Tag Archives: FBI

FBI and NSPCC Alarmed by “Shocking” Increase in Online Sextortion Cases Involving Children

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Tech firms like Snapchat and Facebook disclosed over 9,600 instances of adults grooming children online within a mere six months last year, averaging around 400 cases weekly.

Law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), are increasingly alarmed by the rising threats posed by various crimes targeting minors.

In 2023, the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) documented 546,000 reports concerning children from high-tech companies globally.

Of these, approximately 9,600 reports originated from the UK during the first half of 2024. Records indicate that Snapchat reported significantly more distressing content to NCMEC than any other platform during this timeframe.

The NSPCC, a child welfare charity, termed the statistic “shocking,” suggesting that it is likely an underrepresentation.


The NCA is launching an “unprecedented” campaign in the UK aimed at informing teachers, parents, and children about the perils of sexual exploitation.

The NCA emphasized: “Sextortion is a cruel crime that can lead to devastating outcomes for victims. Tragically, teenagers in the UK and worldwide have taken their lives as a result.”

NCMEC’s data is crucial as it is derived from reports submitted by online platforms and internet providers—such as Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok—rather than from victims, who may feel hesitant to disclose their abuse.

High-tech companies are mandated by U.S. law to report suspicious content to NCMEC. The data indicates that Snapchat reported around 20,000 instances of concerning materials in the first half of 2023, which included instances of sextortion and Child Sexual Abuse Materials.

This number surpasses the combined total of reports submitted by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Google, and Discord. Snapchat revised its policy on reporting such content last year, which is believed to have resulted in lower subsequent figures.

Rani Govender from NSPCC remarked that sextortion and other profit-driven sexual offenses have a profoundly “devastating” impact on young individuals, hindering their ability to seek help and, in some cases, leading to suicide.

NCMEC revealed that they are aware of “more than three dozen” teenage boys globally who have taken their lives after falling victim to sextortion since 2021.

Govender noted that some tech companies “misjudge the abuse occurring online” by implementing protections like end-to-end encryption.

In contrast to certain other platforms, Snapchat does not employ end-to-end encryption for text-based messaging.

Authorities are increasingly worried that predators are utilizing more sophisticated methods to target children online.

The Guardian has uncovered a 101-page manual that provides detailed instructions on how to exploit young internet users, including recommendations for effective mobile phones, encryption, apps, and manipulative tactics.

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This document instructs users on how to ensnare victims as “modern slaves” by obtaining explicit images, followed by coercive demands.

The guide is purportedly authored by a 20-year-old individual named Baron Martin from Arizona, USA. Arrested by the FBI in December, he refers to himself as the “king of terror.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Martin was a “catalyst for widespread control.”

Researchers report that the sextortion manual has been circulated among numerous “com networks”—an online community that promotes sadistic and misogynistic material while encouraging criminal behavior.

Milo Comerford, a strategic dialogue researcher at the ISD think tank, stated:

The FBI has pinpointed numerous online gangs collaborating to identify and exploit vulnerable victims, targeting them with compromising romantic interests.

These strategies are then used to blackmail victims, often resulting in further explicit imagery, self-harm, and other acts of violence and animal cruelty.

Comerford emphasized that “robust multi-agency” measures are urgently needed to raise awareness about the risks of sextortion among young people, parents, guardians, teachers, and others.

He added, “These transnational networks operate within a constantly shifting landscape of victims, groomers, and abusive entities utilizing social media platforms, sometimes leading to mass violence.”

Both Snapchat and Facebook have been requested to provide comments on this matter.

Source: www.theguardian.com

FBI arrests Wisconsin judge in immigration dispute during Trump Administration live update

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On March 11, approximately 50 judges gathered in Washington for a six-month meeting of the Judicial Council, which oversees the administration of federal courts. This meeting marked the first gathering since President Trump assumed office.

Discussions during the meeting focused on staffing levels, long-term planning, and the increasing threats to judges and their safety, according to attendees.

At one session, Judge Richard J. Sullivan, chairman of the conference’s Judicial Security Committee, raised concerns about potential threats to the safety of judges. He highlighted the authority that the US Marshals Service, overseen by the Justice Department, has in judicial security matters. Given the history of former officials like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton having their security stripped by Trump, Judge Sullivan wondered if federal judges could be the next target.

Judge Sullivan, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and later elevated to appeals judge by Trump, emphasized the importance of trusting the head of judicial security amidst uncertainties about potential threats to the federal bench.

