EncroChat messages reveal at least ten cases of ‘bent coppers’ leaking info

DutchNews, September 17, 2020 

The investigation into millions of messages between criminals via encrypted service provider EncroChat has also yielded proof of police corruption and a special team has been tasked with the prosecution of the officers involved, police havesaid. 

Officials have not yet said how many police officers are involved and at what level, but at least two have been arrested following the EncroChat operation. 

Sources cited by the Telegraaf  say 10 serious cases involving the leak of information to criminals are currently being investigated. The search also yielded information about a network of lawyers, real estate brokers and notaries whose services helped criminals launder money, they said. 

Police did confirm information had been leaked to criminals but would not say more for operational reasons.  The sheer volume of messages – over 20 million – that have to be followed up must be dealt with meticulously to avoid false claims of corruption, police said. 

However, the first signs are serious enough to warrant a special team, police chief Henk van Essen said. ‘We have started a number of prosecutions and more will follow. The information on drug deals and money laundering as well as the corruption in the force have been given the highest priority.’ 

Van Essen said that there have always been ‘bent coppers’ but the fact that their number is increasing is worrying. 

‘A policeman can become corrupt through blackmail but can also simply be bought,’ Van Essen said. ‘Information is a goldmine for criminals. It can be anything from information on current investigations and people to addresses and cars. They are always on the lookout for people with access to this type of information, not only in the force but in companies as well.’ 

Software to flag up suspicious search behaviour by officers will be introduced next year, Van Essen said. ‘But we don’t want to check each and every email or app. We want a system built on trust but we must be realistic. There is corruption and we want to stamp it out. And an operation like EncroChat shows that no one is beyond the reach of the law.’

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EU adopts powers to respond to cyberattacks

Yahoo – AFP, Lachlan CARMICHAEL, May 17, 2019

EU ministers said the 28-nation group would, for the first time, be able to impose
asset freezes and travel bans on individuals, firms and state bodies implicated
in cyberattacks (AFP Photo/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union on Friday adopted powers to punish those outside the bloc who launch cyberattacks that cripple hospitals and banks, sway elections and steal company secrets or funds.

EU ministers meeting in Brussels said the 28-nation group would now, for the first time, be able to impose asset freezes and travel bans on individuals, firms and state bodies implicated in such attacks.

"The Council (of EU countries) established a framework which allows the EU to impose targeted restrictive measures to deter and respond to cyberattacks," it said in a statement.

It added that sanctions will be considered if a cyberattack is determined to have had a "significant impact" on its target.

The goal is to bolster the security of EU institutions, firms and individuals against what Britain called an increase in the "scale and severity" of cyberattacks globally.

"This is decisive action to deter future cyberattacks," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said after Britain and its EU partners drafted the measures.

"For too long now, hostile actors have been threatening the EU’s security through disrupting critical infrastructure, attempts to undermine democracy and stealing commercial secrets and money running to billions of euros," Hunt said.

"Our message to governments, regimes and criminal gangs prepared to carry out cyberattacks is clear," Britain's top diplomat added.

"Together, the international community will take all necessary steps to uphold the rule of law and the rules based international system which keeps our societies safe.”

The British government has pledged to continue close cooperation with the EU after it leaves the bloc in line with the 2016 referendum.

'Big step forward'

Under the sanctions regime, diplomats said, the 28 EU countries would have to vote unanimously to impose sanctions after meeting a legal threshold of significant impact.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured April 2019) said that "the international 

community will take all necessary steps to uphold the rule of law" (AFP Photo/Daniel 

LEAL-OLIVAS)

For example, countries would look at the scope and severity of disruption to economic and other activities, essential services, critical state functions, public order or public safety, diplomats said.

They would examine the number of people and EU countries affected and determine how much money, intellectual property and data have been stolen.

EU diplomats told reporters it could also cover the hacking of European elections by a third party or country. Elections for a new European Parliament take place May 23-26.

In line with US intelligence assessments, EU officials highlight in particular the threat of disinformation and election hacking from Russia.

EU countries would also study how much the perpetrator has gained through such action.

A Dutch diplomat told reporters that the powers amount to a "big step forward" toward building a more secure cyberspace.

European leaders in October had called for a regime to impose sanctions against cyberattacks.

US and European police said Thursday they have smashed a huge international cybercrime network that used Russian malware to steal 100 million dollars from tens of thousands of victims worldwide.

