Samsung Asia Pte Ltd [SAMECP.UL] was granted approval on Tuesday by
Vietnam’s government to increase its investment in Ho Chi Minh City’s
Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) to $2 billion from $1.4 billion now, the head
of the industrial park said.
The additional $600 million will be used for Samsung’s
production of its smart televisions and electronic goods, as well as
research and development work, SHTP chief Le Hoai Quoc told Reuters by
telephone.
Official production at the park by Samsung, Vietnam’s
biggest foreign investor, will start in late February or early March
next year, Quoc added.
Iranian hackers breached the control system of a dam near New York
City in 2013, an infiltration that raised concerns about the security of
the country’s infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported on
Monday, citing former and current U.S. officials.
Two people familiar with the breach told the newspaper
it occurred at the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye, New York. The small
structure about 20 miles from New York City is used for flood control.
The hackers gained access to the dam through a cellular
modem, the Journal said, citing an unclassified Department of Homeland
Security summary of the incident that did not specify the type of
infrastructure.
The dam is a 20-foot-tall concrete slab across Blind Brook, about five miles from Long Island Sound.
“It’s very, very small,” Rye City Manager Marcus
Serrano told the newspaper. He said FBI agents visited in 2013 to ask
the city’s information-technology manager about a hacking incident.
The dam breach was difficult to pin down, and federal
investigators at first thought the target was a much larger dam in
Oregon, the Journal said.
The breach came as hackers linked to the Iranian
government were attacking U.S. bank websites after American spies
damaged an Iranian nuclear facility with the Stuxnet computer worm.
It illustrated concerns about many of the old computers
controlling industrial systems, and the White House was notified of the
infiltration, the Journal said.
The newspaper said the United States had more than
57,000 industrial control systems connected to the Internet, citing
Shodan, a search engine that catalogs each machine.
Homeland Security spokesman S.Y. Lee would not confirm
the breach to Reuters. He said the department’s 24-hour cybersecurity
information-sharing hub and an emergency response team coordinate
responses to threats to and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
Once
a user has added their payment card details to Apple Pay, they can buy
things stores and restaurants among other locations by using their
iPhone
China's state-owned
bankcard association, China UnionPay, has joined forces with Apple to
bring the US giant's electronic payment system, Apple Pay, to the
mainland.
Apple Pay will roll out to China UnionPay cardholders as early as 2016, pending approvals, the firms said.
Shoppers around the world are being encouraged to use smartphones instead of cards to pay for in-store purchases.
Alibaba's Alipay currently dominates China's electronic payments market.
By 2017 it is estimated the global mobile payments market will be worth some $1tn (£650bn).
UnionPay's alliance with Apple is an extension of its plans to make the most of that growing market.
Executive
vice president Chai Hongfeng said the firm would provide "secure,
convenient mobile payment experiences for its hundreds of millions of
cardholders, aligning multiple parties in the industry".
"We're
very excited to offer Apple Pay among a diverse set of innovative
payment options that work with China UnionPay QuickPass," Mr Chai said.
Apple
said its joint venture facility with the Chinese bankcard network would
roll out to China UnionPay cardholders as soon as early 2016.
There
has been a rapid take-up of smartphones in China, with an estimated 68%
of the population now owning one - and digital wallets are becoming a
more popular way to pay for goods and services.
On Thursday, British e-commerce tech firm Powa Technologies said it had formed a joint venture with UnionPay Network Payments which could generate $5bn (£3.3bn) in revenues over three years.
Powa's technology enables shoppers to pay for goods quickly in-store as well as online using their smartphones.
UnionPay Network Payments is owned by China UnionPay.
Pending
approval from regulators, China UnionPay cardholders should be able to
add their bankcards to Apple Pay on iPhones, iPads and Apple watches, the firms said.
UnionPay cards have been accepted in 150 countries and regions outside of China.
They can be used in more than 26 million merchants and at 1.9 million
ATMs. More than five billion UnionPay cards have been issued in China
and around the world so far.
The
company has its headquarters in Shanghai and was launched in March
2002. Apple's pay facility was launched last year and so far only
operates in the US and UK. Shoppers need to own one of the most recent Galaxy handsets to be able to use Samsung Pay
In addition to Apple Pay, Google's Android Pay is
available at more than one million locations in the US, while Samsung
Pay was launched in South Korea in August, followed by a launch in the
US the following month.
PayPal also has a system for shoppers to
pay for purchases digitally without using a card. It also allows users
to send money to people with an email or mobile number.
Earlier this year, Apple extended its mobile wallet service to the UK,
making it the first country outside the US to get the facility.
