Collar-Bomber Tracked By Gmail Accesses 119
RockDoctor writes "Reports indicate that a suspect has been arrested in the Australian 'collar bomb' hostage/extortion case. The allegation is that the suspect had set up a Gmail account, through which he (allegedly) planned to communicate with the extortion victims and arrange delivery of the payment. Unfortunately for him, records were kept showing the location and time the account was set up, and also for a number of accesses. This information, combined with 'CCTV footage and motor vehicle records,' allowed the police to put an identity to the suspect, and arrange for his arrest. So, if you're planning an extortion scheme, don't drive your car to the internet cafe, don't set up the account from an airport, wear anonymous clothes (like Jason Bourne does?) and do all your accesses through hacked shell accounts somewhere in Outer Mongolia. But, this being Slashdot, everyone knew that already."
Re:Best advice not to get caught (Score:5, Informative)
Always work through people's unsecured access points.
A proxy node that has wireless access through an unsecured AP in one part of the world allows you to access it from another part of the world, and having a proxy set up inside a major company network can be a benefit too. And use TOR too just to make things even trickier.
Then access the entry AP from a long distance away using a Cantenna.
Of course - all data traffic needs to be encrypted except for the last hop. Add random time delays in the proxies to mess with data correlation too. Mail enters proxy, waits for a few minutes up to an hour and then bounce to the next proxy to finally arrive at destination. Patience is a virtue.
Re:Had this happen in Erie PA (Score:3, Informative)
The guy was actually a conspirator in the plan, not an innocent bystander.
Wiki Brian Douglas Wells [wikipedia.org]
Cleveland Article [cleveland.com]
Re:or, even better (Score:5, Informative)
How to get rid of a body. (Score:4, Informative)
Duct tape at Home Depot, Shovel at Sears, pay cash.
But what do you need a shovel for?
I can think of several alternatives:
- Drop of body in a location where there are bears and wolves.
- Open a manhole cover, drop down the body into the sewer system.
- Drop body from a bridge or into the sea. (a naked body showing up at the beach is not always conclusive to be a murder victim - especially during the summer.)
- Leave body in the desert.
- Locate a cement factory, throw body into the kiln. (this will definitely take care of all traces of a body)
- Build a special trailer which you mount the body under, drive on remote highway during dark hours lowering the trailer to slowly grind off the body against the highway. Traces of the body over several tens of miles. Do this right before a rain and the traces will get washed away. Burn the trailer afterward.
- Place body in derelict building, burn building.
- Use a considerable amount of explosives, blow the body into pieces.
- Butcher the body into unrecognizable pieces, leave pieces at local butcher. (don't eat sausage from that butcher for a while)
And always make sure that the body is completely naked - no clothes will make identification harder. DNA will still require something to match the body to, and to match a specific body to the large number of missing persons can be tough.