EU diplomats said the bloc will now start drawing up a blacklist for potential sanctions in cyberattack cases.

A number of powerful people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin appear on a blacklist of 164 Russians and Ukrainians that was established after Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Those blacklisted are under travel bans and asset freezes just like those that would be imposed on those implicated in cyberattacks.

Probe after 117,000 job seekers’ CVs are skimmed from UWV website

DutchNews, May 6, 2019

An investigation has been ordered after 100,000 CVs have been illegally downloaded from the website of the employees’ insurance agency UWV. 

Social affairs minister Wouter Koolmees said the 117,000 resumes had been accessed over a period of two weeks from the website werk.nl using the account of a UWV staff member. The employee in question claimed to have been unaware of the activity. 

The national cybersecurity centre NCSC and the privacy watchdog Autoriteit Persoonsgevevens have been informed and the incident has been reported to the police. All those involved have been contacted by the UWV to warn them to watch out for phishing scams and other online fraud. 

IT experts said the episode highlighted weak security at the UWV, which uses the werk.nl website to share the CVs of jobseekers with employers. Jobseekers have the option of uploading ‘open’ CVs, which are freely available, or ‘closed’, meaning they are available on request.

‘Every company that has an account with werk.nl can see job seekers’ details,’ René Veldwijk told Trouw. ‘All that’s happened now is that somebody spent two weeks trawling al those details with a computer programme. It could be criminals, but it could also be a company that wants to use the data to connect job seekers with employees.’ 

He added: ‘The fact that it took two weeks for the UWV to notice that so many CVs were being downloaded shows they’re not looking out for it properly. It was all done through one account. If the perpetrators had been a bit more professional in their approach and used several accounts, the UWV probably still wouldn’t have noticed anything.’

Police bodycam experiments a success, 2,000 mini cameras on order

DutchNews, April 24, 2019

Photo: Politie.nl

The use of bodycams has led to less aggression against the police and more officers are to be equipped with the mini cameras while patrolling the streets, Dutch police said on Wednesday. 

Experiments using the cameras at 30 different locations have shown their use to be ‘valuable’ in reducing aggression and in collecting evidence, police said. Some 2,000 bodycams will now be ordered for beat officers, the statement said. 

Some 700 police officers in Amsterdam were equipped with the cameras during the experiment and bodycam patrol teams in particular were less likely to face threats and intimidation than those without, the researchers said. 

‘Looking at serious threats, for instance, the percentage of victims among officers in the treatment group dropped from 74% to 57%,’ the report said. 

However, there was no effect on behaviour in situations using people who had been drinking or using drugs. 

The cameras were used by traffic police, security details, dog teams and at major events.

‘In society at large, we are used to filming everything we experience and sharing the images with others,’ said spokesman Theo van der Plas. ‘The use of sensors and image technology is becoming increasingly important in police work.’

ABN Amro algorithm identifies signs of human trafficking

DutchNews, February 26, 2019 - By Robin Pascoe

Illustration: Depositphotos.com 

Social affairs ministry inspectors, the police and ABN Amro have been working on a pilot project analysing private bank account transactions to establish if people are being exploited by their employer or are the victims of human trafficking. 

So far the bank has identified 65 ‘unusual situations’ and reported them to the police financial intelligence unit FIU, an ABN Amro spokeswoman told DutchNews.nl. ABN Amro began working on the project in 2015 in the wake of a conference it had organised on human rights. 

Until recently, ministry inspectors depended on actual reports and inspections to tackle human trafficking and exploitation cases and asked banks for information if they had suspicions about certain people or companies. 

Now, however, the bank is taking the initiative to identify potential problems using an algorithm based on 30 variables. 

For example, if someone regularly withdraws their entire salary as cash shortly after it has been paid into their bank account, this could indicate that they are being ordered by someone to hand over their earnings, Trouw reported on Monday. 

The algorithm also takes whether ‘someone is from eastern Europe or Asia’ into account, Trouw said. 

The social affairs ministry told DutchNews.nl it would not comment on how many concrete cases of exploitation or trafficking the pilot project identified. The ministry also declined to answer questions about what indicators the algorithm took into account. 

According to Trouw, other Dutch banks will join the project from March 1 but the ministry also declined to say which ones. 

ABN Amro told DutchNews.nl that no individual bank accounts are being actively monitored.

