The Mob's IT Department 104
An anonymous reader writes: An article at Bloomberg relates the story of two IT professionals who reluctantly teamed up with an organized criminal network in building a sophisticated drug smuggling operation. "[The criminals were] clever, recruiting Van De Moere and Maertens the way a spymaster develops a double agent. By the time they understood what they were involved in, they were already implicated." The pair were threatened, and afraid to go to the police. They were asked to help with deploying malware and building "pwnies" — small computers capable of intercepting network traffic that could be disguised as power strips and routers. In 2012, authorities lucked into some evidence that led them to investigate the operation. "Technicians found a bunch of surveillance devices on [the network of large shipping company MSC]. There were two pwnies and a number of Wi-Fi keyloggers—small devices installed in USB ports of computers to record keystrokes—that the hackers were using as backups to the pwnies. MSC hired a private investigator, who called PricewaterhouseCoopers' digital forensics team, which learned that computer hackers were intercepting network traffic to steal PIN codes and hijack MSC's containers."
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Re:MITM or unencrypted (Score:5, Interesting)
Most likely they assumed, as most companies these days erroneously do, that their entire internal network is 'secure' and thus does not need encryption. Besides these dedicated devices, most corporate networks don't protect much against visiting and malware infested laptops. Even if they are aware of the chance of someone bringing a virus from home, they rather turn to device 'access controls' and trusting the device to self-report over securing the internal systems.
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My last job (KCI) was like that. All supervisors had admin access and could connect to any network (secured or not) we wanted. It was amazing what my peers decided to install on their company issued laptops.
I still remember one day, HR sent out an email to all 4000 employees with everyones SS#, salary, and address (the person attached the wrong file - they meant to send out a flyer for the company picnic.) IT department's solution to keep that file from getting out was to block gmail and yahoo mail. Sin
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This, right here.
VDI is a very good solution for it, or Citrix, or VCAC, or... For high-security data, there should be only a very small handful of reasons why someone has a full-blown workstation on their desk these days, let alone a laptop. Sadly, at least one of those reasons is "because the CxO needs one, that's why!"
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Just as an FYI, if a company is going to restrict local I/O resources to and from a computer, then using a computer is the wrong tool; they should be using thin-clients to a terminal server of some sort.
One place I worked had machines locked down so tight they we're unusable. The stupid part is because they were so unusable everyone brought in their own machines (tethering through your phone to the Internet). So while the network was secure, nothing was on it because information creation was done on user owned machines and emailed around via Gmail/Hotmail etc.
In an equally secure place, they had the VDI model with thin clients, the solution was better than any desktop because you had workstation performan
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My guess is they don't handle them securely because they don't see them as that sensitive. They are, after all, numbers humans have to have to get the right containers. At some point, they will be in a format that can be stolen -- i.e. on the waybill handed to the driver. You're basically trying to secure a phone number -- randomly generated and rotating, but still something more than one person necessarily knows.
How securely do you handle your Fedex or UPS tracking numbers? (granted, you cannot show up at
"pwnies" sound familiar... (Score:5, Informative)
It would be interesting to see if these guys received products or training from Pwnie Express, a well known infosec vendor.
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OMG pwnies! (Score:5, Funny)
It should have been: "OMG!!!! pwnies!!!"
more important question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:more important question... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:more important question... (Score:4, Funny)
You get your choice of payment in silver or lead.
Re:more important question... (Score:5, Interesting)
These two were making €12,000 and €20,000 per month, before their involvement with the criminal element. One of them was seeking start up capital for a business venture and allowed himself to get roped in that way. If you give them the benefit of the doubt the best you can say about them is they were naive. In the worst reading they were greedy and willfully complicit. I suspect reality falls between those two extremes.
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Re:more important question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked as an SMB consultant and almost every SMB owner I've run into is some kind creepy, shifty guy who is coming as close as he can to "the line" and often crossing it. At a minimum it's every conceivable tax dodge imaginable -- luxury company car as a daily commuter, no-show family members on the payroll, tons of business-paid home technology for personal use, and so on. Who knows what it is at maximum. Probably outright tax fraud, siphoning cash, cheating employees, whatever.
You could make a believable narrative that has two small-time entrepreneurs looking for investors and/or work are just *used* to the kind of slimeballs that are out there and don't really ask too many questions. Call it conditioned ignorance.
I don't know how cost of living translates, but I do think their incomes, especially the guy with a regular job (IIRC) would make them be a little more selective. That part I find kind of fishy.