While there is no evidence that Trump is considering revoking judges’ security, Judge Sullivan’s remarks highlighted the unease among judges about the agency responsible for their safety ultimately answering to the President through the Attorney General, without sufficient funding to address rising threats.

In a statement, the Marshall Services affirmed their commitment to following all legal orders from federal courts to ensure the protection of judges, jurors, and witnesses. However, concerns have been raised about the frozen court security funds at a time when threats to federal judges are on the rise.

Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., in a letter to Congress, expressed disappointment that court security funds remain stagnant despite the escalating threats. The total amount spent has seen minimal increase, despite inflation and higher staff salaries.

The former US S’s responsibilities have expanded to include protecting the Supreme Court’s residence in response to growing threats. Concerns about the oversight of Marshall Services have led some to propose transferring control of the agency to the judiciary for better protection of judges.

As the threats to judges continue to increase, some members of Congress are considering legislation to make judicial security more independent. The former US S’s response to court orders and the potential interference from political branches remain critical issues to address for the safety of judges.

Despite the challenges, efforts to reduce Marshall Services to increase efficiency may impact the agency’s ability to fulfill its crucial mission of protecting judges and upholding court orders.

Source: www.nytimes.com

TechScape: The Thriving World of Online Gambling Faces New Challenges as FBI Targets Market

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GMentioning presidential election results became legal in the United States in early October after being banned for decades, marking a new type of pre-election polling. Online prediction markets such as Calci and Polymarket accept billions of dollars in bets on the outcome, with users out of sync with mainstream polls that gave Donald Trump a 70% chance of winning over Kamala Harris. The Trump campaign touted this prediction.

Election gambling is legal in the UK, but takes a very different form. Traditional bookmakers and betting companies take players’ bets and set prices and odds. This betting is less similar to a prediction market than it is to horse racing. These markets are prone to their own scandals. Kalshi and Polymarket offer a vision of online gambling that covers a wider range of themes, is algorithmically priced, and relies on cryptocurrencies.

Now, Kalsi is riding the wave of these accurate predictions, gaining millions of new users and billions of dollars in trade value, expanding the scope of what users can bet on. Polymarket has courted political influencers like Nate Silver and ZeroHedge to ask questions that users can bet on. Robinhood and DraftKings also intend to throw themselves into the political gambling ring. Will every public event soon have billions of dollars in online wagers? Will the Oscars become a new type of speculative financial market? Would you bet your life’s savings on whether the price of eggs will rise in the first month of President Trump’s inauguration? This is a real bet you can place on Karsi.

Callum Jones of the Guardian reports:

“We are just getting started,” said Tarek Mansour, CEO of Karshi. Kalsi is adding “nearly 100” new markets to its platform every day, and is based on combinations that allow users to bet on a bunch of different outcomes or conditional markets (e.g. “What will happen to GDP if Trump wins?”) We plan to launch a market for ) within a few weeks. “I think it will accelerate from here…”

For Karshi, the only things off-limits are “terrorism, assassinations, and violence.” What about Ukraine? Although the conflict falls under the platform’s banned category, the Russian invasion and subsequent war have certainly moved stocks and products since February 2022. “Time will tell,” Mansour said.

That’s great news for Kalsi. The polymarket is making the post-election party much quieter. Last Wednesday, the FBI searched the Manhattan home of gambling market founder Shane Coplan, 26, and seized his cell phone and other electronic devices. The company quickly blamed the 6 a.m. attack on “clear political retaliation by the outgoing government.”

However, Bloomberg reported: The US Department of Justice is investigating The company is suspected of accepting transactions from users in the United States, but has been prohibited from doing so since a settlement agreement with regulators in 2022. However, users of the site have done their best to circumvent geofencing using virtual private networks. Two weeks ago, Polymarket announced that it would soon resume operations in the United States. With an active FBI investigation looming over the company, it’s hard to imagine it will reopen. Fortune also reported on another type of illegal market manipulation: “wash trading.” It is said to have been proliferated on the site..

France is also grappling with the effects of the polymarket. A French man with the username “Theo” made the site’s most famous bet. It was a bet of around $30 million (about £23.7 million) that Trump would win the US election. Do such huge bets amount to foreign election interference? Mr Teo’s bet is similar to that of Peter Thiel, the US entrepreneur who made an unexpected early bet against Mr Trump in the 2016 election. It is similar to the polymarket itself supported by

France’s gambling regulator is currently investigating the site for market manipulation. Cryptocurrency industry publications It was reported that the country is considering banning it. In response, Polymarket said it saw no evidence of market manipulation.