The Netherlands tapped El Chapo phones for FBI ‘due to relaxed privacy laws’

DutchNews, January 9, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com 

The Netherlands tapped the phones of Mexican drugs baron ‘El Chapo’ for several months on behalf of the US, because Dutch privacy laws were not as strict as those in America or Canada, the Volkskrant reported on Wednesday. 

El Chapo, real name Joaquin Guzman, is currently on trial in the US. The Dutch listening-in programme took place from April 2011 to January 2012, an FBI agent told his trial on Tuesday. The Volkskrant says the operation lasted for 18 months. 

The wire-tapping operation was enabled by an FBI informant who had set up a Blackberry network for El Chapo’s organisation. The FBI server used to store all communications traffic made via the network was first placed in Canada but had to be moved because of tough privacy laws, the Volkskrant said. 

The US was not an option because the ‘operation might be noticed’ and the US has relatively tough rules on tapping servers, sources told the paper. 

‘Because the US and the Netherlands work closely together and the Netherlands is relaxed about requests for tapping, the FBI placed the server in a data centre operated by Leaseweb, just outside Haarlem,’ the Volkskrant said. 

The Netherlands did not know the full extent of the importance of the operation nor that El Chapo was the main target until 2013. 

Sing song

The FBI agent told Guzman’s trial on Tuesday that the 61-year-old was easily identifiable by his voice which had a ‘kind of a sing-songy nature to it’ and a ‘nasally undertone.’ 

The agent told the trial, which started in November, that the FBI tapped into more than 800 calls on the Blackberry encrypted system. 

Guzman is on trial for his role as leader of the Sinaloa drugs cartel and was extradited to the US two years ago. 

Close relationship 

The Volkskrant’s sources say the Netherlands and the US continue to work closely together in crime investigations. Some 125 requests for help from US officials are currently open, the sources said. These requests range from tapping computer servers to providing people’s Whatsapp history. All requests have to be checked to make sure they are legal with the public prosecution department, the paper said.

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Rotterdam launches app to tackle sexual harassment in public

DutchNews, December 18, 2017

Photo: Ifeelstock via Depositphotos.com

Rotterdam has launched an app allowing victims of sexual harassment to report incidents anonymously. 

The app is designed for incidents that do not require an emergency response, but includes an option to dial 112 if the situation escalates. 

Rotterdam has included anti-harassment clauses in its latest APV regulations, which will apply from January 1. After April 1 wardens will be able to issue fines of up to €4,100 to anyone caught behaving in an intimidating manner in public. 

‘Eighty-four per cent of women experience sexual harassment,’ said Joost Eerdmans, Rotterdam’s alderman responsible for security. ‘That doesn’t mean staring or cat-calling, but serious intimidation that makes women feel so uncomfortable that they avoid certain locations.’ 

Undercover agents will patrol areas where harassment is frequently reported to try to catch abusers in the act, Eerdmans told NOS. ‘All people have to do is give their location and a comment if they wish. That will be communicated to our enforcement team and if there are more incidents in the same place, we will take action.’

Three strikes and you’re out: justice ministry gets tough on webshops

DutchNews, October 30, 2017

The Dutch justice ministry is planning to give more powers to banks and payment systems to block webshops which rip off customers, the AD said on Monday. 

Once three police complaints have been made about an online retailer, banks and payment processing companies will be alerted so they can halt payments to the webshop, the newspaper said. 

The new approach will allow the payment processors to block suspect webshop payments without a formal police investigation. So far, 12 payment processors, including Ideal, have signed up for the alerts. 

Some 50% of online purchases in the Netherlands are made by Ideal and some 45,000 webshops offer its services as a payment option. 

Webshopping lobby group Thuiswinkel.org said it welcomed the news. ‘We have called for a plan to tackle suspect webshops for some time,’ spokesman Wijnand Jongen told the paper. 

‘Until now, no-one would make the link if police reports were made in Limburg, Groningen and Zeeland.’ However, officials must be sure that webshops are not being targeted unfairly or are victims of a hate campaign, he said. 

Dutch online auction site Marktplaats.nl said at the weekend it is launching a new service for customers who are worried that they are being ripped off. For 2% of the purchase price, Marktplaats will keep payments made via Ideal until customers confirm that the delivery has been made. 

