Mafia Boss Using Crook Crypto Captured 378
boggis writes "Discovery is running a story on Bernardo Provenzano, the recently arrested 'boss of bosses' of the Sicilian Mafia. He apparently wrote notes to his henchmen using a modified form of the Caesar Cipher, which was easily cracked by the police and resulted in further arrests of collaborators. Discovery's cryptography expert describes it as a code that 'will keep your kid sister out'."
If only.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, now if you want to do secure pencil and paper ciphers here's how you do it.
Self-shrinking generators are broken but the best attack requires an insane amount of plain-text. Far, far, more than you could ever generate by hand. If Mr Mafia had used this instead of a crappy cipher from two thousand years ago then he might not have been caught.
Throughout history lives have literally depended on the strength of the cryptography people have deployed. I find it exciting that these times are still with us and are not mearly confined to the history books.
Simon
He should've at least read (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If only.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Showing your hand: word to the wise-guys (Score:3, Interesting)
There was an American mobster a few years ago who did something using PGP, and the only way the FBI were able to crack it was to bug his keyboard http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/06/mafia_tria l_to_test_fbi/ [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Not very smart (Score:4, Interesting)
Or the godfather just wanted to play it old school all the way thinking it was the way to go. But then again, he lived in a stable.
Wouldn't have helped in this case anyways... (Score:3, Interesting)
Had he used a more secure algorithm, such as the one described, he would have needed to have kept the key (the appropriately shuffled deck of cards) somewhere, which police would just as easily have found at his home. Or we would have needed to remember the 108 bit number in his head, but somehow I doubt he would have gone through such length. He was a mafioso, not a memory genius.
Re:If only.. (Score:3, Interesting)
What they need to do is fire up a dubbie and get one of these [lavarnd.org].
Crude, maybe, but dumb, no way (Score:5, Interesting)
The coded notes are more likely have been intended to prevent his fellow mafiosi from getting too close and knowing too much. There was nothing dumb about this man's rule as a godfather. He evaded capture for forty years, rebuilt the organization after the disasters of the Riina years, retained power by remaining as invisible to his fellow mobsters as he was to the authorities, and simply survived into his 70s in a "profession" in which many are lucky to reach their thirties.
Yes, it's good news that another gruesome killer is behind bars. But the more worrying question is why the godfather found it unnecessary to take more stringent precautions, suggesting that clearing out the Mafia-infested lands of Western Sicily and the corruption-prone "public works" economy still has a very long way to go. It's going to take more than a few smart remarks about cryptography to do that.
Re:If only.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't have helped in this case anyways... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the police aren't looking for something like a deck-of-cards-as-key, then they won't find the key, all they'll find is a deck of cards.
I only say this because I recall reading an article some years back about drug dealers storing their business information on USB thumbdrives & wearing them as necklaces or on keychains. The police would arrest the dealer, but since the police didn't know what they had, the thumbdrive was treated as any other possesion & sealed up till the dealer was released.
You're still hiding your 'key', you're just hiding it in plain site & hoping no one sees it for what it is.
IT Consultant (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I'm surprised that someone who's responsible for moving around millions, or even perhaps billions, of dollars of ill-gotten gain won't spend $250K a year on a team of competent IT consultants. I wouldn't think it'd be too hard to find a bent IT guy to give advice on security, encryption, what can be recovered from a hard drive etc. Either they think they're too smart to be caught this way, or they think the cops are too dumb to break their encryption, or they just haven't modernized their business practices because they think the old ways still work.
Interestingly, by all accounts Al Queda is much more technically savvy.
Re:Most interesting part... (Score:5, Interesting)
For this, I turn to the advise of Mark Twain:
He is completely correct - there's no need for letters if they sound like others. Bekause of this, I suggest that we should follow in his footsteps.
Re:If only.. (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the decoy messages, they might be a good way to present disinformation, but you still need to face the fact that the real message has been read by the enemy. If he has to carefully watch two gates on 4 nights, you've still lost the advantage of surprise.
And what offer was that? (Score:2, Interesting)
I made him an offer he couldnot refuse.
wow.That missing space almost threw me off.
Hey this ain't no ROT, you cheat.
Helful links:
http://www.infoplease.com/applets/xwordsearch.php [infoplease.com]
http://www.fizzl.net/projects/crypto/ [fizzl.net]
http://www.mcld.co.uk/decipher/ [mcld.co.uk]
Re:Thought they always were spoke in vague terms (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're interested in this kind of thing- or just looking for a good read- try picking up Excellent Cadavers. It's the story of two Italian judges who finally tire of the fear, the silence, and the corruption, and take on the Mafia; the article makes reference to this guy being involved in the murders of two judges and I assume that's who they're referring to. It's one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read- it really gets into the characters but also gets into the social underpinnings and economics of the Mafia. It's a tragic book because the judges end up assassinated, but it's also really inspiring because they refuse to back down, they refuse to compromise, and at the price of their lives they dealt a crippling blow to the Sicilian Mafia.