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Black Hat 2013 - OPSEC Failures of Spies

HackersOnBoard · 229.2K views · 2013-11-20 · 25:11

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Overview

Matthew Cole's Black Hat 2013 talk on operational security failures by CIA operatives. It covers the Abu Omar case and how sloppy tradecraft with cell phones exposed officers through call records and metadata.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it as a compelling demonstration that metadata identifies people, and as a great watch on sloppy CIA tradecraft.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2014–2019

Topics

Security & hackingPrivacy, surveillance & cybercrime
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opsecmetadataciasurveillanceblack hat

What people said

_nullandnull_ · 2014-10 · Strong recommendation

> Call Detail Records Don’t Actually Identify People This is one of the best videos I have ever seen countering this argument. [VIDEO]

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guitarbill · 2019-08 · Recommendation

who could forget the Abu Omar Case, where the CIA kidnapped an individual in Milan. but they left evidence due to sloppy OPSEC. so we know for sure they used to do much worse. I guess most spying activities don't warrant such a detailed investigation though, so we never find out. the Black Hat 2013 talk on this is a great watch: [VIDEO]

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keehun · 2019-09 · Reference

What none of the privacy-related prose defense by Facebook addresses is the abundant value of the metadata that Facebook will be able to harvest. Check out what leaking even just the metadata can tell about you.[0] [0]: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by HackersOnBoard, played through YouTube.

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