Other mobile wallet schemes include Barclays' Pingit and PayM which are used to send and receive money by using mobile numbers.
Visa's V.Me service allows users to store a range of credit card details securely online to help speed up internet purchases.
VTech's app database for its connected toys was hit in the attack
A 21-year-old man has been arrested in Berkshire by police investigating the hacking of electronic toy maker VTech.
The
man has been held on suspicion of "unauthorised access" to a computer,
said the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (Serocu) in a
statement.
VTech was hit in mid-November when servers holding its customer information were breached.
In total, details of more than six million people are believed to have gone astray.
Data deluge
"We
are still at the early stages of the investigation and there is still
much work to be done," said Craig Jones, head of the cyber crime unit at
Serocu.
"Cybercrime is an issue which has no boundaries and affects people on a local, regional and global level."
In
the attack, servers used to support VTech's Learning Lodge app were
compromised. The software lets registered customers download extra
content such as games and e-books to their handheld devices.
VTech
firm sells a wide range of electronic products ranging from toy cars
and interactive garages to cameras, games, e-books and tablets.
The
Learning Lodge database logged names, email addresses, encrypted
passwords, IP (internet protocol) numbers and other personal data. Some
of the information was about children including names, dates of birth
and gender.
No credit card data was stored in the compromised database.
Details on customers from all over world, including the US, UK, France and China, were taken.
Some of the data is believed to have been posted briefly online before being removed.
When
details about the extent of the data loss became known security expert
Troy Hunt said he had "run out of superlatives to even describe how bad"
it was.
VTech is just one of a growing roster of firms that have
suffered data breaches in recent months. Pub chain Wetherspoons and
telecommunications firm TalkTalk both recently lost data in attacks.
The trip to the JLR plant in Solihull was the final engagement of Mr Modi's three-day visit to the UK
India's prime minister has praised the Indian-owned carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) during a visit to the plant.
The trip to JLR, which is owned by India's Tata Motors, was Narendra Modi's final engagement of his three-day visit to the UK.
Mr Modi was given a tour of the new production facility at the West Midlands plant for the new Jaguar XE sports saloon.
He said the "focus on technology, quality and innovation is impressive".
Earlier, Mr Modi unveiled a statue on the bank of the River Thames of the 12th Century Indian philosopher Basaveshwara.
He also spoke about the terror attacks in Paris, calling them "barbaric" and saying he "condemns them in the strongest terms." Narendra Modi unveiled a statue of 12th Century Indian philosopher Basaveshwara
Justin Rowlatt, BBC South Asia correspondent
At
the heart of these big foreign visits is trade. India is now the
fastest growing large economy in the world and David Cameron would like
the UK to get a piece of the action.
Meanwhile Mr Modi wants to promote his signature policy and encourage British firms to "Make in India".
The big theme of this visit is about how the
two nations can enhance their "partnership".
Mr
Modi will be hoping footage of him at Buckingham Palace and being
cheered by a huge crowd in Wembley stadium will help burnish his image
in India after his humiliating defeat in the state election in Bihar.
But he is a controversial figure and the visit is likely to be marred by demonstrations and protests.
Mr Modi's visit to Britain has seen the unveiling of £9bn of commercial deals between India and the UK.
On
Friday, Mr Modi was greeted with cheers from a 60,000-strong crowd at
Wembley stadium as he arrived on stage with David Cameron.
He also had lunch with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
But
he has faced protests over his record as chief minister of Gujarat,
where he is accused of doing little to stop the 2002 religious riots
when more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed - allegations
he has consistently denied. Mr Modi met staff at the JLR factory in Solihull, West Midlands
Telecoms subscribers in Nigeria currently spend an estimated N238 billion on purchase of airtime on their phones on a monthly basis, latest investigations by New Telegraph have shown.
The estimate is based on the current average revenue per user (ARPU) benchmark of $8 (N1,593) and the current active subscriber base in the country.
According to the latest report from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecoms market recorded 150 million active lines as at the end of September. New Telegraph’s conservative analysis thus revealed that by multiplying the ARPU with the monthly subscriber base of 150 million, telecoms subscribers on different mobile networks in the country spend an estimated N238 billion.
Meanwhile, telecoms companies in Nigeria lost a total of 357,997 active lines on their various networks in September. From 151,018,624 active telephone lines in August, the number of active telephone lines on mostly GSM operators including MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat declined to 150,660,631 phone lines. This represents a fall of 357,997 lines, according to the latest industry status report in subscriber base.
