When I read this I was assuming there would be some complex darkweb site used to organize this but nope, they did it on discord and telegram. This almost sounds more like idiots being idiots then any kind of organized threat
Most of them are total morons. Imagine the average genius that sticks up a liquor store, but have them go on random chat rooms asking how they can learn to sim swap.
Alternatively, organizing crime on discord and telegram is hard enough to detect, monitor, and squash, and provides enough improvement to outcomes and profits, that it's shining a light on how incompetent our law enforcement actually is at policing this kind of organization, and that more sophisticated technologies like Tor and crypto oriented dark net markets aren't strictly necessary.
Telegram I can understand, but discord is a centralized platform that doesn't encrypt your messages. I'm astounded the authorities don't have a direct ability to just search their database at this point.
I'm sure they do, but the shear amount of data surely must make it incredibly difficult to accurately detect.
And worse, being a platform for gamers, the conversation of real world criminals might be very difficult to differentiate from regular gamer talk. Just think how many groups are constantly chatting about GTA V. They're literally talking about the crimes they're committing (in the game world). Discord might actually be the perfect place for criminals to hide their conversations in plain sight.
> I'm sure they do, but the shear amount of data surely must make it incredibly difficult to accurately detect.
Except once you get one person who belong to such a group (by any conventional means) or even have one informant, then you can see where they hang out on discord (and there won't be a million of channels to scan) and now you have access to a nice topology of discord use for organized crime.
How do the people interested in this type of mayhem find it? If it's out in the relative open, it shouldn't be hard to find for someone that is motivated.
Telegram doesn't encrypt any more than Discord: through https. Telegram offers a 1:1 e2e encryption option, but few use it, because it does not propagate to other devices.
Granted I know most criminals are not that smart, and that's how they get caught, but you would think people intending to break the law would use E2E encryption given its availability and half a clue, yeah?
Tor and crypto are sophisticated but they don't actually provide that much extra protection to criminals - as can be seen by the Silk Road prosecution. All Tor does is change where the weakest link in your opsec is.
> hard enough to detect, monitor, and squash, and provides enough improvement to outcomes and profits, that it's shining a light on how incompetent our law enforcement actually is at policing this kind of organization
Don't worry. We'll have an overzealous AI enforcer that deletes everything you have on the cloud and blocks access to basic human services on a false positive soon enough.
Why not, drugs are easier to buy on Instagram for the average person. Even though AlphaBay is very easy to access, it's still not that easy. Everyone has an Insta account.
Now, hiding their identities... yeah, some improvements can be made
While the cases in the article use discord/telegram, it does not mean the dark web does not have this. And I am sure it will have in the future. Ananymous communication and payment tech create a possibility for such market. And the possibility combined with demand will inevitably turn into reality.
Or maybe we should envision a better future and create some new genres.
I’m increasingly convinced shared narrative direction is deeper than material and organizational constraints in the direction society moves.
Obviously narrative needs to be compatible with material and organizational constraints, but given the overwhelming importance of religion throughout human history in motivating people, I think there’s a lot of compelling evidence that the stories we tell are pretty important.
You can’t force positive visions of the future, but I think we can be a lot more open to them than we are currently.
In the present day, the target just gets fatally run over.
It won't even make headlines in most cities. And even if the assassin is caught, the "penalty" is a slap in the wrist in most Western cities, and even less in most Eastern cities.
Extremely discrete, plausible deniability, and no one bats an eye.
I don't know what fantasy world you live in but unless you have substantial evidence that the pedestrian did something wrong making the accident reasonably unavoidable by the driver you're in for a many thousands of dollars and a couple court appearances anywhere in the first word. If there's evidence it was intentional then move the decimal to the right once in both cases.
What I want to know is what makes a SIM swapper angry enough to do this to his "rival"? Is there some kind of online turf these guys are fighting over? Or is it just personal dislike/escalating online feud over nonsense?
SIM swapping can be hugely profitable, and yeah there are crews fighting over turf. Some insights into the scene and some of the bigger heists explained can be found in this Darknet Diaries episode: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/118/
The plan is simple: Pantaloon is always at the Penguin Club, so they'll show up and ask for him to come out. George will punch him and then escape in the rented 1934 Chevrolet the narrator has waiting.
