One important incident largely overlooked in the lead-up to January's Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C.: Ransomware took control of the Metropolitan Police Department's CCTV system, leading to a three-day video surveillance blackout. Police in the capital of the world's most powerful nation were blind on video surveillance for three days. Fortunately for them, the … [Read more...]
Skry and Elliptic: Cracking Cryptocurrency Blockchain
As recently as 2014-15, law enforcement investigators tended to look upon Blockchain - the peer-to-peer encrypted record of transactions used by Bitcoin - with a mix of horror and frustration. Blockchain’s system of anonymizing transactions made it all but impossible to detect who was using Bitcoin, whether for illicit purposes such as drug dealing, money laundering, murder for … [Read more...]
cellXion LTE IMSI Catcher Makes Waves – Quietly
C5IS reviews the cellXion LTE IMSI catcher - and the protracted patent infringement lawsuits that follow the market. Just when we thought privacy sector flak over the venerable IMSI catcher had peaked, cellXion has been outed for its sale of the devices to law enforcement agencies throughout the UK. Far more interesting is what the news did not reveal: … [Read more...]
Far Surveillance Horizon: Blockchain and the Internet of Things
Is the Internet of Things (IoT) the next major avenue for tracking terrorists and criminals? If so, pioneering work is being done not just by the ISS community, but by an emerging group known as the Blockchain Alliance, a consortium of experts who help track criminals on the foremost technology backbone of both the IoT and digital currency: Blockchain. In this two-part … [Read more...]
Bulk Metadata Still Alive and Well in the USA
When President Barack Obama signed the USA Freedom Act into law in June 2015, his action was widely promoted as the end one of the most controversial aspects of government-run “bulk metadata collection” under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The Act supposedly curtailed mass interception of U.S. citizens’ call data records, including CDRs for voice and data traffic. But as close … [Read more...]