Analysts say the reduction in subscriber base might not be unconnected with the directive by the regulator mandating telecoms networks to deactivate unregistered or poorly registered subscriber identity module (SIM) lines on the networks. In the same vein, teledensity plunged from 107.87 per cent in August to 107.61 per cent in September, representing a fall of 0.26 per cent. Telephone density or teledensity is the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area.
It varies widely across the nations and also between urban and rural areas within a country. Telephone density has significant correlation with the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the area. It is also used as an indicator of the purchasing power of the middle class of the country or specific region. From January this year, active subscribers have consistently increased from 140.8 million in January to 151 million in August.
However, the August subscriber data is the first time the operators witnessed a decrease in subscriber base, ostensibly because of the SIM deactivation saga. Month-on-month subscriber data moved up to 142.5 million in February. Of the 151 million active subscriber base, GSM operators including MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat, control 148.7 million; the CDMA segment predominantly controlled by Visafone has 2.1 million while fixed wired/wireless networks have 189, 523 lines.
President, National Association of TelecomsSubscribers (NATCOMS), Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo, said for as long as more Nigerians continue to take up and rely on telecoms services for their daily business and personal activities, telcos would continue to increase their revenues.
Ogunbanjo explained that telecoms industry has become a critical sector, not only to the individual telecoms consumer, but also to the economy as a whole. He stated that Nigeria had recorded an astronomical uptake in telephone subscriptions, both in the urban and rural areas in the last 14 years of telecoms deregulation.
He said: “This is revealing. However, your findings may be plus or minus, but I think it provides us with an idea of how much telecoms subscribers in Nigeria spend on their respective service providers monthly.” “The expenditure by subscribers has even reduced drastically in the last 14 years of telecoms regulation,” said President, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators(ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo.
“You will recall that, in this country, we have made calls for close to N100 and today, we are witnessing a decrease in tariffs where we make calls for just about N10 or below per minute.”
The Anzob Tunnel was supposed to make life easier for people wanting to travel between Tajikistan’s major cities.
Before
the tunnel was built, drivers had to cross the border into Uzbekistan
via a dirt road in order to travel between the Tajik capital of
Duschanbe, and it’s second biggest city of Khujand. They also faced the
threat of year-round avalanches blocking the roads, leaving people with
the only option of flying — simply too expensive for most.
So a 5km long, $4 billion tunnel, built by Iran, was meant to be a step up.
The
tunnel was officially opened in 2006 but remained unfinished until
March this year. Within a matter of three months, it had to be closed
for repair work and reopened in September.
It quickly became known as the “tunnel of death” by locals and those who braved the nightmarish journey.
It’s
a dark, dangerous place, with hardly any lights inside and it’s
suffocating as there’s no ventilation bar one fan. Locals have shared
stories of a number of people dying inside it due to traffic jams that
leave people trapped, where they succumbed to carbon monoxide.
There’s
also the fact it’s almost like an obstacle course, with huge,
axle-snapping potholes threatening to swallow up the car, along with
flooding that almost turns them into tunnel ponds.
Throw in the hazard of falling rocks and you’ll want to be alert if you take on the journey.
It’s also quite narrow — with a two-lane system, often ignored as drivers dodge obstacles.
Explorer Silvan Graf described his experience with the road in a video uploaded to YouTube:
“Even
in good weather conditions the tunnel is flooded, turning the giant pot
holes in the unfinished road into invisible death traps.
“Unmarked
drainage channels waiting to swamp your bike. The tunnel lacks proper
lighting and ventilation, breathing is hard and painful due to the thick
mixture of exhaust gases.”
Is Russia trying to be another world terror country that will be disturbing the peace of the rest of us?
The US Navy is worried that Russia might be planning to cut the undersea cables that carry 95% of internet traffic.
The presence of Russian submarines and spy ships near most of the
undersea cables carrying majority of global Internet communications has
U.S. officials concerned that Russia could be planning to sever the
lines in periods of conflict, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Sources say already there was no evidence of cable cutting but that
the concerns reflected increased wariness among U.S. and allied
officials over growing Russian military activity around the world.
The Times quoted naval commanders and intelligence officials as
saying they were monitoring significantly greater Russian activity along
the cables’ known routes from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and
waters closer to the United States.
“It would be a concern to hear any country was tampering with
communication cables; however, due to the classified nature of submarine
operations, we do not discuss specifics,” U.S. Navy spokesman Commander
William Marks told the Times.
Last month, the United States closely monitored the Russian spy ship
Yantar, which equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible
craft, cruised off the U.S. East Coast toward Cuba, where one cable
lands near the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, according to the
Times.
