The Lawfare Podcast: Daniel Placek on Darkode
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2016
⏱️ 58 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Last week as part of the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center's conference on "The Frontiers of Cybersecurity Policy and Law," Daniel Placek, formerly one of the key figures behind the underground hacker website Darkode, offered an inside look into what led him to start the website, which Europol once called “the most prolific English-speaking cybercriminal forum to date.” In an interview with NPR News Correspondent Dina Temple-Raston, Placek describes the types of hacker tools once available for hire on the site, and describes what the future of the dark web looks like. He also discusses his cooperation with federal law enforcement officials in their efforts to take down the site. All in all, it’s an interview that shines a light into some of the darkest corners of the web and raises fundamental questions about how such places are policed.
It’s the Lawfare Podcast, Episode #157: Daniel Placek on Darkode.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | Getting that insight into somebody really truly trying, you know, |
| 0:35.0 | and perhaps succeeding to break in gives you some real scenarios on how could this actually happen, |
| 0:41.0 | instead of just guessing at it. |
| 0:45.0 | You know, it's funny to hear people talk about all these really advanced |
| 0:51.0 | exploitation techniques or advanced methods of breaking these networks. |
| 0:55.0 | It's been my experience, you know, being involved in this, |
| 0:59.0 | that the bulk majority of serious security compromises are actually laughably stupid. |
| 1:05.0 | They're really, really bad. I mean, bad passwords, ancient software, |
| 1:09.0 | you know, passwords reused in a thousand different places. |
| 1:13.0 | You know, it's in some cases a lot of these hacks are not as complicated as you think they would be. |
| 1:19.0 | And certainly like penetration testing and bug bounty type programs, |
| 1:23.0 | can really help you find a lot of that low hanging fruit very quickly. |
| 1:29.0 | But certainly some of the complex attacks too. |
| 1:33.0 | I'm Cody Poplin, and this is the LawFair podcast, February 13, 2016. |
| 1:39.0 | That was the voice of Daniel Placik that you just heard. |
| 1:41.0 | Formerly, one of the key figures behind the Underground Hacker website, Dark Code. |
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