Russian Amateur 'Web Detective' Interviewed on Successes in FindingCriminals Material in the World News Connection is generally copyrighted by the source cited. Permission for use must be obtained from the copyright holder. Inquiries regarding use may be directed to NTIS, US Dept. of Commerce. In the United States everybody knows about people once they have broken the law. If a gently smiling neighbor has served a sentence for rape, people are immediately warned: Bear this in mind, be careful. In Russia there might be drug dealers living in the next-door apartment -- the entire apartment block will know about it, but the neighborhood policeman will not have a clue. Our agencies are not coping with hunting down criminals, and so officials from the central Interpol bureau requested assistance from World Wide Web usersbecause "in our time it is possibly much simpler in some cases to find a criminal on the Internet than in real life." The success of Roman Romachev, who found eight individuals in four hours, exceeded all expectations. The Web detective talked to Moskovskiy Komsomolets reporters about his know-how. [Goncharova] Roman, why did you respond to the appeal from the international police force? [Romachev] I decided that it was interesting and that I could be useful because I have been professionally involved in business intelligence on the Net for seven years now. In four hours on a popular social network I found eight individuals on the international wanted list being hunted not only by Interpol but also by the Republic of Kazakhstan Financial Police and the Republic of Belarus State Control Committee. [Goncharova] But it is possible to "encrypt" yourself, to post a fake photo... [Romachev] I found not fakes -- that is, people who register under assumed names -- but real people on the wanted list. There were very good-quality photographs of them on the social networking site -- unlike the ones posted on the Interpol website and other law-enforcement agencies' sites. They openly identify their friends and constantly visit the site without fear of the law-enforcement agencies. I made screenshots from which it was clear that, for example, they were either "visiting" the social networking site at that moment or had been there the previous day. That means, it is not difficult to find these people. [Goncharova] What did you do with this dossier? [Romachev] I decided to send it on to the proper destination -- to the Russian National Central Interpol Bureau. Thanks to my long-standing FSB [Federal Security Service] connections and personal acquaintanceship with some high-ranking Interpol officers I made direct contact with the leader of the department that handles people on the international wanted list and talked about the situation. Particularly about the people that I had found. To begin with his response shocked me: He said that they had no such criminals on their database. We agreed to meet, and the following day I went to the National Central Interpol Bureau. I telephoned downstairs. He confirmed that, yes, such people were on the database. [Goncharova] What kind of people are we talking about? [Romachev] There are two criminals who are being hunted by Costa Rica for committing a murder. There is Mariya Kortina, who is being pursued by Interpol for the illegal acquisition, storage, and manufacture of narcotic substances and at the same time is relaxing on a beach in Spain with her family. And Konstantin Perepyatenko, who is being sought by Interpol on suspicion of crimes against the person's life and health, is currently living in Germany. [Goncharova] Have they been arrested? [Romachev] No. The site indicates that Mariya is living in Spain; as she has Russian citizenship, the criminal should be extradited to our country. But this is not happening for some totally unconvincing reason. Perepyatenko, however, has dual citizenship, and in accordance with the law Germany is not obliged to extradite him; plus he has now been sentenced to one year there for causing grievous bodily harm. There is a complex system of interactions between countries. In Russia the question of extraditing individuals who have committed a crime is generally under the jurisdiction of the General Prosecutor's Office. All of this is clear and obvious, but I was struck by something else. That Interpol had absolutely no interest in the information that I had collected. They were not interested in the high-quality photographs. And the officials' tone was condescending: Leave us in peace, they said, this is of no interest to us [Goncharova] But are you not afraid? These are serious people, the international police are not pursuing them just for the fun of it. [Romachev] There are definite fears. So I am not identifying the pages of the two citizens who are being pursued for murder. [Goncharova] If you found eight individuals in only four hours, so why can police officers not cope with this task? [Romachev] Our agencies are still very badly equipped. Many people simply do not know how to utilize modern technologies. I fussed like an old hen over the dossiers that I had collected. In this connection all civil initiatives in Russia encounter bureaucratic obstacles and passivity on the part of representatives of the law-enforcement agencies. [Goncharova] Did you look only on one social networking site? [Romachev] Yes. On it the owners of pages indicate their age -- this is convenient: Birth dates are indicated in