Naval officials said the ship and the submersible craft were capable of cutting cables several miles (km) deep beneath the sea.
The cables carried more than $10trillion daily in global business and more than 95% of daily communications.
The latest preview for the new Star Wars Movie dropped this morning
and nerds right around the world have spent the entire day dissecting
every tiny detail.
The Ladbrokes office was not immune to this speculation, but – as per
usual – the discussion quickly turned to sport and we spent the
afternoon working out who would play different Star Wars characters in
the sporting universe.
I can’t say that I am the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, but Sports Wars is something that I can definitely get around!
Bill Belichick/Darth Vader
In charge of the Evil Empire
Will do whatever it takes to win
Loves covering up his face – especially when it is cold
Universally disliked except for his extremely loyal followers
Wayne Bennett/Obi-Wan Kanobi
Is very wise and has a great deal of experience
Connects with his younger players
Willing to sacrifice for the team
Father figure for those abandoned by their own fathers
Sepp Blatter/The Emperor
The only person in world sport more evil than Bill Belichick
Will do what whatever it takes to remain in power
The most powerful person that has ever lived – in the world of football
Can’t be trusted even by those closest to him
Kane/Darth Maul
Scary Red And Black Faces (Yes we know it is a mask)
Fell to the dark side due to outside influences
Used as a weapon by those in a position of power
Star Wars and Wrestling are both fake
Diego Maradona/Jabba The Hutt
Grotesquely obese
Crime lord and a genuine gangster
Has a soft spot for woman
Can barely walk and is a plate of ribs away from cardiac arrest
David Williams/Chewbacca
Extremely Hairy
Not the brightest spark
Not at the centre of the action, but a great sidekick to more talented players
Bounced back from adversity
Andrea Pirlo/Han Solo
Loved by both men and women alike
Possesses a deadly shot
Could be a loner but realizes the importance of being part of group
Carries his team to victory
Ronda Rousey/Princess Leia
A woman making it in a man’s world
An undeniable sex symbol
Not to be messed with
Did we mention they are both sex symbols?
Peter Crouch/C-3PO
Extremely lanky and goofy
Always in the action and we aren’t really sure how
Dances like a robot
At his best with a smaller sidekick
Tom Brady/Luke Skywalker
Very handsome
Somewhat associated with the Dark side, but we still like him anyway
Always manages to get the job done – even at an advanced age and with little assistance
The Americans are really reaping the benefits of the infrastructures their government have put in place to make a lot of cash from online transactions and activity. The beautiful home you are seeing was bought by a young man of just 23-year-old, who made a fortune playing video games online.
Jordan Maron, who goes by the username CaptainSparklez on YouTube, earned millions of dollars playing popular building game Minecraft.
Jordan streams his gaming live to an audience of 8.8 million subscribers on YouTube and several millions more on Twitch.
See more photos of the expensive house:-
The statistics is according to Variety. Since YouTube now pays its top stars advertising money based on how many views they get, Maron has been making millions of dollars and spending large.
Anything Can Make You Rich This Days!! 23yrs old Online Video Game Master Buys $4m Mansion
The Americans are really reaping the benefits of the infrastructures
their government have put in place to make a lot of cash from online
transactions and activity. The beautiful home you are seeing was bought
by a young man of just 23-year-old, who made a fortune playing video
games online. Jordan Maron, who goes by the username CaptainSparklez on YouTube, earned millions of dollars playing popular building game Minecraft.
Jordan streams his gaming live to an audience of 8.8 million subscribers on YouTube and several millions more on Twitch. See more photos of the expensive house:-
The statistics is according to Variety.
Since YouTube now pays its top stars advertising money based on how many
views they get, Maron has been making millions of dollars and spending
large.
- See more at:
http://www.naijaloaded.com.ng/2015/10/14/anything-can-make-you-rich-this-days-23yrs-old-online-video-game-master-buys-4m-mansion/#sthash.XmOCylpD.dpuf
Windows 10 is hungry for your data.
For instance, it gives every device running the OS a unique
advertising ID for tracking purposes. In addition, anything you say or
type can be processed by Microsoft along with telemetry data — including
software configuration, network usage and connection data. You can turn
much of this off (but not all of the telemetry collection) and you
should definitely take a tour of Windows 10’s privacy settings right now if you haven’t already.
“Even when you’ve disabled a number of the nosier features (like
Windows 10’s new digital assistant, Cortana), the OS ceaselessly and
annoyingly opens an array of encrypted channels back to the Redmond
mother ship that aren’t entirely under the user’s control,” TechDirt‘s Karl Bode explains.
