Introducing Alisa Elega Shevchenko Glamourous Russian Cybercriminal

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We end 2016 on Global Wahrman with a note of hope in a world otherwise diminished by death, war, greed, and hypocrisy.

The Obama Administration, in one of its final acts, has published a list of Soviet, I mean Russian, firms and individuals implicated in the DNC hack. Those of us who are concerned about the lack of women in computing, particularly the important new field of Cybercrime, can take heart by the inclusion of poster child Alisa Elega Shevchenko on this list.

Although she modestly claims to have no idea what people are talking about, adolescent men and some women can be encouraged by her excellent photograph which could have come right out of Soviet Vogue.

Please give a warm welcome to Alisa Elega Shevchenko.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/12/accidental-mastermind-dnc-hack/134266/?oref=d-river

Linux Security Tools

As we move finally into the new century, it becomes less and less clear who the enemy is. Is it the NSA as so many think, or is it the FBI, the DEA and local law enforcement as I believe? The IRS or the Franchise Tax Board? Does it matter? Well yes, I think it does matter but that may be above our collective heads.

After all, we, the citizens are not organized, can not defend ourselves, and for the most are, in my humble opinion, too stupid to understand the issues even though they are right before our tightly shut eyes. Like happy sheep, shorn for the benefit of the rich, we bleet our way through our pathetic lives on the way to the butcher. One last time through the scissors our happy middle class says as the harvest of their pathetic wealth, valuable only in aggregate, is extracted by our ruling classes. They only have our interests at heart we can be sure.

But there are tools which may be of use to the dissident, the criminal, or merely the consumer who does not want to share their pathetic lower middle class peccadilloes with our nosy neighbors. These tools provide a certain level of security to the computer user as long as some guidelines are followed, and these guidelines include (a) great diligence and attention to detail is required to use these tools successfully, (b) these tools and the details change constantly and it is up to you to not be complacent and stay up to date, and (c) any security can be penetrated if the adversary wants to enough, although different costs are imposed for different levels of security.

But with that in mind, here is a list of Linux security tools and guides as provided indirectly through www.cryptome.org and submitted for your consideration.

https://cryptome.org/2016/07/new-linux-security-guides.htm

If you read to the end, you will find links to security guides for Windows and Android as well.

You Max OS X and IOS users are on your own.

Here is a quote in case the references post goes away, although Cryptome.org has been very good about such things.

Security in-a-Box is a joint project of Tactical Tech and Front Line Defenders which provides practical help and information on digital security, published in 17 languages and reaching over 2 million people every year.

The six new Linux tool guides offer in-depth step-by-step help in installing and running six of the most essential open-source digital security tools, including the Tor Browser, Thunderbird with Enigmail for encrypted email and the Firefox browser with privacy Add-ons:

- Tor Browser for online anonymity & censorship circumvention:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/torbrowser/linux

- Thunderbird, Enigmail and OpenPGP for secure emails:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/thunderbird/linux

- VeraCrypt for secure file storage:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/veracrypt/linux

- Jitsi and OTR for encrypted instant messaging and VoIP calls:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/jitsi/linux

- Firefox add-ons for secure browsing:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/firefox/linux

- KeePassX for secure passwords:
https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/keepassx/linux

The new guides add to our existing 25 tool guides for Windows, Android and social media, as well as 11 in-depth tactics covering all aspects of digital security.

Remember, none of these are a panacea. Real security requires constant vigilance.

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New word note: “aggregrate” for “aggregate”.

Entertaining Report on Cybercrime in Brasil

Have you noticed how boring and unreadable most official reports on cyber crime seem to be? They come in various styles of boring from a Russian style that is at least readable to the US Govt style which is in extreme bureaucratic gibberish. Or you have the weird semi-anarchic cyber community with their quasi-rebellious bullshit and psycho-pathological narcissism.

But now at last we have a report that brings some of the excitement and romance of cyber crime in a readable style that is not laden with pseudo-philosophy. It seems to be one of several reports on regional cyber crime by a company called www.trendmicro.com.

In this particular report we have a discussion of cybercrime in Brasil which I encourage you to read on your own at this location.

But here are a few tidbits I picked up that I thought were interesting.

1. Cyber criminals in Brasil make very little use of the "dark web", such as Tor for example,  but operate in the open on the "surface web".  This is expected to change in the future as the criminals get more sophisticated and in response to greater law enforcement.

2. Cyber criminals come in two varieties: Developers and Operators. Developers develop the tools and sell or lease them to Operators.  Operators use these tools to attack their targets.

3. There are numerous tutorials and online classes for those who wish to become a cyber criminal in Brasil.  These classes sound very reasonable and one could imagine that they might be helpful even for those who are learning to thwart cyber crime.

4. There also seems to be a robust and healthy infrastructure for the provision of apparatus to help in crime. These include such things as "credit card" skimmers for companies which extracts the information on the card when processing an apparently legitimate credit card transaction.

5. Although there are numerous classes of targets in Brasil, this report does give the impression that the banking industry of Brasil has become very vulnerable.  

6. Many of the Developers are or were computer science students.  Some of them are literally Computer Science students and take time off to study for exams and so forth.  We know this because they post letters of apologies in the forums apologizing to their clients for being unavailable for a certain period. 

7. Both Developers and Operators hold Brasilian law enforcement in contempt.  Apparently the penalties for cyber crime are considered to be very weak and the law enforcement particularly inept.  Presumably this will change in the near future as both are corrected as crime increases.

8. The disastrous Brasilian economy is the prime motivator here.  There is extraordinary poverty and an economy that has stagnated with no obvious way to improve one's standing.  In this, Brasil seems to be very similar to the USA of the last decade.  Thus, the real problem here is not crime but poverty and, apparently, corruption.   Again, very similar to the USA.

9. Finally the report gives the impression that part of the cause of the substantial increase in crime is the result of the failure of the mythology that the rich are people who have earned and deserve to keep their wealth. The impression seems to be that the rich are merely more successful criminals, corrupt politicians or the children or relatives of the former. Again there is a striking similarity to beliefs in the USA.

I would recommend anyone who is unemployed and interested in a new career to read this report.

The following image is not from the report on Brasil, but is an illustration I found on the web of how a credit card skimmer scammer works: