# Does anyone know about cyber technology when it comes to writing?



## ironpony (Aug 1, 2015)

I have a story that deals with a criminal who will broadcast live videos on the web of his crimes, demanding ransom and if he doesn't get it, a hostage will be killed.  I want him to make the videos untraceable, but eventually he has to screw up, and the FBI can trace him the one time.

However, I don't anything of this type of field so I find it very difficult to write convincingly to the reader. Does anyone know anything more about those things, so I can explain the 'how' of it, since that is the one part missing from the who, what, where, etc?

Thanks for the input.


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## bazz cargo (Aug 2, 2015)

I would leave out the techy detail and just go for it.


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## Phil Istine (Aug 2, 2015)

I imagine that access to a series of proxy servers to hide IP address might do it (just a semi-educated guess as I'm not a techie) - but I wonder if getting too bogged down with technicalities might detract from the story.
Maybe he needs an accomplice who takes care of the technical stuff so that you might get away with details


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## Sam (Aug 2, 2015)

bazz cargo said:


> I would leave out the techy detail and just go for it.



It doesn't work like that. 

The key to this sort of plot arc is detail, and sacrificing detail because "the reader won't care" is a cop-out. A good writer researches and writes accurately regardless of whether the reader will or won't care. That doesn't mean a thesis on the workings of computers is required, but it does mean that you take pride in your craft and don't allow yourself the crutch of "it's only a book". 



			
				ironpony said:
			
		

> However, I don't anything of this type of field so I find it very  difficult to write convincingly to the reader. Does anyone know anything  more about those things, so I can explain the 'how' of it, since that  is the one part missing from the who, what, where, etc?



If I were writing this scene, I would have the kidnapper put the video on the Deep Web (AKA darknet). It can be eventually traced (as the FBI have done in real life) but it takes a lot longer than it would if your kidnapper opted for a standard browser and proxy combination. The reason why is because the information on the Deep Web is not indexed by standard search engines such as Google or Bing. One requires a special browser called TOR to access it, and The Onion Router is notoriously hard to crack. It uses about six thousand relays (A relay is basically a point where a signal is spoofed to. Think about five people standing in a circle and bouncing a laser beam off mirrors; each person is a relay that spoofs the beam, making it difficult to find out where the original source came from. Now think of six thousand people doing that.) to bounce the original signal all over the world, meaning that the FBI has to go through each one of those before they can trace the original signal. That could take anywhere between a few hours to days. 

His screw-up could be underestimating the FBI's trace window. 

Research makes this particular arc much easier to write.


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## Foxee (Aug 2, 2015)

Research ISIS, Wikileaks, and Anonymous.

Research the idea that laws haven't really caught up with cyber crime.

Bootleg TV shows are broadcast on YouTube though it's not allowed. There's a timeframe that people put them up anyway before they're stopped. Timing is important, your criminal would know this.

Tracing vids back to find identity follows a certain path. He has to overcome this.


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## patskywriter (Aug 2, 2015)

Deep Web?  o.o

Darknet?  o.o

You mean there's a secret side to the Internet? That sounds SO sinister. I had no idea!


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## DoubleFoxtrot (Aug 6, 2015)

Posting video and posting live video (real-time) anonymously are two different beasts. I will give you a few pointers on each scenario.

1) Posting a video clip right after it has been recorded is relatively easy to do without leaving traces of origin. Basically sanitize the video clip (remove all evidence of origin from the video file itself) and upload it to an anonymous board using TOR and that's pretty much it. It gets more complicated (of course), because setting up TOR to be safe against tracing is a tad more complicated than just downloading the software and starting to use it. Luckily, there are many details that can go wrong and leave the system vulnerable for FBI to find out. Using a 3rd party board where to post the video would leave the kidnapper prone to the same kind of attack the investigators used in real world to bring down one of the major TOR servers. When they could not trace the perpetrator, they instead left a modified virus on sites that were most likely to get a visit from only a small number of people - including the guy they were looking for. This modified virus (or actually, a browser exploit) would serve as a beacon to call home when detecting the presence of the TOR server.

2) Streaming live video is easy. Streaming it to a lot of watchers is really hard (and expensive). Streaming it anonymously to public is near impossibility. Realistically, this can only be done with a co-operating major player. Let's say the kidnapper is offering part of the money to an influential, well-known enemy state or organization. North-Korea, Russian oligarchs, ISIS, you name it. This organization would take the feed in real-time through a private VPN connection and broadcast it forward. In this scenario, the middleman will not be anonymous, nor is it required to be. VPN connections are pretty much unbreakable, if both endpoints of the connections are trusted.

In general, I would leave the nitty-gritty tech details as a side note - telling something about the kidnapper using a TOR browser, bounced through several VPN connections across the world, through countries that will not willingly give information to the feds. Instead, I would describe the operational security aspects - how he made sure to acquire a few non-traceable, stolen and scrubbed expendable laptops - how he borrowed a shared internet connection from people waiting for the bus - how he discarded the equipment safely etc.

And as always, remember there are three levels of security breaches - Sunday hackers, government organizations (like the police) and nations/armies. If your kidnapper would accidentally up the game from being a police matter to it being a matter of national security, the guns against him would be far more effective. Furthermore, if you don't know your tech and want the police to find out - why not just leave it to good old detective work and let the crypto side be left unsolved?


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## ironpony (Jan 10, 2016)

Yes that's what I want to do.  I want the crooks to be caught later in a different way, other than the videos being traced.  Cause the videos are uploaded right in the beginning of the story, where as I want them to be caught in the end, and by then, weeks of time will have gone by, the police will have to catch them by other means.

Is their a way that the videos cannot be traced at all, and the FBI will be helpless in doing so, that I could as an explanation?


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