The upgrade to the “last” new edition of Windows ever is free in
effort to reduce the fragmentation that now exists in the Windows
landscape.
But just in case you haven’t or won’t upgrade, Microsoft doesn’t want
you to feel ignored. A new set of updates for Windows 7 and 8 add
Windows 10’s telemetry collection to its ancestors.
“If these updates are installed on the system, data is sent to Microsoft regularly about various activities on it,” Ghacks‘ Martin Brinkmann writes. His suggestion is that you not install them.
If you do install them, you can turn off much of the collection by
opting out of the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). You
can do that in Windows 8 by going to the Control Panel’s Action Center. On the left side menu, select “Change Action Center Settings”.
How big of a privacy concern is this?
It all comes down how much you trust Microsoft with having access in
some way with almost everything you do with your devices. While Windows
10 has received lots of positive praise, the aggressiveness of the data
collection continues to push more privacy-focused users to the far more
customizable Linux OS.
For more everyday users, the growing connectedness of all devices forces us to do addition thinking about privacy when
making purchases. “What kind of data is my car or refrigerator
tracking?” just isn’t a question many of us had thought about before.
It makes sense that Microsoft needs to monitor its product for
usability and stability, but when that monitoring goes beyond the
product, it makes sense if your hackles begin to rise.
About N6.2 billion was lost to cyber crimes in Nigeria in 2014, according to an official.
Mr
Ibrahim Shazali, an official of the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), Bank Fraud Section, disclosed this in Ilorin on
Tuesday at the ongoing Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC)
workshop for financial journalists.
He said the figure was grossly higher than the N485 million that was lost through the same channels in 2013.
Shazali
identified Point of Sales (PoS), ATMs and mobile banking as the major
avenues where the cyber crimes were being committed.
He, however,
said that while the value of cyber crimes had been growing
exponentially, it was comforting that the value of fraudulent
transactions was less than one per cent of the total transactions.
“This
should not, however, lead to premature sighs of relief as the success
rate of attempted fraudulent transactions rose from a mere three per
cent to 80 per cent in the space of just one year.”
Shamal said
that although banks experienced more external than internal frauds, the
actual loss to internal frauds was always far higher than those of
external frauds.
He said the lack of a well-defined legal
framework for prosecuting cyber crimes and financial frauds had led to
poor success rate in the fight against the crimes.
The EFCC
official said of the 1,461 suspected fraud cases reported in 2014 only
fraudsters in 41 or three per cent of the cases were apprehended.
Shazali
said that it had finally dawned on global financial and business
leaders that cyber crime was not merely a technology issue, but at the
heart of it.
“For the fight against electronic attacks to be
effective, it is necessary to determine where exactly we need to focus
our energies.
“In other words, it is not enough to have the tools to fight the problem, we must also know where and how to use them.
“Cyber crime is especially devastating because many times victims are
completely unaware of the fact that they are being targeted and they do
not only lose money, but also sensitive customer or organisational
data,” he said. (NAN)
ON
October 2 2013, after months of extensive joint federal investigations,
the FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht (aka “Dread Pirate Roberts”) for
his role in leading a major online criminal enterprise.
In May, Ulbricht – now 31 years old – was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted
on multiple felony charges in connection with his operation of the Silk
Road website, which had become an anonymous black market for drugs and
other illegal items.
US District Judge Katherine Forrest chose to
impose the harshest sentence she could, essentially equating him with a
mafia boss in hopes of sending a message to other would-be cyber
criminals. As she said during sentencing:
The stated purpose [of
the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over
time, democracy didn’t exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread
Pirate Roberts. You made your own laws. What you did with Silk Road was
terribly destructive to our social fabric.
Ulbricht represents the
changing face of organised crime. His sentence – considered unduly
harsh by some – uncovers the reality that leaders of criminal
organisations may no longer resemble a character from The Sopranos.
Sophisticated
criminal activity has migrated to virtual worlds in which one young man
with a laptop and an internet connection can facilitate an illicit
global enterprise, as my research into the sociocultural aspects of
cybercrime shows.
So what was the Silk Road and how did it begin to change the face of organised crime as we know it? The Silk Road story
Ulbricht
created the virtual Silk Road in early 2011 as an underground service
through which buyers and sellers could anonymously trade illicit goods
using the virtual currency bitcoin.
It relied on the Tor Network –
originally developed by the US Naval Research Laboratory to protect
online government communications – to shield its users from prying eyes.
Silk Road was not the only illegal marketplace operating on Tor at the
time, but it certainly dominated the “cryptomarket” landscape.
The
Silk Road operated for two years before law enforcement shut the site
down. While it ran, more than 24,000 items – mostly drugs – were sold.
This generated US$1.2 million in sales per month, about $90,000 of which
went to Ulbricht and his associates.
Ulbricht, far from the
stereotypical image of an organised crime mob boss, has been described
by friends and family as “modest, humble and caring.” His defence team
called him an idealist.
However, his criminal actions led to seven
charges, including multiple counts of conspiracy to launder money and
controlled substances, engagement in a continuing criminal enterprise
(the so-called “kingpin” charge) and conspiring with others to traffic
in fraudulent identification documents.
A jury convicted Ulbricht
in February, and he was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison
without the possibility of parole – a sentence designed by Judge Forrest
to warn those engaging in illegal activity on the Tor Network of the
consequences.
The government may have developed Tor, but the criminal underworld has managed to exploit it.Source:Supplied
Tor’s shroud of anonymity
The
Tor Network (originally an acronym for “The Onion Router”) is a corner
of the internet accessible with free software downloadable from the Tor
Project.
Websites hosted on Tor (which use the .onion domain
instead of .com) cannot be found or accessed by “regular” internet
browsers like Google Chrome or internet Explorer. Users need to log on
to the Tor Network to access any .onion sites.
The Tor Network,
which became more publicly accessible in 2010, is currently funded by a
wide variety of public and private sponsors including the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and Reddit. Tor keeps users’ identities
untraceable and unidentifiable by “distributing your transactions over
several places on the internet, so no single point can link you to your
destination.”
The Tor Project, the non-profit organisation that
maintains Tor, argues the benefits for its 2.5 million users include the
protection of children, safety of journalists and safe whistleblowing.
But
criminals can also enjoy the cloak of anonymity that Tor provides,
buying and selling illegal items on Tor’s “hidden services” with little
fear of being identified and caught by law enforcement.
Since the
virtual Silk Road was shut down, numerous other criminally concerning
marketplaces have been launched to fill the void. More than 45 such
marketplaces are currently known to exist that trade in illegal goods
and services, up from a handful when Ulbricht founded the Silk Road.
A look at Silk Road 2.0’s wares and world view.Source:Supplied
Drugs, explosives and passports
Vendors
on the Silk Road and other virtual marketplaces use Tor to market and
sell anything from illegal drugs and explosives to forged passports and
pornography.
To purchase one of their illicit wares, buyers simply
create an account, select an item and quantity, and pay using bitcoin.
The purchased items are then shipped to the buyer via snail-mail (unless
it’s a digital product that is immediately downloadable).
Some
sellers even offer “stealth” shipping methods for an additional fee –
these are extra steps taken by the seller to protect the package from
law enforcement detection while in transit.
In the market for a rocket launcher?Source:Supplied
Uranium?Source:Supplied
NSA contact list?Source:Supplied
Law enforcement’s approach
With
so many virtual marketplaces operating using Tor, law enforcement
officials have had their hands full trying to distinguish high-level
cyber criminals like Ulbricht from low-level, infrequent retail
customers.
US law enforcement officials use a range of tactics to
investigate crimes on Tor’s hidden services, and they have an arsenal of
federal statutes – like RICO – to apply to high-level criminals once
identified.
With Ulbricht, the feds turned to the continuing
criminal enterprise (CCE) statue, which is intended to target high-level
criminals in existing organisations who engage in “significant criminal
activity.”
The punishment for engaging in a CCE ranges from a
mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years to life behind bars – the
presiding judge decides how long. Such a harsh sentence is meant to
disrupt the criminal enterprise itself (“removing the head of the
snake”) and to deter future individuals from engaging in similar
activities.
But will Ulbricht’s life sentence deter future
would-be marketplace operators from launching such a cryptomarket on Tor
or becoming a customer of one? It hasn’t appeared so.
New sites continuously pop up, ready to take their place following arrests, seizure of servers and marketplace shutdowns.
While
this may not work as a specific deterrent, it may serve an effective
law enforcement approach nonetheless to combat serious crime on Tor
cryptomarkets.
Arrests of leaders in large criminal organisations
generally inflict a temporary disruption in business as the
organisations scramble to replace the arrested members. And the
investigations also result in the removal of tens of thousands of
kilograms of illegal drugs per year from the streets, identify hundreds
of human trafficking victims, and recover stolen property and data.