police files. Although I do not rule out the possibility that quite a few other people are to be found on other social networks that are more popular, incidentally. [Goncharova] You said that, in addition to the criminals that you found for Interpol, there were also criminals from Kazakhstan and Belarus. Are these states' law-enforcement agencies interested in their whereabouts? [Romachev] In Belarus futile attempts were made to get through on the phone and convey the information. I asked a journalist acquaintance to obtain an official comment -- she was directed to the press service, where the telephones remained silent. But in terms of Kazakhstan things worked out very productively, you might say. The people there were very interested in my information. They started to telephone regularly and consult about how to put together a request to the social networking site and how to track down lawbreakers through their IP address. The representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan Financial Police begged me not to name the criminals because detective measures are currently in place, and he also promised that in the future he will approach me for assistance in tracking down other violators. [Goncharova] Are volunteer assistants' efforts rewarded in some way? [Romachev] Not in Russia. But in the United States the FBI pays a bounty for hunting down a criminal. If you remember the old westerns in which a substantial sum is offered for a criminal's head and a posse hunts him down, the situation nowadays has virtually not changed -- it is a lucrative business. There is a list on the FBI website of who is on the wanted list and how much will be paid for finding him. The FSB announced a reward for information about the suicide terrorists who blew up the Moscow metro, but this was a one-off action and, to the best my knowledge, this money has not been paid to anybody. [Goncharova] Roman, do you intend to continue your "headhunting" in the future? [Romachev] Yes, this process has engrossed me very strongly. As the saying goes, "there is no such thing as a former [silovik]," and so, even on ceasing to serve in FSB agencies, I am continuing to stand guard over the economic security of the state, trying to protect entrepreneurs from relationships with fraudsters. In the West this business is very profitable because it is actively supported by the state. Some 70% of intelligence bureaus work for the state on an outsourcing basis.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Blabber is a godsend for Facebook
- I’ve been fired! – My friend Helen is crying on the phone. – For nothing!
- Is it really for nothing?
- The boss said that I’m wasting too much time in Facebook.
For not advanced users I’ll explain: Facebook is a social network, reminding a diary where you may take notes of everything that happens to you: some events, your impression… Your notes may be seen only by your friends – people whom you allow access to your notes.
I open Helen’s page and what do I see? Every hour and even more often,
the girl messages about everything that happens to her. She’s given a task to prepare a report – instead if doing that she is jotting in the Internet: “I was asked to write a report! Long and boring”. So, that not very hard for competitors to find out what is Helen’s department doing, the work schedule and, the most interesting thing, to learn staff characteristics first-hand.
Yet, Helen hit upon the idea of adding her immediate superior to a friend list! So she was pounding the keys of a typewriter and snitched on herself.
As revealed, not only Helen…
Excessive social activity in the World Wide Web may play a bad joke even with a successful career. Every third Russian firm has dealt with the information leak through the Internet (source: HeadHunter). Even though three of four companies have strict rules about confidential information. But how to refrain if Facebook and Twitter are “freezing” without news? (It is said that there is a Social Network addiction disorder – a person can’t take a step without informing the Internet about that momentous event!)
Besides losing the confidential information, superiors don’t like that employees are too busy with personal problems during the working hours, i.e., they are getting sloppy!
In 32% of organizations it is being watched intensely everything that goes out by e-mail or spread in social networks. Monitoring the employees’ blogs is provided in 24% of the organizations.
Theoretically, to leak information using work computer (or take it out on some other carrier) is not so easy. But when a person gets home, he or she may share thoughts in blog or a social network – and then the chances that the act will come unnoticed by his boss are increasing. Companies are becoming more and more afraid of putting some of their employees’ foot in their mouth.
- Social networks are good place for preliminary information gathering during business intelligence, - Roman Romachev, an expert, told “KP”. – There are no any graveyards, but it often becomes clear which side gets close. There are all conditions: more than a half of users are ready to write something about their job on the internet. For example, that a boss is not very good person. 30% of the respondents made a clear breast of making without any malice online notes containing inside information about their work. And women are more talkative – 37% of unauthorized information is spread by them.
