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The Ars article seems to suggest that they were able to crack his phones pretty easily, which is a bit scary. I don't see anything about a computer.
Although it doesn't appear he was actually using any encryption apps to store material; rather, he used a fake calculator app as password protection. Obviously not the brightest bulb in the drawer.
The Ars article seems to suggest that they were able to crack his phones pretty easily
Android uses data at rest encryption, which isn't really useful without a lockscreen PIN/password since data gets decrypted after you unlock your screen the first time after each boot
Although it doesn't appear he was actually using any encryption apps to store material; rather, he used a fake calculator app as password protection. Obviously not the brightest bulb in the drawer.
Agreed, he probably felt safe enough "hiding" the files. Definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed, which is great because fuck this guy
The material was allegedly stored behind password protection on his phone(s) but also on Mega and on Telegram, where Herrera is said to have "created his own public Telegram group to store his CSAM." He also joined "multiple CSAM-related Enigma groups" and frequented dark websites with taglines like "The Only Child Porn Site you need!"
My guess would honestly be Telegram. For starters, they aren't end-to-end encrypted by default, you have to turn it on. The only end-to-end encryption that Telegram offers is their "secret chats" which are only available between two users. Groups are not encrypted.
I honestly don't think he really had any opsec apart from those few applications, look at what tools he was using, what a joke. Fake calculator app to store files are great to protect from your parents, not the FBI.
He was clearly using Android and I bet he was using the stock rom, kyc sim card, and not even a vpn behind tor.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy and relieved he was caught, but if he had done serious research and did a better opsec, it wouldn’t have been so easy for the authorities to get him
actually using a vpn with tor is not a good idea: https://support.torproject.org/faq/faq-5/
true but only if you do : tor > vpn
if you do : vpn > tor in this order, it’s way more resistant, because if the onion node is compromised, it’s the vpn’s ip address that is exposed, not yours
saw a headline the other day about the gov't tracking people on tor using Google ads
I'm still not entirely convinced that tor is as protected as people think it is.
There's only something like 6,000 exit nodes. It really wouldn't be that much money for the government to run thousands of them. If you monitor enough exit nodes and enough relays, you can start to statistically tie connections back together with timing analysis.
I don't know this to be the case for sure but I can't imagine the government hasn't pushed towards breaking the security and identifiability of the tor network
It would be more effective if you spread the load between the 5+ eyes instead.
If you read a lot of news, it's really clear Tor isn't protecting anyone from the FBI. It's about as effective as using limewire at this point. Which also, the reporting makes it pretty clear it's not effective to hide criminal acts in the least. But it's pretty great abusers think it's effective so they get caught.
I've suspected Tor of being heavily compromised for a while now. It's already known that many onion sites are government honeypots, with sites being taken over rather frequently, sometimes without triggering the canary. While it's better than nothing in some situations, I don't think it can be relied upon for true anonymity anymore.
I2P has more protection against this kind of analysis.
Can you share the source
Prison is too good for anyone who keeps child sex abuse images.
WHO is downvoting you???
People like me, who are against the death penalty on principle. (or even more "creative" forms of punishment people like to come up with in these cases).
No, prison is where this guy belongs. For as long as necessary.
Oh, I was thinking something far worst than death. I was thinking something like a torture rack.
So you're a sadist, but you try to convince yourself it's okay because you only want to torture people you think deserve it. Of course, no one deserves to be tortured.
That's what I meant by more creative forms of punishment.
Lol, I still don't know why people like CSAM :v
Milf porn is where it's at. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to go find a cory chase video
Hi, Ted!
This whole thing is horrifying, but the last paragraph is especially disturbing:
Since Herrera himself has a young daughter, and since there are "six children living within his fourplex alone" on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the government has asked a judge not to release Herrera on bail before his trial.
Even more disturbing is it said he was also producing content.
It is also because of people like him that laws like Going Dark become plausible to the eyes of the politicians and the masses
Does this go to show that authorities needing backdoors to everything in order to do their jobs is actually kind of nonsense?
Yeah, it does. Perfect opsec is impossible even with encryption.
Heard about a guy doing insane opsec when selling on the dark web (darknet diaries podcast).
In the end he got busted because a trusted member if his operation got lazy and ignored his rules
Reminds me of the lulzsec leader dude who exposed himself by logging into IRC once without tor on.
Then he folded instantly and became an informant for the FBI to stay out of jail lol.
In the end its really about tradeoffs. You can't be an expert in everything so you need a team if you want to do anything big, but Cyber criminals are still criminals. They don't trust each other which is what ultimately leads to their downfall even if they do all the implementation and tech part right.
He got his first kid IIRC and was sleep deprived.
The article is exaggerating the guy's setup way too much. Opsec doesn't end at the application level... The OS (the most popular being in bed with US), ISP, tor nodes, Honeypot VPNs, so on and so on could leave a trail.
Using telegram public groups and obfuscating a calculator as a password protection layer is hillbilly level of security.
And i'm glad these fuckos don't have the knowledge to go beyond App developers marketing.