Prosecutions such as Ulbricht’s have also resulted in the seizure of assets totalling millions of dollars. The changing face of organised crime
In
the end, Ulbricht’s case signals how much the face of organised crime
has changed and how our understanding of it must evolve as well.
When
asked to describe what an “organised crime” syndicate looks like, what
springs to mind? Maybe an urban underworld boss like James Joseph
“Whitey” Bulger Jr, a drug kingpin like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera –
the former head of the Sinaloa drug cartel who just escaped from prison
for a second time – or perhaps just a scene from The Sopranos.
What
most of us probably don’t think about is a tech-savvy 20-something from
Austin, Texas, with a graduate degree in education from Pennsylvania
State University. Yet the court decided that Ulbricht met the
requirements for the CCE charges.
He was convicted of running a
criminal enterprise (legally considered to be any group of six or more
people) that generated substantial income from a continuing series of
illicit activities. For all intents and purposes, he was found guilty of
acting as the “boss” of an organised crime group – one that catered to a
global market.
Ulbricht’s international presence via cyberspace
was perhaps even more impressive than the influence of a traditional
mafia boss or kingpin, who, without cyberspace, is tied to physical,
geographic realities.
This perhaps signifies a cyber-driven
evolution in how we view “organised crime.” Cyberspace makes it easier
for criminal groups to operate from the comfort of home, and the Tor
Network, in particular, provides added security to set up virtual
illegal businesses anonymously.
The challenge for law enforcement
in devising a solution to this problem will only continue to grow,
particularly as people increasingly turn to the internet to purchase
their drugs.
This article originally appeared on The Conversation, read the original article here.
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Cybercrime, University of Alabama
Disclosure statement
Diana S Dolliver does not work for, consult, own shares
in or receive funding from any company or organization that would
benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations
beyond the academic appointment above. The Conversation is funded by the National
Research Foundation, the Knight Foundation and Barclays Africa. The Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation is a Strategic Partner.
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On October 2 2013, after months of extensive joint federal investigations, the FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht (aka “Dread Pirate Roberts") for his role in leading a major online criminal enterprise.
In May, Ulbricht – now 31 years old – was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted
on multiple felony charges in connection with his operation of the Silk
Road website, which had become an anonymous black market for drugs and
other illegal items.
US District Judge Katherine Forrest chose to impose the harshest
sentence she could, essentially equating him with a mafia boss in hopes
of sending a message to other would-be cyber criminals. As she said
during sentencing:
The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond
the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn’t exist. You
were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts. You made your own
laws. What you did with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social
fabric.
Ulbricht represents the changing face of organized crime. His
sentence – considered unduly harsh by some – uncovers the reality that
leaders of criminal organizations may no longer resemble a character
from The Sopranos.
Sophisticated criminal activity has migrated to virtual worlds in
which one young man with a laptop and an internet connection can
facilitate an illicit global enterprise, as my research into the
sociocultural aspects of cybercrime shows.
So what was the Silk Road and how did it begin to change the face of organized crime as we know it?
The Silk Road story
Ulbricht created the virtual Silk Road in early 2011 as an
underground service through which buyers and sellers could anonymously
trade illicit goods using the virtual currency bitcoin.
It relied on the Tor Network – originally developed by the US Naval
Research Laboratory to protect online government communications – to
shield its users from prying eyes. Silk Road was not the only illegal
marketplace operating on Tor at the time, but it certainly dominated the “cryptomarket” landscape.
The Silk Road operated for two years before law enforcement shut the site down. While it ran, more than 24,000 items – mostly drugs – were sold. This generated US$1.2 million in sales per month, about $90,000 of which went to Ulbricht and his associates.
Ulbricht, far from the stereotypical image of an organized crime mob boss, has been described by friends and family as “modest, humble and caring.” His defense team called him an idealist.
However, his criminal actions led to seven charges, including
multiple counts of conspiracy to launder money and controlled
substances, engagement in a continuing criminal enterprise (the
so-called “kingpin” charge) and conspiring with others to traffic in
fraudulent identification documents.
A jury convicted
Ulbricht in February, and he was ordered to spend the rest of his life
in prison without the possibility of parole – a sentence designed by
Judge Forrest to warn those engaging in illegal activity on the Tor
Network of the consequences. The government may have developed Tor, but the criminal underworld has managed to exploit it.Screenshot
Tor’s shroud of anonymity
The Tor Network (originally an acronym for “The Onion Router”) is a
corner of the internet accessible with free software downloadable from
the Tor Project.
Websites hosted on Tor (which use the .onion domain instead of .com)
cannot be found or accessed by “regular” internet browsers like Google
Chrome or Internet Explorer. Users need to log on to the Tor Network to
access any .onion sites.