But it's also not hard to see once they saw they were dealing with guys with guns that going along with it but with willful incompetence wouldn't have seemed like a totally unreasonable strategy. What are your choices? Run away and look over your shoulder for years?
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I don't know how cost of living translates
€144,000 annually is comfortable living by any metric.
What are your choices? Run away and look over your shoulder for years?
Getting deeper into bed with them is not a sensible decision either. It may be necessary in the short term but what's the exit strategy? The most sensible decision would be to avoid putting yourself in the position where you have to make that choice. Failing that, I would personally take my chances with the authorities. Caving to blackmail is never a winning move in the long term.
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I think that WAS their exit strategy -- just be incompetent enough that they'd look elsewhere for talent.
If you're a consultant/entrepreneur, you can't always know what your clients are ultimately up to so you're often into it before it's too late to just up and quit.
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Some people think that salary would be scraping by. We make a lot of money, but it would be really easy to get into financial trouble if we got too extravagant. I drive a seven-year-old car because I like it and it still works fine, but if we insisted on each of us getting a new car every three years that would be a big hit. We like to entertain, but spending $400 on dinner with friends twice a week would hurt badly (a few times a year is fine). We have a nice house that wasn't cheap, but we could have
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My question was more along the lines of how well you can live on that money in Belgium.
My wife and I together make about 60% more than the $140k euros stated, but we live in the midwestern US and we do not live luxuriously -- our home is just under 2k sq ft, my car is 8 years old and we just replaced her Honda which was almost 12 years old and had 150k on the clock.
We eat most meals at home, dining out as a family at lowbrow places maybe 1-2 times a week with maybe an expensive adults night out once a month
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It does cost more money to maintain an automobile in Europe; insurance, fuel, and even the cost of getting a license is much higher than in the States. The key difference is that in the vast majority of Europe you don't need an automobile. Even the low population density (Finland) countries make an effort to lay their cities and towns out in a way that's pedestrian friendly. The only people who need automobiles are those that truly live in rural areas and even in such areas you'll find that mass transit
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Antwerp that is. Not sure why I typed Amsterdam..... :)
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Considering their type of work, daily routine and former employers (banks) it's really hard to imagine they did not know there's a thin line.
Any shady company is on the wrong side by default.
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Also, what kind of fringe benefits do I get? If someone offends me, can I make a call? Can I buy cheap stuff of the back of a truck? If someone kidnaps my daughter, do I get to make a phone call to a Liam Neeson clone?
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That's where the farm is that we send all our ageing cats and dogs.
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If you read the article, it seems most of their bonuses were payments in physical violence and death threats against their families if they didn't cooperate.
So many kids' dreams unfulfilled (Score:1)
I know quite a few people that would LOVE to find out their boss is the Mob. They would squeal like pigs to the FBI in a minute - all for just the glory of going into witness protection and leaving their crap lives behind.
Granted, most of them are single and don't have to worry about kids/spouses.
They are trying to get off... (Score:3, Interesting)
Once you realize what you are doing and for who you are doing it, you contact the authorities. These guys continued to cooperate, continued to engage and despite their attempts to soften their story, are responsible for their actions. Intimidation is not an excuse, it's perhaps a reason, but it doesn't absolve you of the moral and ethical obligation to turn yourself in.
My guess is that they are trying to get some sympathy by cooking up this "We tried to resist, without getting killed" defense. At the very least, you use all that IT knowledge and start reaching out to authorities. Heck, walk into a police station and turn your self in, offer to be an informant, explain to them what's going on and tell them you need help getting out. I'm sure any number of customs officials would have jumped at the chance to help them out for the information they obviously had. I'm also sure that any prosecutor would have loved to let them plea bargain (or just plain offered immunity) as well.
No, despite the intimidation they claim, I'm not inclined to believe they where powerless to help themselves, nor am I inclined to think they should be given lighter sentences for what they participated in. The jails are full of people who claim they where wrongly incarcerated. Some claim to be innocent, some claim the sentence was wrong, some claim they couldn't help it, but nearly all of them are just lying. These guys are in the same boat.
Re:They are trying to get off... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
life > illegality
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skip the police go to the feds
Go to the feds carefully. And anonymously.
We had a guy who 'went to the feds' with a bunch of damning evidence on a corrupt outfit in my town. The feds he went to were already pwned by the company (see: regulatory capture). They just said, "Not interested." The they called the company up and told them who had snatched the documents so they could go to the police and have him charged with theft.