And about 31% of workers are ready to snitch on their colleagues who lost their inhibitions.
The companies’ counterintelligence still lies behind in efficiency. Only 10% of organizations are applying educational measures to its too talkative employees.
But this is until the time comes… Dismissals of to talkative workers have already begun. Yet little by little – that’s not easy to find a corresponding article in a labor code. Further there will be more fun.
COMPETENTLY
“You can’t hide in the Internet”, - says Yuri Virovets, HeadHunter’s President.
- Social Networks made the idea of a private life very smashing. People often reveal some information about themselves which state and financial organizations are trying to conceal. And that’s the problem – many people feel the difference between their private and professional life with difficulty. When person’s thoughts, ideas, actions become well known to everybody, and to the company where he works as well, the consequences may vary a lot: it may be both an immediate career rise and a quick firing.
There is no any recipe how to make peace between career and being open in social networks. The main thing is to remember that in Internet information doesn’t disappear. And you can’t hide behind a tricky nickname – it is very easy to reveal the real author. Internet is a public place and it is necessary to behave there according to your status in real life.
BY THE WAY
Nude prevents career
- Social networks reveal a lot of information about private live of employees of an organization, - says Timur Iosebashvili, director of joblist.ru, a site for jobseekers. – One big financial company didn’t hire a department director because HR department had found in the Internet his beach photos. It should seem, what is the problem? But these photos may be seen by everybody. And it means that they may be seen by partners or clients and it will impact on the company’s image.
To lesser mortals the requirements aren’t so strict. It is unlikely that someone will fire an accountant because of his or her photo in a swimsuit or even without it in the Net.
There is a statistics in the USA – 70% of commercial secrets may be charmed out. Frequently with the help of the Internet. Employers block the access to such internet-messengers as ICQ, G-Talk, Jabber, Yahoo IM, social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Facebook) and blogs to protect themselves somehow. Expense to that it makes a success in reducing the amount of leakage. But it is usual for people to communicate with each other and job – is one of the most popular themes for a conversation. Whether it is in-personal meeting or Internet communication, any information or opinion that an individual has, may be revealed voluntarily or involuntarily. Information doesn’t dissolve in Net, but accumulates, so sooner or later it may come to competititves’ hands.
GOT CAUGHT
If you have a blog – close it!
Last summer, Marketing and Advertising Director of Don Plaza congress-hotel Ekaterina Serebryakova lost her job. PR specialist and a journalist from Rostov thinks that the cause of the firing was a criticism of company and directors expressed in her blog. Notably, it is not only a hotel that suffered because of her severe remarks but also a company working on improving the image of whole Rostov region.
And in UK at the end of January Katie Furlong, Royal Bank of Scotland’s ex-consultant on debts, lost 6 thousand pounds (approximately 300 thousand rubles) because of her excessive sociability. She fell under the planned job cut and was going to receive solid redundancy payment. And she didn’t delay to write about it in Facebook. When the Bank governance found out about that, Katie was fired for another reason – for violations of the secrecy declaration. And no relief was paid.
Due diligence for Russian IPOs (business intelligence in IPO risk analisys)
Dear colleagus.
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R-Techno’s specialists marked out from media reports 25 companies that are planning to enter IPO in 2011:
1. Nomos Bank
2. Rostelecom
3. Evroset
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6. Yandex
7. Digital Sky Technologies
8. JSC Freight One
9. Yug Rusi
10. KOKS Group
11. O’Key Group
12. Moscow Domodedovo Airport
13. Hydromashservice
14. Joint Stock Company Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant
15. Nord Gold
16. URALCHEM Holding P.L.C.
17. METALLOINVEST
18. OJSC Polyus Gold
19. Polymetall
20. UTV Media
21. Profile-Re
22. ProfMedia
23. EuroSibEnergo
24. PhosAgro
25. PJSC EnergoMashinostroitelny Alliance
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