Can Trump and Elon Musk weaponize the US? Internet and satellite regulator?

Donald Trump and Elon Musk attended a UFC event at Madison Square Garden in New York over the weekend. Photo: Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Late Sunday, President Trump announced his nomination of Brendan Carr to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). A conservative committee member wrote: Chapter on the future of the FCC He joined Project 2025, the second Trump administration’s infamous far-right strategy, and was the only current government official to do so. Mr. Carr’s views on the U.S. technology sector are largely in line with those of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. In recent months, they have collectively criticized broadcast television networks and public broadcasters.

Rather than be bound by exclusive practices, Kerr said, “censorship cartel” He believes that statements from big tech companies are stifling conservative speech. Google is already reeling from losing an antitrust case against the United States, and with President Trump slamming Google in his campaign speech, it could be a big loser in the next administration. Carr also supports banning TikTok due to its alleged national security threat.

Mr. Carr’s agency could become a political bludgeon for President Trump in his personal vendetta against technology companies. He is a friend of the telecommunications industry and an enemy of Silicon Valley’s big tech companies. He applied a hands-off approach to internet service providers, dismantling consumer protections that benefit the industry’s largest incumbents, and then sacrificing consistency in favor of political expediency, including Google and Facebook. Will it apply oversight and strict powers to things like that?

“Brendan Kerr campaigned for this job promising to be at the mercy of Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” said Co-CEO of left-wing media advocacy group Free Press Action. says Craig Aaron. “Kerr doesn’t care about protecting the public interest. He took this job to carry out a personal vendetta against Trump and Musk.”

Mr. Kerr also could turn the FCC into a commercial weapon against his billionaire tech rivals, “First Buddies,” as Mr. Musk himself christened them. The main beneficiary of the commissioner’s appointment is likely to be Musk’s SpaceX, whose satellites and the internet services it provides fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC. In his Project 2025 proposal to the FCC, Carr emphasizes the priority of “advancing America’s space leadership.” He cited Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet company, and said his agency would adopt the friendliest possible regulatory stance on the company’s launch schedule.

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Please lock your phone

“As a company, we are not anti-technology”…Yondr cell phone pouch. Photo: Public relations company handout

When everyone else is digging for gold, sell shovels. A company called Yondr discovered this. The brand saw a market opportunity as schools around the world implemented No Phone Days and governments debated whether children should be banned from using social media altogether. Founded in 2013, Yondr was one of the first companies to create a lockable phone pouch that allows students (and others) to isolate their devices. CEO Graham Dugoni told the Guardian that 1 million students across 35 countries use Yondr pouches every day.

Dugoni said his company sees a spike in business when principals, school districts and states implement no-phone policies. However, he was hesitant to use the word “ban” when referring to the school’s policy on phone use. “No one has done anything wrong, and we are not anti-technology as a company… rather, it’s about how we constructively interact with these tools in the future.”

Dugoni doesn’t want to ban smartphones, he wants people to live in harmony with them, but he uses a flip phone and doesn’t control any of his or his company’s social media profiles. . “Creating a phone-free space is a positive step forward. We’re not trying to take anything away or pull us back into the world of the past. In doing so, we’re creating a fundamentally new and no-one They create a framework and social etiquette around what they are trying to understand about the possibilities and possibilities of the Internet.”

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Small aircraft are used to protect humans and livestock from predators. Photo: Wesley Sarmento/Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks

Source: www.theguardian.com

FBI Director Warns of Chinese Hacking Threat to US Infrastructure Following Blockade of Bolt Typhoon Botnet

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U.S. officials claim to have stopped an attempt by China to plant malware that could potentially damage civilian infrastructure. If the U.S. and China were to go to war, officials warn that Beijing could disrupt the daily life of U.S. citizens. The FBI director issued this warning, stating that he was in a position to carry out such disruptions.

The operation resulted in the destruction of a botnet comprised of hundreds of small office and home routers located in the U.S. that had been hijacked by Chinese hackers in order to hide their tracks with malware. The operation was successful in accomplishing this.

U.S. officials said that the ultimate targets of the attackers included water treatment plants, power grids, and transportation systems in the United States.