This guy should have set up an anonymous connection and not surfaced until he saw the feds marching executives of
Going to Feds (Score:2)
Go to the feds, preferably anonymously (although it's hard to do that reliably without lawbreaking). But I would always do that *after* I made sure my family was safe, or for family members who refused to be safe at least had a lot of guns. You never know when the feds have a leak, or where they're going to share information with a local police force that has a leak, for example. They're not particularly bright about how they go after organized crime and public corruption (or else they'd be asking for ti
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You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
life > illegality
No... But this is NOT the movies or TV. Nobody was being held captive, they had their personal cell phones, cars, homes and where freely walking around. Nobody had a gun to their head 24/7...
Surely there was a time and opportunity to make a move to reach out to authorities, make a phone call, send an E-mail or two, or get somebody in your family to help you. This went on for MONTHS.... Surely there was a number of possible exit ramps one could have taken. Heck, they claim to have had enough time to discu
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Dude, that's the second time. There is no "h" in "were". "Were" as in "they were walking around." "Where" as in "Where are you?" And for good measure, let's contract "we are" to make "we're" as in "We're going to learn English today."
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I salute sir, for your valiant attempts to fix the internet.
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You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
No... But this is NOT the movies or TV. Nobody was being held captive, they had their personal cell phones, cars, homes and where freely walking around. Nobody had a gun to their head 24/7...
Surely there was a time and opportunity to make a move to reach out to authorities, make a phone call, send an E-mail or two, or get somebody in your family to help you. This went on for MONTHS.... Surely there was a number of possible exit ramps one could have taken. Heck, they claim to have had enough time to discu
Held Captive by Fear (Score:2)
You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
No... But this is NOT the movies or TV. Nobody was being held captive, they had their personal cell phones, cars, homes and where freely walking around. Nobody had a gun to their head 24/7...
Surely there was a time and opportunity to make a move to reach out to authorities, make a phone call, send an E-mail or two, or get somebody in your family to help you. This went on for MONTHS.... Surely there was a number of possible exit ramps one could have taken. Heck, they claim to have had enough time to discuss and implement ways to disrupt what was going on. They had time and opportunity to get out if they wanted too.
This is not how most captivity works. People are held captive by fear and intimidation relatively easily, we just don't expect or and rarely understand it if it's not a part of *our* lives. Domestic Violence is probably the most common example--someone acts as a thug and beats up a person who is physically less powerful or fearful and emotionally unwilling to fight back. The spouse could usually call for help a hundred times a day but just doesn't. She's afraid, for herself or her kids. Human trafficki
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You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
Read TFA. Specifically these paragraphs:
To his surprise, Adibelli agreed. “If you wanted out, why didn’t you let us know?” he said. Maertens was too scared to bring up the beating and the kidnapping and death threats. “Obviously, you know we’re not in a legal business,” Adibelli added. “So if you talk to anyone, we know where you and your family live.”
Adibelli brought Van De Moere down next and asked him if he wanted out, too. Van De Moere said yes.
There
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You've never imagined having a gun to your kids' head, have you?
life > illegality
Yeah but it's not the movies. "Mob" doesn't necessarily mean Ndrangheta. A lot of these "organisations" aren't smart enough or tenacious enough to run CIA style man-hunts on ex-minions.
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No, seen other people's kids addicted to drugs down the drain.
Also, I'm pretty sure the criminals have been robbed from their twinkies long ago, as if I care.
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Yeah but apparently these guys had plenty of money too. If a gun to your kids head was a real threat you'd get them the fuck out of the country and out of reach of these guys pronto.
There are very few organised crime groups that have a worldwide reach and many countries are no go zones for them.
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Talk's cheap.
Touché... But you got to admit that these guys' story smells like the waste bin at the local fish monger's....
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Clearly you have never been seriously threatened by someone that you felt had the means and desire to actually carry out a serious threat against you or your family members.
I promise that the police are not going to "hop to" and put some kind of "protective detail" on you and yours while they bring down the big, bad mob.
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I promise that the police are not going to "hop to" and put some kind of "protective detail" on you and yours while they bring down the big, bad mob.
You are in no position to "promise" anything about how the police would act. But look at the situation... You are supposedly "caught" in something illegal, you know it is, you know these guys will physically harm you and the longer you keep on the path you are on, the more likely harm will come to you and the deeper you are getting into something you presumably don't want to be involved in. You are STUPID if you don't at least try to make an exit, as soon as you understand the situation. Morals and ethics
Re:They are trying to get off... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever lived anywhere where there was a significant mob presence?