G7, tech giants agree on plan to block jihadist content online

Yahoo – AFP, Ella IDE, October 20, 2017

The G7 interior ministers are meeting at a seafront hotel on the island of
Ischia off the coast of Naples. (AFP Photo/Andreas SOLARO)

Ischia (Italy) (AFP) - G7 countries and tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter on Friday agreed to work together to block the dissemination of Islamist extremism over the internet.

"These are the first steps towards a great alliance in the name of freedom," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said after a two-day meeting with his Group of Seven counterparts, stressing the role of the internet in extremist "recruitment, training and radicalisation."

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the goal was to ensure pro-jihadist content "is taken down within two hours of it going online".

"Our enemies are moving at the speed of a tweet and we need to counter them just as quickly," acting US Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said.

While acknowledging progress had been made, Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd insisted "companies need to go further and faster to not only take down extremist content but also stop it being uploaded in the first place".

Senior executives from the internet giants and Microsoft attended the ministerial session devoted to the issue but did not offer any explanation on how they might go about clamping down on web extremists.

Jihadists fleeing Syria

The meeting on the Italian island of Ischia off Naples also focused on ways to tackle one of the West's biggest security threats: jihadist fighters fleeing Syria. The European Union has promised to help close a migration route considered a potential back door for terrorists.

Tens of thousands of citizens from Western countries travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State group between 2014 and 2016. Some then returned home and staged attacks that claimed dozens of lives.

Minniti warned last week that fighters planning revenge attacks following the recent collapse of the IS stronghold in Raqa could hitch lifts back to Europe on migrant boats from Libya.

The US and Italy signed an agreement on the sidelines of the G7 meeting to share their fingerprint databases in a bid to root out potential extremists posing as asylum seekers.

The group also said international police agency Interpol -- which currently holds details of nearly 40,000 foreign fighters -- would play a bigger role in information sharing.

Interpol's secretary general Juergen Stock said the agency's global databases could "act as an 'early warning system' against terrorists and crime threats and help close potential loopholes for terrorists".

'De-radicalisation'

Earlier, EU President Donald Tusk promised the bloc would fork out more funds to help shut down the perilous crossing from Libya to Italy -- a popular path for migrants who hope to journey on to Europe.

The EU would offer "stronger support for Italy's work with the Libyan authorities", and there was "a real chance of closing the central Mediterranean route", he said.

Italy has played a major role in training Libya's coastguard to stop human trafficking in its territorial waters, as well as making controversial deals with Libyan militias to stop migrants from setting off.

Minniti said the G7 ministers had discussed how to go about "de-radicalising" citizens returning from the IS frontline, to prevent them becoming security risks in jails.

UK's hard approach

The Group of Seven --- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US -- said it had also called on the web giants to work with their smaller partners to bolster the anti-extremism shield.

Rudd said the UK government would do its part by changing the law so that those accessing and viewing extremist material on the web could face up to 15 years behind bars.

But Julian Richards, security specialist at BUCSIS (Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies), said the rest of the G7 was unlikely to get behind her on that front.

"The UK's fairly hard approach of introducing legislative measures to try to force companies to cooperate... and suggestions that people radicalising online should have longer sentences, are often considered rather unpalatable and too politically sensitive in many other advanced countries," he told AFP. 

#G7InteriorMinisters, tech giants agree on plan to block jihadist content online https://t.co/OoHdWTvKQk by @ellaafp pic.twitter.com/fUk0SJD4Xc

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 20, 2017

Equifax warned about vulnerability, didn't patch it: ex-CEO

Yahoo – AFP, October 2, 2017

The first congressional hearing on the massive hack at credit agency Equifax
is set for this week (AFP Photo/PHILIPPE HUGUEN)

Washington (AFP) - The security team at Equifax failed to patch a vulnerability in March after getting a warning about the flaw, opening up the credit agency to a breach affecting 143 million people, the former chief executive said Monday.

Former CEO Richard Smith, in a statement to a congressional committee released Monday, offered a timeline of the cyber attack which is believed to be the worst in terms of damaging information leaked -- including social security numbers and other sensitive data.

Smith said in prepared remarks to a House panel that the company on March 9 disseminated an internal memo warning about a software flaw identified by the government's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).

He added that Equifax policy would have required a patch to be applied within 48 hours and that this was not done -- but he could not explain why.

Equifax's information security department ran scans that should have identified any systems that were vulnerable but failed to identify any flaws in the software known as Apache Struts.

"I understand that Equifax's investigation into these issues is ongoing," he said in the statement.

