DarkCyber for February 12, 2019, Now Available

DarkCyber for February 12, 2019, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://www.vimeo.com/316376994. The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold. It is the only weekly video news shows focusing on the Dark Web and lesser known Internet services.

This week’s story line up includes: Italy’s facial recognition system under fire; Marriott trains 500,000 employees to spot human traffickers; a new Dark Web search system from Portugal; and the most popular digital currencies on the hidden Web.

The first story explores the political criticism of Italy’s facial recognition system for law enforcement. The database of reference images contains about one third of Italy’s population. The system integrates with other biometric systems including the fingerprint recognition modules which is operating at several of Italy’s busiest airports. Despite the criticism, government authorities have no practical way to examine images for a match to a person of interest. DarkCyber believes image recognition is going to become more important and more widely used as its accuracy improves and costs come down.

The second story discusses Marriott Corporation’s two year training program. The hotel chain created information to help employees identify cues and signals of human trafficking. The instructional program also provides those attending with guidelines for taking appropriate action. Marriott has made the materials available to other groups. But bad actors have shifted their mode of operation to include short term rentals from Airbnb type vendors. Stephen E Arnold, producer of DarkCyber and author of “CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access, said: ”The anonymity of these types of temporary housing makes it easier for human traffickers to avoid detection. Prepaid credit cards, burner phones, and moving victims from property to property create an additional set of challenges for law enforcement"

The third story provides information about a new hidden Web indexing service. The vendor is Dogdaedis. The system uses “artificial intelligence” to index automatically the hidden services its crawler identifies. A number of companies are indexing and analyzing the Dark Web. Furthermore the number of Dark Web and hidden Web sites is decreasing due to increased pressure from law enforcement. Bad actors have adapted, shifting from traditional single point hidden Web sites to encrypted chat services.
The final story extracts from a Recorded Future report the most popular digital currencies on the Dark Web. Bitcoin is losing ground to Litecoin and Monero.

A new blog Dark Cyber Annex is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress. Cyber crime, Dark Web, and company profiles are now appearing on a daily basis.

About Stephen E Arnold

Stephen E Arnold is the author of “Dark Web Notebook” and “CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access.” This book describes some of the technologies used by GSR and Cambridge Analytica to acquire and analyze Facebook user data. He has been named as a technology adviser to the UK based Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Trafficking and Child Sex Abuse.” Mr. Arnold also lectures to law enforcement and intelligence professionals who will be attending major law enforcement and intelligence conferences and training programs. In recent months, he has shared his research with law enforcement and intelligence professionals in the US and Europe. His most recent lectures focus on deanonymizing chat and digital currency transactions and the use of smart software for law enforcement and intelligence applications. He publishes the free Web log “Beyond Search,” which is available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress.
 

Contact Information

Stuart Schram

Chief Technical Officer

Arnold Information Technology

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