Tag: Andy Greenberg

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Blockchain Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Tracers in the Dark

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg. Andy a senior technology writer at Wired. He previously worked as a staff writer at Forbes magazine and as a contributor to their online website.

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg

Indeed, with every great advancement or popular service, criminals manage to insert themselves to commit new types of crime. Cryptocurrency (aka Bitcoin) is the latest example of a digital advancement under exploitation, creating black markets that hide financial transactions.

Yet this powerful technology allows criminals to actually conduct business right out in the open instead of hiding drug transactions, money laundering, and human trafficking in the analog world. In fact, during the pandemic, crypto’s value simply exploded but the damage had already been done.

Internet culture quickly baked the idea on social media sites and technology blogs, especially on the digital underground (Dark web) that this technology was in fact a digital, anonymous, private money source. And more importantly to criminals it was untraceable.

This is attributed to blockchain ledgers which are deployed anonymously. Andy reveals how digital criminal empires are built on crypto. Yet we also learn of their simple mistakes resulting in their takedown. Well….kinda of a takedown.

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Education Reading Technology

Latest Read: This Machine Kills Secrets

This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information by Andy Greenberg. Andy a senior writer at Wired magazine and previously wrote for Forbes. This Machine Kills Secrets is a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection.

This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information by Andy Greenberg

Andy is focusing on politically motivated whistleblowing resulting in data leaks of state secrets. In addition, stories of famous hackers including WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, L0pht, and Anonymous. A core understanding of cypherpunks and hacktivists is necessary. The bulk of the book is about WikiLeaks.

Perhaps Andy’s timing was unknowingly off by less than on year after publication. Edward Snowden had not yet leaked his trove of data.

However Andy begins with the long, famous history of The Pentagon Papers. Perhaps the most important takeaway is the timeframe of Daniel Ellsberg. I very much appreciated the efforts Andy shared that Daniel confronted in 1969

The key element not be overlooked is the use of technology. In 2022, technology used to leak the Pentagon Papers is in fact a common part of everyday life. A second factor is where Andy looks at Daniel’s vast role in the conduct of the war while at RAND, and his deep knowledge.

In contrast, Assange just wants anyone with access to sensitive data to steal and share it. WikiLeaks somewhat began under the principle of “principled leaking,” that allowed globally connected individuals to use the metaphors of a wiki to fight corruption. Yet the scale and impact of technology has greatly changed this landscape:

One of Manning’s Lady Gaga CDs offered enough capacity to have stored the Pentagon Papers about fifty times over, and the laser head that wrote to those discs could have accomplished in a minute or two what required a year of off-and-on work for Ellsberg and his photocopier.
p.39

Chaos pure and simple

Now add the ability for Putin’s old KGB to manipulate WikiLeaks. In fact, Assange drove WikiLeaks to become a source for classified documents:

The other goal in WikiLeaks’ game—or perhaps just a bonus perk for a fire-starter like Assange—was its potential for explosive chaos.
p. 219

This should not be understated: The goal Assange wanted to create was indeed chaos. Putin saw an opportunity.

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Education Ransomware Reading Technology

Latest Read: Sandworm

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers by Wired’s Andy Greenberg is most certainly a facinating story regarding Russia’s cyber attacks upon Ukraine. In fact, the backstory to Sandworm is quite remarkable. Attacks by Russia against Ukraine are just the latest in a long history of Russian aggression.

Greenberg’s work is certainly remarkable. This provides deep storylines linking Russia to NotPetya, a ransomware attack launched against Ukraine in 2016. Elements of this attack were initially launched as reconnaissance in the prior year.

At the same time, Greenberg provides amazing details regarding cyber attacks Moonlight Maze, Operation Aurora on America by Russia and China.

Indeed Sandworm provides a historical view between Russia and Ukraine upon the heels of World War II.

Harvest of Sorrow

In this period, Stalin produced a truely horrific famine across Ukraine. Unquestionably, the exploitation of Ukraine by the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany resulted in the torture and death of millions of Ukrainians. Greenberg notes the unbelievable but true horror by author Anne Applebaum in Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine:

“stories of desperate peasants resorting to eating leather and rodents, grass, and, in states of starvation-induced mania, even their own children. All of this occurred in one of the most fertile grain-production regions in the world.”

Red Famine by Anne Applebaum

In addition, these horrific attacks are echoed in Harvest of Sorrow by Soviet scholar Robert Conquest. Red Famine’s lessons provide a razor sharp backdrop to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. This is only the latest attack in a long confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.

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