This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Lots of conjecture in the comments about how he got caught. Too bad nobody read the article.
Web-based generative AI tools/chatbots
...
he created fake AI CSAM—but using imagery of real kids.
All the privacy apps in the world won't save you if you're uploading pics to a cloud service.
And...that's still not how he got caught. He hit a child porn honey pot and they got his IP.
I would have assumed all his AI work was local on his own server.
Fuck this human
Tldr; Asshole used encrypted everything and Tor to create and spread csam. Government isn't disclosing how they caught him
He didn’t use encrypted everything. He had a public telegram group chat in which he stored a lot of his material. Which, as many people in the comments on the article pointed out, is not encrypted, but is presented by telegram as if it is. That’s likely how they caught him.
Neither Tor nor end-to-end encrypted messengers will cover the endpoints. It's possible that they caught him using good old fashioned detective work. You don't need a software back door for that.
If you distribute encrypted materials you also need to distribute a means of decryption. I'm willing to bet a honeypot was used to trick him into distributing his csam right to the government hinself.
True. Or it could have been a backdoor in his phone, or the full running browser in his sim card, or the backdoor into his CPU chips... Maybe they do old fashioned police work for these cases and only use the pegasus spyware for others?
Pretty silly to do anything illegal on a computer when we know how flawed they are, imo
Hey, could I get some info on the
Full running browser in his SIM card
Thing?
I'm quite curious and haven't been able of finding anything on the internet about it
It's better they don't disclose it and catch more people doing the same.
I'm all for transparency but if that means less caught child molesters, I'm ok with a little obfuscation, even from the fucking pigs.
Does this go to show that authorities needing backdoors to everything in order to do their jobs is actually kind of nonsense?
The article is exaggerating the guy's setup way too much. Opsec doesn't end at the application level... The OS (the most popular being in bed with US), ISP, tor nodes, Honeypot VPNs, so on and so on could leave a trail.
Using telegram public groups and obfuscating a calculator as a password protection layer is hillbilly level of security.
And i'm glad these fuckos don't have the knowledge to go beyond App developers marketing.
Yeah, it does. Perfect opsec is impossible even with encryption.
Heard about a guy doing insane opsec when selling on the dark web (darknet diaries podcast).
In the end he got busted because a trusted member if his operation got lazy and ignored his rules
Edit: This guy was essentially
Leeching internet via a directional antenna from a neighbour that was significantly away
Not allowing any visitor in with a cell. You had to keep it outside
All drug related actions are done in a cleaned down room.
Tripple sealing dark marketplace orders, wiping everything down with corrosive fluids to destroy any sort of dna material
Not going to the same post office in (I believe 6 months) and only sending of 3-6 shipments at once
I hope I got it correctly. Please go listen to the episode: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/132/
Reminds me of the lulzsec leader dude who exposed himself by logging into IRC once without tor on.
Then he folded instantly and became an informant for the FBI to stay out of jail lol.
In the end its really about tradeoffs. You can't be an expert in everything so you need a team if you want to do anything big, but Cyber criminals are still criminals. They don't trust each other which is what ultimately leads to their downfall even if they do all the implementation and tech part right.
Some German guy got got for logging into IRC via encrypted wifi, the cops did some war driving and correlated timing of traffic spikes with IRC messages until they had a profile with better hit probability than a DNA match.
The best thing about that? They didn't even need a search warrant as our genius was broadcasting the side-channel to the whole neighbourhood.
It seems irrelevant whether this person is using encrypted channels if they failed to maintain anonymity. If they distributed material and leaked any identifying info (e.g. IP address), then it would be trivial for investigators or CIs to track them down.
In the list of apps he was using I don't see any mention of a VPN. How much you want to bet he raw dogged it with encrypted apps over the clearnet so it was trivial to leak his real IP address
He posted the AI filth to a "public server", so I'm willing to bet his plan was just full of holes. I don't mind pedos getting taken down, buy I do mind encrypted software being owned by the government - any government.
It sounds like he created material, not only AI but actual children then distributed it. The tools to track down the creators of CASM is only getting better.
A single legal image of any of those children posted to social media is going to allow algorithms to make the match and its routine detective work from there.
It only takes one child to talk. No amount of encryption is going to stop that.
It's all publicly approved backdoors until feds are planting child abuse imagery on your PC because you spoke out against them in the wring venue. No one will believe you when they do. Currently you can't trust articles like this, maybe the dude was actually hurting kids. Maybe the feds just needed a win. You won't ever know, and neither will I so long as the same ideology is in control. Now watch them turn every single kid in the pics into a sex offender because the fed believes if you were raped, you WILL rape someone in the future. But by all means keep enjoying their rage bait.
The replies to your comment glow so bright
The Ars article seems to suggest that they were able to crack his phones pretty easily, which is a bit scary. I don't see anything about a computer.
Although it doesn't appear he was actually using any encryption apps to store material; rather, he used a fake calculator app as password protection. Obviously not the brightest bulb in the drawer.
The Ars article seems to suggest that they were able to crack his phones pretty easily
Android uses data at rest encryption, which isn't really useful without a lockscreen PIN/password since data gets decrypted after you unlock your screen the first time after each boot
Although it doesn't appear he was actually using any encryption apps to store material; rather, he used a fake calculator app as password protection. Obviously not the brightest bulb in the drawer.
Agreed, he probably felt safe enough "hiding" the files. Definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed, which is great because fuck this guy
The material was allegedly stored behind password protection on his phone(s) but also on Mega and on Telegram, where Herrera is said to have "created his own public Telegram group to store his CSAM." He also joined "multiple CSAM-related Enigma groups" and frequented dark websites with taglines like "The Only Child Porn Site you need!"
My guess would honestly be Telegram. For starters, they aren't end-to-end encrypted by default, you have to turn it on. The only end-to-end encryption that Telegram offers is their "secret chats" which are only available between two users. Groups are not encrypted.
So telegram's delusional propaganda did something good for once?
This whole thing is horrifying, but the last paragraph is especially disturbing:
Since Herrera himself has a young daughter, and since there are "six children living within his fourplex alone" on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the government has asked a judge not to release Herrera on bail before his trial.
Even more disturbing is it said he was also producing content.
Prison is too good for anyone who keeps child sex abuse images.
Maybe you should research a bit on how child abusers are treated in prison.