These claims align with assessments made by external cybersecurity companies like Microsoft. In May, Microsoft revealed that state-sponsored Chinese hackers had been targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, laying the technological groundwork for potentially disrupting vital communications between the U.S. and Asia during future crises.

Some of the operation, attributed to a group of hackers known as Bolt Typhoon, was halted after the FBI and Justice Department officials obtained a search and seizure order in a Houston federal court in December. U.S. authorities have not disclosed the impact of the disruption, stating that the disrupted botnet was merely “a form of infrastructure used by Bolt Typhoon to obfuscate its activities.” The hackers concealed their actions within normal web traffic and infiltrated their targets through multiple channels, including cloud and internet providers.

FBI Director Chris Wray expressed concern that not enough public attention is being paid to cyber threats that affect “all Americans.” He made this statement before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, echoed similar sentiments during the hearing, emphasizing that China’s cyber threats endanger the lives of Americans at home through disrupted pipelines, telecommunications, contaminated water facilities, and crippled transportation systems, with the goal of inciting social panic and chaos.

The United States has become more aggressive in recent years in its efforts to disrupt and dismantle both criminal and state-sponsored cyber operations. Wray also warned that Chinese government-backed hackers were aiming to steal trade secrets and personal information and influence foreign countries to ultimately supplant the United States as the world’s biggest superpower.

State-sponsored hackers, particularly those from China and Russia, are adept at adapting and finding new infiltration methods and routes, further complicating the threat.

U.S. authorities have long been worried about such hackers lurking in U.S. infrastructure. The older routers used by the Bolt Typhoon group were no longer receiving security updates from their manufacturers, making them easy targets for cyber attacks. Due to the urgency of the situation, U.S. cyber operators removed the malware from these routers without directly notifying their owners and added code to prevent reinfection.

According to Easterly, Chinese cyber attackers took advantage of a fundamental technological flaw in the U.S. that made it easy for them to carry out their attacks. U.S. officials stated that allies were also affected by the Bolt Typhoon hack of critical infrastructure, but they declined to disclose potential actions they might take in response to the attack.

China has repeatedly dismissed the U.S. government’s hacking allegations as baseless, claiming instead that the U.S. is the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks. However, outgoing US Cyber ​​Command and National Security Agency head Gen. Paul Nakasone stated that “responsible cyber attackers” were not targeting civilian infrastructure and had no reason to do so.

Source: www.theguardian.com

FBI Probes Falsified Tweets Creating Artificial Rise in Bitcoin Investment Fund Prices

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Wednesday that it is working with the FBI to investigate fake messages posted to the X social media account.

On Tuesday, hackers posted false news about an incident. A widely anticipated announcement SEC expected to announce on Bitcoin, leading the crypto world soaring prices and wary observers. An SEC spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian in a statement that the fraudulent posts to the @SECGov account were “not initiated or created by the SEC.”

“The SEC continues to investigate this matter and is coordinating with appropriate law enforcement agencies, including the SEC Office of Inspector General and the FBI,” the spokesperson said. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

X confirmed late Tuesday, following a preliminary investigation, that the SEC's account was compromised when an unidentified person gained control through a third party and via a phone number associated with the account.

An erroneous post on @SECGov said securities regulators had approved holding Bitcoin in exchange-traded funds. The widely anticipated move was expected to bring Bitcoin more mainstream integration and encourage investment – and the initial SEC tweet sent Bitcoin's price soaring nearly $48,000.

The SEC removed the post about 30 minutes after it was posted, and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said: Confirmed In a post shortly after, it said the agency's account had been compromised and the tweet was “fraudulent.” “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange products,” he said.

But on Wednesday, the S.E.C. Approving 11 Spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds. This approval is a game-changer for Bitcoin, allowing institutional and retail investors to gain exposure to the world's largest cryptocurrency without directly owning Bitcoin, allowing FTX CEO Sam's massive This is a major boost for the cryptocurrency industry, which has been plagued by a series of scandals, including trials and convictions. Money laundering between Bankman Freed and cryptocurrency giant Binance.

“Retail investors seeking exposure to Bitcoin now have easier and more direct access to their assets through many top financial institutions,” said Digital Commerce, a cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy organization. said Perianne Bowling, founder and CEO of the Chamber. “This alone is a transformational event for hundreds of millions of investors and the Bitcoin community.”

Reuters contributed to this article

Source: www.theguardian.com