General Principles of Safe Communication Online
This is the first chapter, and it will contain introductory material aimed at engaging you with the issue of safe communication. I will start this chapter with a story about an arrested hacker.
It Was More Convenient This Way
Once, law enforcement officers managed to catch a hacker who was stealing money by canceling bank transfers. The essence of the criminal scheme was as follows: a transfer was made to a bank card, withdrawn, immediately canceled, and due to a vulnerability in the system, returned to the sender. As a result, the money was doubled, leading to the illegal enrichment of the criminals.
To carry out such operations, the hacker required a large number of people: programmers who developed the technical part, and so-called cash-out specialists – individuals who withdrew funds from bank cards. There were also sellers of bank cards to which money was then transferred, and so-called couriers who collected funds from cash-out specialists and bought cryptocurrency for the hacker.
And then the hacker was caught. He was a true professional and had devised a complex scheme to exploit a vulnerability in the banking system, but, firstly, he did not encrypt the hard drive of his laptop, and secondly, he saved ALL correspondence from two years of preparation and "work." This correspondence ultimately became his ticket to prison, although he stubbornly tried to prove in court that it did not belong to him.
However, forensic experts lifted fingerprints from the keyboard and the laptop casing, which became the main evidence of the computer's ownership. The cherry on top was the password that contained his date of birth, reinforcing the prosecution's confidence.
At one of the investigative events, the investigator asked the hacker: "How could this happen? Such an outstanding professional, stole millions, knew that they would be looking for him, and all the correspondence was so easily found? Why did you keep it?" To which the hacker simply replied: "It was more convenient this way."
And indeed, it is convenient when all your correspondence is at your fingertips and readily available upon opening your laptop. When, after installing a messenger on a new device, the correspondence automatically loads from the server. When one messenger is installed on all devices, and you can reply wherever it is convenient.
But here’s the problem: if your security is important, you should store only the minimum necessary information, even if you are not a hacker and the banking system interests you only as a customer.