I haven't, and for good reason.
Your plan is a really great plan if you assume that the mob has absolutely no penetration whatsoever into the local police department.
I don't know why you'd assume such a stupid thing, though.
So here is how your suggestion really goes.
You walk into the local PD. On your way there, some kid recognized your face. He has instructions that say that if he sees a guy who looks like you walking into the police station, he calls a number and gets a bonus.
When you come home, something is different. Either your family is already dead, or, there's a note that makes it clear that your family is vulnerable and that you've fucked up - but there is still a chance to not get your family killed. Who knows what the knob is set at for the "first contact" - but there's a clear indication that you don't want to continue talking to the police.
Now, if someone inside that building is actually connected - and usually, somebody is - maybe they're the person who interviewed you. Maybe they're the person who looks at the signin/signout sheet at the station. Maybe they are somebody who files paperwork or types things up for other people.
Zillions of little people are needed to make the machine of government operate, and the mob targets precisely those people to be their eyes and ears. It uses combinations of carrots and sticks to keep them cooperating with mob goals, without letting them get too familiar with what those goals are or who is executing them.
Point is, if the mob has any power in your city, that includes eyes and ears within, or effectively within, the police department.
Part of the mob's effectiveness is that it destroys trust in the normal functioning institutinos of society. You never know for sure who is and isn't. It effectively isolate frightened individuals from the facets of society that might help or protect them. It always makes it seem like it's 1 person against the entire mob - it paints that same picture to lots of separate people.
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Last I checked, IT != Accountant.
Re:They are trying to get off... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I live in Chicago.
Seriously though, growing up on Taylor Street in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood, we all knew who the mob guys were, and many of them were part of our extended families. I used to go fetch cigars for the old men who sat in front of the social club drinking espresso and they'd give me dollar bills and sage life advice. The barber and the tailor at Taylor and Loomis were both bookies.
Actually, in the case of the Chicago mob, they didn't destroy trust in those institutions, they replaced trust in those institutions for people who were blocked from having access to them. Today, if you want to get a bet down, you just have to go online or buy a lottery scratch-off ticket. Back then, you had to go see the barber. If you needed a loan, you saw the loan shark (who actually charged less interest than today's payday loan joints). If you needed the pothole in your street fixed, you went to talk to the precinct captain (who could be found putting down a bet with the barber or drinking espresso at the social club).
So see, the mob didn't destroy trust in normal functioning institutions of society, it created trust in people where the institutions of society didn't function properly.
Today, those old mob guys are almost all dead, and their kids went to med school or law school and are living out in the suburbs or on the North Side. All the mob's wealth has been laundered through the "normal functioning institutions of society" and their kids and grandkids are paragons of those functioning institutions. The mob here has always been the way immigrant populations assimilate. Do you think the fortunes of any of the great families in the US were built very differently? From Rockefeller to Kennedy to Romney, the fortunes are always built on something a little sleazy.
This all may be different where you are. This story happens to be about "the mob" in Belgium, which I can't even imagine. Maybe they control the black market waffles or something.
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I cannot deny that much of what you've said about the mob is true. I didn't mean to say that the mob never did anything well, never provided benefits to neighborhoods or people, etc.
Everyone understands that the mob can "Get things done". And, what's ironic is that, IIRC, you and I have very different ideas about government, but we apparently agree that in some situations, the mob is more effective and occasionally preferable to local government.
That said, I think you are papering over the intimidation, v
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If you don't want to get fleas don't lay down with dogs. The "mob" (a misleading title, given that TFA doesn't mention Cosa Nostra or any other organized crime syndicate....) didn't pick these two at random and hold guns to their head. They got involved with them willingly; one of the two was seeking start up capital for a business venture and quite likely ignored the little voice inside of his head because of greed. An old adage comes to mind, "If it sounds too good to be true....."
Incidentally, the "m
Re:They are trying to get off... (Score:5, Insightful)
You walk into the local PD.
Walk. How 20th Century.
You establish some anonymous communications with FBI/CBP/etc. (or your nation's equivalent) at their HQ. Not the local police department on the Texas-Mexico border. The latter have mostly been pwned by the drug lords. So you exchange public keys with the FBI and establish yourself as an unwilling insider. You set up a deal for immunity and a contact name and pass phrase that you can drop when the DEA storms the facility and hauls everyone out (including yourself) in handcuffs when the gang is busted. Until then, nobody needs to know who you are. If talk inside the gang turns toward looking for a snitch, you can always go silent if it looks like your law enforcement contact might have been dirty. And at this point, nobody will know who you are IRL.