The Tor Network, which became more publicly accessible in 2010, is currently funded by a wide variety of public and private sponsors including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Reddit. Tor keeps users’ identities untraceable
and unidentifiable by “distributing your transactions over several
places on the internet, so no single point can link you to your
destination.”
The Tor Project, the nonprofit organization that maintains Tor, argues the benefits for its 2.5 million users include the protection of children, safety of journalists and safe whistle-blowing.
But criminals can also enjoy the cloak of anonymity that Tor
provides, buying and selling illegal items on Tor’s “hidden services”
with little fear of being identified and caught by law enforcement.
Since the virtual Silk Road was shut down, numerous other criminally concerning marketplaces have been launched to fill the void. More than 45 such marketplaces are currently known to exist that trade in illegal goods and services, up from a handful when Ulbricht founded the Silk Road. A look at Silk Road 2.0’s wares and world view.Silk Road 2.0, Author provided
Drugs, explosives and passports
Vendors on the Silk Road and other virtual marketplaces use Tor to market and sell anything from illegal drugs and explosives to forged passports and pornography.
To purchase one of their illicit wares, buyers simply create an account, select an item and quantity, and pay using bitcoin. The purchased items are then shipped to the buyer via snail-mail (unless it’s a digital product that is immediately downloadable).
Some sellers even offer “stealth” shipping methods for an additional fee – these are extra steps taken by the seller to protect the package from law enforcement detection while in transit. In the market for a rocket launcher?Evolution,Uranium?Evolution, 2014, Author providedNSA contact list?Evolution, 2014, Author provided
Law enforcement’s approach
With so many virtual marketplaces operating using Tor, law enforcement officials have had their hands full trying to distinguish high-level cyber criminals like Ulbricht from low-level, infrequent retail customers.
US law enforcement officials use a range of tactics to investigate crimes on Tor’s hidden services, and they have an arsenal of federal statutes – like RICO – to apply to high-level criminals once identified.
With Ulbricht, the feds turned to the continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) statue, which is intended to target high-level criminals in existing organizations who engage in “significant criminal activity.”
The punishment for engaging in a CCE ranges from a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years to life behind bars – the presiding judge decides how long. Such a harsh sentence is meant to disrupt the criminal enterprise itself (“removing the head of the snake”) and to deter future individuals from engaging in similar activities.
But will Ulbricht’s life sentence deter future would-be marketplace operators from launching such a cryptomarket on Tor or becoming a customer of one? It hasn’t appeared so.
New sites continuously pop up, ready to take their place following arrests, seizure of servers and marketplace shutdowns.
While this may not work as a specific deterrent, it may serve an effective law enforcement approach nonetheless to combat serious crime on Tor cryptomarkets.
Arrests of leaders in large criminal organizations generally inflict a temporary disruption in business as the organizations scramble to replace the arrested members. And the investigations also result in the removal of tens of thousands of kilograms of illegal drugs per year from the streets, identify hundreds of human trafficking victims, and recover stolen property and data.
Prosecutions such as Ulbricht’s have also resulted in the seizure of assets totaling millions of dollars.
The changing face of organized crime
In the end, Ulbricht’s case signals how much the face of organized crime has changed and how our understanding of it must evolve as well.
When asked to describe what an “organized crime” syndicate looks like, what springs to mind? Maybe an urban underworld boss like James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger Jr, a drug kingpin like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera – the former head of the Sinaloa drug cartel who just escaped from prison for a second time – or perhaps just a scene from The Sopranos.
What most of us probably don’t think about is a tech-savvy 20-something from Austin, Texas, with a graduate degree in education from Pennsylvania State University. Yet the court decided that Ulbricht met the requirements for the CCE charges.
He was convicted of running a criminal enterprise (legally considered to be any group of six or more people) that generated substantial income from a continuing series of illicit activities. For all intents and purposes, he was found guilty of acting as the “boss” of an organized crime group – one that catered to a global market.
Ulbricht’s international presence via cyberspace was perhaps even more impressive than the influence of a traditional mafia boss or kingpin, who, without cyberspace, is tied to physical, geographic realities.
This perhaps signifies a cyber-driven evolution in how we view “organized crime.” Cyberspace makes it easier for criminal groups to operate from the comfort of home, and the Tor Network, in particular, provides added security to set up virtual illegal businesses anonymously.
The challenge for law enforcement in devising a solution to this problem will only continue to grow, particularly as people increasingly turn to the internet to purchase their drugs.