... to be clear: I've been adopting bracketed links of late, largely as that's what I'm already doing on Markdown-based sites and documents. This is the first time I've found that it actually confers a practical advantage.
Nice startup idea for the criminal/illegal scene. Ok, we all know that these activities are illegal and shouldn’t be discussed, but for sure there is a market for such things. I can imagine a VaaS page like a combined eBay/Craigslist format.
At first I thought this was the perpetration of remotely turning devices into bricks by garbling firmware, but apparently, actual bricks and broken windows are involved.
I would not be surprised if the former also becomes commonplace in the future, given how much unfortunate reliance most people have on "smart" devices and Internet communication for their lives.
I was recently derided on hacker news for suggesting that we are quickly coming to a time when people will react to police brutality by crowd sourcing drone strikes on the offending officers.
It will be fascinating to see how law enforcement deals with this.
Nah, going after the police is a death wish for all but the biggest baddies
As enforcement gets more lax (criminal justice reform, progressive prosecutors, etc), victims and their families will start to turn to these tools to buy retribution.
But mercenaries won't go after electeds. Those killers will need to be more bought in, e.g. gang members, cartel militias, etc, with enough power to completely overwhelm govt aligned gangs (like the police)
What does 'life sentence' mean to a terminally ill cancer patient who has been fucked over by the system their entire life and is outraged by the latest instance of unpunished police brutality in their community?
Sooner or later someone is gonna say fuck it and take out a cop on paid leave with a drone. When that starts to happen enough law enforcement will have to make a tough call because maybe their members will be safer in jail after they've committed crimes instead of walking free on the streets.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadAnd worse, being a platform for gamers, the conversation of real world criminals might be very difficult to differentiate from regular gamer talk. Just think how many groups are constantly chatting about GTA V. They're literally talking about the crimes they're committing (in the game world). Discord might actually be the perfect place for criminals to hide their conversations in plain sight.
Except once you get one person who belong to such a group (by any conventional means) or even have one informant, then you can see where they hang out on discord (and there won't be a million of channels to scan) and now you have access to a nice topology of discord use for organized crime.
Thank deity they're not.
How many police districts use Palantir?
Now, hiding their identities... yeah, some improvements can be made
They’d often sidechat you onto kik or something like that but initial find was on insta.
If I can navigate it the 20 year olds sure can.
Smart ones gets into business and commit well hidden frauds rather then violence (which tends to attract attention, eventually).
[0] https://westworld.fandom.com/wiki/RICO
Time to revisit some other predictions of it.
I’m increasingly convinced shared narrative direction is deeper than material and organizational constraints in the direction society moves.
Obviously narrative needs to be compatible with material and organizational constraints, but given the overwhelming importance of religion throughout human history in motivating people, I think there’s a lot of compelling evidence that the stories we tell are pretty important.
You can’t force positive visions of the future, but I think we can be a lot more open to them than we are currently.
It won't even make headlines in most cities. And even if the assassin is caught, the "penalty" is a slap in the wrist in most Western cities, and even less in most Eastern cities.
Extremely discrete, plausible deniability, and no one bats an eye.
Take your trope and shove it.
very odd. maybe i'm just more cognizant of it and its always been this way
Except now it's "but on the internet!"
The amount of anger and violence can be wildly out of proportion to the actual offense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vengeance_is_Mine_Inc.
The plan is simple: Pantaloon is always at the Penguin Club, so they'll show up and ask for him to come out. George will punch him and then escape in the rented 1934 Chevrolet the narrator has waiting.
Angle brackets ... actually help in this instance:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vengeance_is_Mine_Inc.>
It will be fascinating to see how law enforcement deals with this.
As enforcement gets more lax (criminal justice reform, progressive prosecutors, etc), victims and their families will start to turn to these tools to buy retribution.
But mercenaries won't go after electeds. Those killers will need to be more bought in, e.g. gang members, cartel militias, etc, with enough power to completely overwhelm govt aligned gangs (like the police)
Sooner or later someone is gonna say fuck it and take out a cop on paid leave with a drone. When that starts to happen enough law enforcement will have to make a tough call because maybe their members will be safer in jail after they've committed crimes instead of walking free on the streets.
Jim Bell's Assassination Politics
https://cryptome.org/ap.htm
Probably at least the majority of the discord ones.
Anyone who has basic opsec and is willing to cover a decently large area could be rolling in the dough at those prices.