Recently, Dark Web News published a story about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s very public Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (dubbed the J-CODE team), and their targeting of high profile vendors on darknet markets.
It’s unquestionably a politically charged initiative on the back of the Trump administration’s rhetoric which seems to consist of his left hand of being tough and hard on drug users, while using the right hand to tweet.
In a coordinated media effort, the FBI has released a video on YouTube seemingly in an attempt to both instil fear in all those that might be in their crosshairs, and satisfy those that crusade in the 40-year so-called “War on Drugs.”
The clip is relatively tame, showing the internals of a darknet market and the reviews left on a very popular vendor’s listing.
What’s more interesting in these types of videos is the window the audience briefly gets to see from the outside world into what’s beyond their narrative—right into their office.
Even if it is all for show, there are little things to notice here:
- An FBI Cyber Team Member Uses a 11” MacBook Air
From this information, simply the type of computer used, we immediately understand that this isn’t a run of the mill, stock standard team, issued with some enterprise Windows 7 box. These agents may get to select their own gear, or the FBI may trust Apple’s source code a little more than Microsoft.
What can we take away from this? We can take away that if the FBI cyber team puts their faith in a Mac, maybe we should too.
But wait, they are clearly running what appears to be a Windows 10 desktop? Yes, they are. And interestingly, it’s an unauthorized version.
We can see the unmistakable watermark of an unregistered Windows operating system in the bottom righthand corner of their screen.
- But, the Video Shows the Windows OS
Since it’s clearly a Windows operating system on Apple hardware, the agent is either dual booting the MacBook Air, or more likely, this person is running a virtual machine.
This, again, reveals an important piece of information to us, and something darknet market users need to take note of: running a virtual machine should be the minimum for accessing marketplaces. More secure would be booting an operating system like Tails from a USB, but it seems that the FBI is happy with the level of operational security a virtual machine, that is sandboxed from the rest of the computer’s file systems, provides them.
There is another element of trust which arises when using a virtual machine on a computer: the host computer does have the final say when it comes to the security of your virtual operating system since traffic passes through.
If the host system is compromised, so too can the virtual box. It isn’t failsafe. That’s why you’ll find that Tails is a very secure method of accessing the dark web and using darknet markets.
It appears as though the FBI team trusts Apple’s source code to a pretty high degree. But who knows whether the FBI has had access to Apple’s source code and have been able to perform their own audit.
They do have the ability to break Apple’s pretty reasonable encryption (insofar as massive consumer grade products go).
The Overall Message
The clip progresses to a bunch of heavily armed agents and officers from a variety of organizations, presumably to get a pretty clear message across. They are coming. We can deduct from this that they still see the War on Drugs as an actual war, as opposed to a societal issue not addressed.
It’s abundantly clear from multiple sources that addiction should not be a crime, nor does imprisonment treat issues.
Case in point is Portugal. They are a model of what the future should be. Freedom, choice, and safety.
Perhaps we’re reading into it all too much. It’s a short promotional clip. Perhaps it all is what it is and the short clip means very little.
Perhaps. But I guarantee that every piece of information the FBI and other investigatory organizations get their hands on is examined, twisted, hypothesized and stereotyped.
Every chunk of metadata is used and processed to profile their targets. Those of us who are not targets, who are law-abiding and reasonable, need to put the magnifying glass back to where it belongs: the government and all its arms and legs.
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