Security Researcher Goes Missing After Investigating Bangladesh Bank Cyber-Heist | Hacker News Reader

Security Researcher Goes Missing After Investigating Bangladesh Bank Cyber-Heist

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238 pointssoftnewsit22 comments

This is a strong (and worrying) example of the emergence of an increasingly cyberpunk flavor to criminal activity, a trend that I expect to see increase in the future.

When I say "digital currency", most people think of things like Bitcoin, but actually most currencies in use today are digital, represented mostly in databases managed by the banks. I don't have the numbers, but less (possibly way less) than 10% is in physical circulation, and many people are surprised to learn the current estimate is that 2/3rds of the US Dollar is in circulation outside of the US.

We're far away from the days of The Great Riviera Bank Robbery. Modern bank heists (outside of the usual "crazy guy with a gun robs regional bank" crap) will be principally hackers, either brute forcing or socially engineering their way through the security systems that prevent them from moving our modernized digital money anywhere they want.

Invest in security, invest in cryptography (and learn how to use it). And I suppose, ponder the idea that what you participate in online can follow you offline too.

Agreed, however, I, for one, want to see an increase in cyber crime. I want digital banks to be robbed. I won't explain it now, but I want the robbing rate to increase at the same rate as wealth concentration does, call it the Robin Hood Effect.

That makes sense. When a gov't is ripped off of tax money or your grandma's pension fund loses money to a criminal organization it's a great way to redistribute wealth to the poor.

Is it?

Sarcasm I assume...

You can grab M0 data from the Federal Reserve website each week which contains physical currency stats. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MBCURRCIR

It's interesting that whoever abducted him was willing to leave the friend. Among a corrupt government and an operation able to steal tens of millions of dollars, you would expect either to be ruthless in their cover up, if that's what this is.

It's too bad that we have become so complacent about the decreasing value of human life around the world. We need to collectively stand up and say that actions (and inactions) like this are unacceptable and worth interrupting business as usual.

It's not that we value human life less as a society in the West (if anything, we value it more). It's just that our political leaders think they can act with impunity.

That's why we need forceful action to disrupt the corrupt officials that have hegemony over our lives today.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The west definitely has a more stable political culture. If you were voted out of office but ordered the military to seize power you would be laughed at. But in other countries this may actually be taken seriously. But its just a matter of everyone's expectations. If everyone expects corrupt practices will be tolerated then you will quickly slip into the corrupt culture.

Trump is effectively inciting violent action among his supporters. And he's not even elected yet. I shudder to think what will happen to the rule of law in the United States.

On one hand, you quote:

>> The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

On the other, you say:

>> Trump is effectively inciting violent action among his supporters. And he's not even elected yet.

As if you wouldn't want the tree of liberty to be refreshed.

We can have Trump, who may destroy the economy of America, or we can have Hillary, who will destroy the whole world[1].

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hillary-is-the-c...

If this was slashdot in 2000, you'd be +5 (insightful).

Sixteen years later, on "Hacker" News, you're downvoted to a light grey. It's amazing how much the nerd/geek demographic has changed in one generation.

I hope for his sake he got a cut of the action and is sipping a drink on some beach somewhere.

I wonder who took him, ex-government employees, or the e-robbers themselves.

My bet is on the ex-government employees.

I would assume the current government may have a hand in it (they have been accused of similar things before)

Without knowing anything about the political situation in Bangladesh, I can say that the run-around that local police have given his family would fit the pattern that has followed extrajudicial detentions elsewhere. At best, he has been detained by the government, at worst he has been abducted/murdered with their tacit complicity, and at the least one of these is believed to be the case by local law-enforcement.

shame people dont have GPS built into them. ;( hope he is okay

He's dead. At least they didn't kill his family as well.

Strange that the family knows who he worked for, but would not say.

He's probably not coming back :-(

Doesn't really add to the conversation but it is the obvious conclusion. Bloggers that write about the Zetas, reporters who report on suspicious voting activity in Russia, and security professionals who call out the misdeeds of their government. The Internet makes it "easy" to be heard and "easy" to be found.

I am always curious about the difference between folks who just want to call out bad behavior and folks who want to correct it. Some people will not feel they are empowered to enact change, I think there are great counter examples to that feeling although I understand it.

For example, I used to follow Dancho Danchev who was publishing really actionable information about information security problems, I even created an "auto bad domain locator" tool from it. But then he stopped. His actions which merely noted the mechanics of what was going on, and sure sometimes called out bad ISPs, was useful to others in the community who were protecting their infrastructure.

Hong Kong bookstore owners

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35338484

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