Alleged Russian agents used high-tech tricks

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20009101-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

 

Huh? What is so hitech about that? And why go to all of that trouble. Why not send a small truecrypt folder or axcrypt in an email or something? Pidgin "off the record" maybe. Why is driving by in a van so special?

 

I would think that this would be more hitech than anything that they have described:

https://xerobank.com/business-intelligence/anonymous-internet/

 

I suspect that Anna Chapman's laptop connected with that van via wireless or bluetooth.

If I were a spy, I'd worry that a VPN connection to XeroBank would attract too much attention (even though content would be hidden). Connecting to anonymous entry nodes would arguably be even more suspicious.

 

Would you trust *any* such service not be be hooked in to the CIA/FBI/NSA...? I wouldn't.

All you have is the OpenVPN provider's word, don't you?

Regardless, The Wizard has said that Onyx is closed for new participants (whatever that means).

 

This is one to watch

@snowdrift

Wonder what SteveTX has to say Havn't seen him around lately

Where does it say that ? Hmm, wonder why, as it must be their top $ product i would have thought. A bit strange dont ya think

 

The new XeroBank will be out "soon", AFAIK. I vaguely recall reading that there'll also be a new version of Onyx. Perhaps they'll take new clients once that's up.

 

If i was them, i would use......
freeofte for sending files,
locknote for sending simple text,
neo's safekeys to enter passwords in these encrypted files,
perhaps trilogyec usb for messaging
disable pagefile
eraser to wipe my traces

... and i'm gone


p.s. and NEVER write down password, and NEVER use password containers. Passwords are safer in your head i think.

 

Some of the "spies" had been tailed for 10 years or so... they will be gotten on money laundering and failure to register as foreign agents.

Some of the people came and went freely to Russian offices. I am surprised it took this long.

Seems like Russia paid for something and got little in return.

Or, they got stuff and we're not being told the whole story.

The Russians would do better to get more into industrial espionage like the French and less into trying to manipulate geopolitics.

http://books.google.com/books?id=l_...w#v=onepage&q=french industrial spies&f=false

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/n...oung-spies-Lure-of-romantic-adventure-Feature

 

I wonder how they even got noticed, since they weren't stealing intelligence ...yet.

So did they also got on the FBI's radar through money laundering, and if so, how?

 

One of the alleged spies tried to flee the country and alerted the others apparently, which set the whole ensnarement into motion. Since they had been trailed for years, I suspect we were learning more about the Russians than they were about us, or else the game would have been up long ago.

 

I see in the Wikileaks Twitter feed that Russian agents and WIKILEAKS prefer the ASUS eee 1005HA-P netbook. OK, that's cool. Perhaps I'll take a look.

Anyway, to the point, I read: "Later that day, three Computer Store employees spoke with investigating agents and identified MURPHY from a photograph as having bought a laptop computer from the Computer Store earlier in the day."

Isn't that rather blatant? This was in Feb-2010. Perhaps they wanted him to know that his cover had been blown. Or are they (FBI?) really that clueless?

 

I agree. But I suppose it's possible they wanted to avoid detection at all. You know, sometimes the contents of the message itself is not important, but rather who is communicating with who. If they were to simply send PGP encrypted e-mails back and forth, the Feds would know they all knew each other (which could be a lot of information in itself). Not to mention that using encryption can, by itself, draw attention to an individual.

This practice of linking individuals is important in intelligence, just ask NSA.