If there is a leak in HQ and you or your family end up dead, you can arrange a 'dead man switch' on a server that forwards all your correspondence to the New York Times, Guardian, Wikileaks, and anyone else willing to print an expose on corrupt law enforcement in bed with the mob.
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You walk into the local PD.
Walk. How 20th Century.
This is the thing, back in the day cops ruled their local area and if they were bad eggs you were screwed. But these days you report to central facility, most likely a call centre, there is oversight and accountability. It's just too hard to get away with being a bad cop these days. Sure they still exist, but unlike the old days where they could make a life of it, these days they get found out pretty quickly (which is why we have so many bad cop stories these days).
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That's why the obvious solution is to move somewhere where the local mob doesn't have any presence.
These people had the money and resources to do that but they chose not to and to remain complicit.
Head abroad, claim asylum if need be, and work with the police there. It becomes impossible for them to follow you and touch you. The strength these organised gangs have is also their weakness- you're absolutely right that in their home territory they have tough and sophisticated networks, but as soon as they star
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If 'authorities' everywhere had a better reputation for protecting people who need protecting and for understanding when people only find out after the fact that they are involved in a crime, perhaps your argument would make sense.
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Oh, so you want to talk sense eh?
The vast majority of the police are underpaid public servants who willingly risk their lives out of a sense of duty. Some do it for ego, but even these would jump at the chance to help you, if for no other reason than to notch their belts again. So that just leaves the vanishing few that *might* be corrupted by the organization you are trying to flee. Your odds are really good you won't have an issue.
I would think that what makes sense is to get away from those who have a
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The vast majority of the police are underpaid public servants who willingly risk their lives out of a sense of duty. Some do it for ego, but even these would jump at the chance to help you, if for no other reason than to notch their belts again. So that just leaves the vanishing few that *might* be corrupted by the organization you are trying to flee. Your odds are really good you won't have an issue.
Alas, the decision of if and when to assign resources to protection is above their pay grade. It doesn't matter how much a cop wants to protect you and your family if his superior says stop.
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But you are still better off with the cops over the mob guys who have beaten you up and threatened you and your family. If moral and ethical obligations don't drive you do the cops, then getting beat up should. If you end up dead for going to the cops, then it was likely you would have eventually ended up there anyway and what did you loose? Not much.
But in this case, the story doesn't add up all that well. Yea they try to make the case that they where forced into this, but what the claim doesn't add up
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For Pete's sake, this isn't a TV series or Movie... Read the linked article, it reads like a crime drama for a reason. These guys are cooking a lot of this up and are either trying to get away with something, or are looking for a book/movie deal.
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I don't see where they meet all 4 requirements for this defense... There was no immediate and inescapable threat of harm that ran the entire length of their employment as they where largely free to do what they wanted and where being paid for their work.
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You seem pretty confident of yourself. How about innocent until proven guilty? Does that have a familiar ring to it ?
Their story has the same familiar ring to it as the stories told by many people in the US who have been forced or coerced into criminal activity by the American mob.
Maybe you missed the part about the raid on Adibelli's house? You know, the part where he got away because the authorities believe he was tipped off. Put your thinking cap on. Who do you think had the knowledge to tip him off? We
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People act like what they see in the made for TV crime drama's are true life... These two fools, if their story is actually based in real life, where idiots, both in what they managed to actually do and how they are trying to claim innocence because they where coerced into it.
IMHO, there story is too fishy. Either they had ample opportunity to get out and choose to stay and collect the money, or they are angling for a book and movie/book deal and none of this actually happened.
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Where idiots what?
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> Intimidation is not an excuse.
And how much comfort would that line bring you as you sat in the front row at your kid/sibling/parent's funeral? There's a reason the mob uses those tactics, because they work.
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Oh please, this situation wasn't a made for TV movie. Why do people keep talking like it is?
These guys are trying to either get out of being punished or they are angling for a movie/book deal on their little bit of fiction...
The more I read their little article, the more it reads like a really bad movie script.... So if it's even partially true, they are playing the con for some reason, and taking it at face value, they had ample opportunity to leave, but stayed and kept taking the money. They are crimin
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I am on the side of (Score:1)