DUMB CRIMINAL OF THE WEEK: STUPID HACKER
by Hazed
A hacker who was sentenced last year after trying to extort a million dollars from an accounting firm because he claimed he had stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns is back in the news because he has appealed against his four-year sentence.
But it’s not the wrangles over his sentence that concern me – it’s the story about how he was caught which makes him worthy of the “dumb criminal” label.
He tried to cover his tracks by using the Tor anonymity site when communicating about his hack, but that’s the only precaution he took to hide his identity. When he sent out USB drives to media outlets, the unallocated space on the drives contained text strings that included the phrases “5276 dolphin kathryn” and “4154 dolphin KnightMB.”
Google searches turned up an email address, knightmb@knightmb.dyns.org and further searches showed a 33-year-old from Tennessee called Michael Brown had posted online using the email.
Next, the Tennessee Department of Motor Vehicles provided his address, and confirmed that his wife’s name is Kathryn. He had also used the email address in his AT&T records, and posted YouTube videos of himself using the name “KnightMB”, and so on.
Not exactly anonymous! I am sure the police are always delighted when it turns out to be so easy to catch a criminal.
