Facebook's Street Gang Menace | Peter Thiel's Secret Cyberwarfare Investment | One Hacker Vs. North Korea

Plus: Cracking A $2 Million Crypto Wallet

Facebook may not be the hottest social media platform anymore, but it still has fans amongst America's street gangs, drug traffickers, cartels and the police who investigate them.

In June last year, the Drug Enforcement Agency said it had received some disturbing news from a cooperating witness: Some sensitive government “paperwork” on a drug trafficking investigation in West Virginia was being leaked, including confidential information previously provided by the witness, over Facebook. It later transpired that a Facebook user called Dashonna Farmer had been selling the files for between $3 and $5, investigators said. The government claims that Farmer had been getting the documents from another Facebook user, Maggie Smith, who had been charged with drug trafficking along with a dozen others earlier in the year, and it appeared she may have acquired the files from her lawyer as part of discovery in the drug trafficking investigation.

According to Facebook messages recovered by investigators, Smith told Farmer, “When I met with my lawyer she asked if I had a phone on me bc [because] I wasn’t supposed to have nothing while looking at the discovery but I had to.” They then exchanged images of the DEA’s intelligence reports and used the cooperating witness’s name frequently, according to the warrant, as the government raised concerns the information would be used for witness intimidation. (Neither Farmer nor Smith have filed pleas and they await jury trials. Forbes contacted their legal representation but had not received responses to requests for comment at the time of publication.)

The case is one of many reviewed by Forbes where gangs - whether they’re trafficking drugs, guns or people - continue to brazenly use Facebook, even though its Messenger app isn’t encrypted by default and police are well known to gather significant amounts of intelligence from Meta’s social networking giant. Indeed, current and former police officers say that gangs’ use of Facebook and other social media is a huge boon in identifying crew members.

Across various social sites, “these gang members are advertising, they're broadcasting what they do, and it's helping us with identifying them,” says David Auner, who oversees gang investigations at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

"Thank Christ for social media,” adds Daniel Linskey, a former superintendent-in-chief of the Boston Police Department and now a consultant at Kroll.  “From an investigative perspective, I'd like to see them up and running, because it's going to give me clues and evidence...From the chief of police perspective, if we could shut down some of the taunting and bullying and some of these feuds over Facebook, and other social media, that people feel they need to settle with a bullet, if we could prevent it, preventing it is always better than... investigating and responding to it.”

Even though police say they're not totally against gangs using social media, Facebook says it doesn't allow them on its platform and removes them where it's made aware of abuse.

You can read my story in full here on Forbes. And you can read the relevant search warrant in the Farmer case here.

If you have any tips on government surveillance, privacy or cybercrime, drop me an email on tbrewster@forbes.com or message me on Signal at +447782376697.

The Big Story

The Stories You Have To Read Today

NSO Group is in the news again with more stunning revelations in Israel, where it's been reported that targets of the malware included the family of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of protests organized by disability rights groups, amongst others.

The Wall Street Journal and its parent organization News International were hacked and reporters' data stolen, including Google Docs and emails. According to an analysis by cybersecurity experts, China is the likely culprit.

KP Snacks, one of the biggest suppliers of crisps to the U.K., was hit in a ransomware attack that could disrupt supply. It appears to be the work of hacker crew Conti.

Winner Of The Week

A mysterious American hacker going by the name of P4x took down North Korea's internet in revenge for attacks on his own personal computers. As Wired reports, "P4x says he's found numerous known but unpatched vulnerabilities in North Korean systems that have allowed him to singlehandedly launch 'denial-of-service' attacks on the servers and routers the country's few internet-connected networks depend on." His real identity remains a mystery, but he says someone has to stand up to North Korean aggression in cyberspace.

Loser Of The Week

Unfortunately, the loser this week is me. I had my Apple Pay wallet raided of funds in a hack that took advantage of weaknesses in the tap-and-go feature that allows for quick travel through ticket barriers, whether that's the London Underground or New York transit. Thankfully, the hacker in this case was a benevolent one who has been trying to show working exploits and warn people that if their devices (Samsungs included too) go missing, these attacks can steal as much money as is on an account. The only working fix is to not use the transport feature at all.