 21, 2013.
11 Their carefully planned heist: Brett Leppard, “The Great Train Robbery: How It Happened,” Mirror, Feb. 28, 2013.
12 The incident kept the PlayStation: Keith Stuart and Charles Arthur, “PlayStation Network Hack: Why It Took Sony Seven Days to Tell the World,” Guardian, Feb. 5, 2014; “Credit Card Alert as Hackers Target 77 Million PlayStation Users,” Mail Online, Feb. 5, 2014.
13 In the end, financial analysts: J. Osawa, “As Sony Counts Hacking Costs, Analysts See Billion-Dollar Repair Bill,” Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2011.
14 In that incident, data: “Target Now Says up to 110 Million Customers Victimized in Breach,” MercuryNews.com, Feb. 5, 2014; “Pictured: Russian Teen Behind Target Hacking Attack,” Mail Online, Feb. 5, 2014.
15 As incredible as the Target hack: Nicole Perlroth and David Gelles, “Russian Hackers Amass over a Billion Internet Passwords,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 2014.
16 Physicians can even perform: Jacques Marescaux et al., “Transatlantic Robot-Assisted Telesurgery,” Nature, May 29, 2001.
17 For example, the 1969 Apollo 11: Phil Johnson, “Curiosity About Lines of Code,” IT World, Aug. 8, 2012; Saran, “Apollo 11.”
18 By the early 1980s: Steven Siceloff, “Shuttle Computers Navigate Record of Reliability,” NASA, Jan. 20, 2011.
19 Today, the software required: David McCandless, “Codebases,” Information Is Beautiful, Oct. 30, 2013; “KIB—Lines of Code (Public),” Google.doc, https://docs.google.com/; Pollwatcher, “Healthcare.gov: 500 Million Lines of Code! That’s Insane! Update,” Daily Kos, Oct. 22, 2013.
20 “computers we ride in”: Cory Doctorow, “Lockdown,” based on a keynote speech to the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin, Dec. 2011.
21 According to a study by Carnegie Mellon: Michelle Delio, “Linux, Fewer Bugs Than Rivals,” Wired, Dec. 14, 2004.
22 A labyrinthine electrical grid: “Northeast Blackout of 2003,” Wikipedia.
23 Computer failures also: National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, “Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling,” Report to the President, Jan. 2011; “Deepwater Horizon Explosion,” Wikipedia; Jeremy Repanich, “The Deepwater Horizon Spill b
y the Numbers,” Popular Mechanics, Aug. 10, 2010.
24 At a government hearing: Gregg Keizer, “Tech Worker Testifies of ‘Blue Screen Death’ on Oil Rig’s Computer,” Computerworld, July 23, 2010; David Hammer, “Oil Spill Hearings: Bypassed General Alarm Doomed Workers in Drilling Area, Technician Testifies,” Times-Picayune, July 23, 2010.
25 We’ve already seen this happen: Tom Simonite, “Stuxnet Tricks Copied by Computer Criminals,” MIT Technology Review, Sept. 19, 2012.
Chapter 4: You’re Not the Customer, You’re the Product
1 Since the site’s founding: Ryan Bradley, “Rethinking Health Care with PatientsLikeMe,” Fortune, March 9, 2014.
2 Ahmed had been suffering: Julia Angwin and Steve Stecklow, “Scrapers Dig Deep for Data on Web,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 12, 2010.
3 “We take the information”: FAQ, Patients LikeMe.com.
4 For most users of PatientsLikeMe: “Privacy,” PatientsLikeMe.com.
5 In a public interview: Angwin and Stecklow, “Scrapers Dig Deep for Data on Web.”
6 By 2013, Americans: Cotton Delo, “U.S. Adults Now Spending More Time on Digital Devices Than Watching TV,” Advertising Age, March 4, 2014.
7 Eighty percent of us check: IDC Research, Always Connected: How Smartphones and Social Keep Us Engaged, Facebook Public Files, March 4, 2014. 47 In a mere ten years: Heather Kelly, “By the Numbers: 10 Years of Facebook,” CNN, Feb. 4, 2014.
8 Each day, more than 350 million: Facebook, Ericsson, and Qualcomm, “A Focus on Efficiency,” 6, internet.org, Sept. 16, 2013, https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/.
9 They also can be instruments: Jose Antonio Vargas, “How an Egyptian Revolution Began on Facebook,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2012.
10 Not anymore; now Google: Mark Milian, “Google to Merge User Data Across Its Services,” CNN, Jan. 25, 2012.
11 That is why Google stores: Nate Anderson, “Why Google Keeps Your Data Forever, Tracks You with Ads,” Ars Technica, March 8, 2010. Please note that in the EU there are restrictions on how long Google can store data, notably the “right to be forgotten” ruling that grants individuals the right to request that personal data be removed from the search engine.