"The company knows, however, that it was this unpatched vulnerability that allowed hackers to access personal identifying information."

Smith said he was notified of the breach on July 31, but was not aware "of the scope of this attack." He informed the company's lead director three weeks later, on August 22, and board meetings were held on the matter August 24 and 25.

Equifax, one of three major agencies which gathers data used in credit ratings for banks, has come under fire for waiting until September 7 to publicly disclose the breach, and investigators are looking into stock sales by two senior executives in August.

Smith stepped down last week amid the investigation, while indicating he would remain in a consulting capacity during the investigation, which includes a congressional hearing Tuesday.

Smith offered a fresh apology for the attack, saying in his statement: "As CEO I was ultimately responsible for what happened on my watch. Equifax was entrusted with Americans' private data and we let them down.

Related Article:

143 mn affected in hack of US credit agency

Road safety body urges minister to up fines for using smartphone while driving

DutchNews, August 2, 2017

Is this as dangerous as drunk driving? Photo: Depositphotos.com 

Road safety group Veilig Verkeer Nederland has written to acting justice minister Stef Blok urging him to increase the punishment for using a smartphone while driving. 

The minister said at the end of last month he is working on new legislation to increase the penalties for people involved in serious traffic offences which includes changes to the official definition of ‘reckless behaviour’. 

Although drunk driving and speeding can be considered reckless behaviour, higher courts rarely accept them as such when handing out punishments. 

VVN said on Wednesday that it considers drunk driving, driving at very high speeds and using smartphones to be a form of reckless driving. Fines for drunk driving currently begin at €300 while using a smartphone will lead to a fine of €230. 

Research by national statistics office CBS earlier this year showed that one in 10 motorists sends smartphone messages while driving without having a hands-free set. 

Around 600 fatal or serious incidents a year in the Netherlands are linked to people making calls or using social media behind the wheel. 

The VVN is currently working with phone firm KPN on developing a smartphone app which will stop phones being used by cyclists. 

Dutch police take control of dark web market, monitor thousands of deals

DutchNews, July 20, 2017

Dutch police said on Thursday they have shut down and dismantled one of the biggest ‘illegal market places on the internet today’ after keeping it running for a month and recording thousands of transactions. 

Hansa Market was the most popular dark market on the ‘anonymous’ part of the internet, or dark net, police said in a statement. 

The international investigation was carried out together with Europol, the FBI and the authorities in Germany and Lithuania. This week a Dutch seller was arrested in Krimpen aan den Ijssel and his accounts, with some €2m in bitcoins were seized. 

Police say the winding up of Hansa Market is the final step in an undercover operation which began when Dutch police seized control of the illegal market place on June 20 after two of the site’s administrator were arrested in Germany. 

The website was hosted on servers in Lithuania. Once the administrators were arrested, the servers and infrastructure were sequestered and transferred to Dutch servers, allowing the police and public prosecution department to monitor all trades. 

Drugs

Most of the trades were involved drugs, police said. On average, 1,000 orders per day were placed in response to almost 40,000 advertisement sand more than 50,000 transactions have been monitored since the authorities took control of the website. 

Some 10,000 foreign addresses of Hansa Market buyers were passed on to Europol and more than 500 Dutch delivery addresses were reported to couriers and postal services so they could halt deliveries, police said. 

Dark net markets enable large-scale trading in chiefly illegal goods, such as drugs, weapons, child pornography, and ransom software. Well-known examples include Silk Road (taken down by the FBI in 2013) and Alpha Bay (reportedly shut down earlier this month). 

The police said that the number of transactions processed through Hansa Market rose from 1,000 to 8,000 after Alpha Bay was dismantled. No weapons or child pornography were sold on Hansa Market.

The shutdown of two dark web marketplaces announced by US Deputy Attorney 

General Rod Rosenstein (C), Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) and other law 

enforcement officials came three weeks after AlphaBay stopped functioning 

with no explanation (AFP Photo/CHIP SOMODEVILLA)

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Teenagers Hack Into Tiket.com, Steal Over $300,000 Worth of Airline Tickets

Jakarta Globe, Iman Rahman Cahyadi and Farouk Arnaz, April 05, 2017

A group of teenagers and one 27-year-old hacked into Tiket.com — one of the
 largest online travel agents in Indonesia — and siphoned Rp 4.1 billion ($308,000)
 worth of airline tickets from the website, the National Police said in Jakarta on
Tuesday (04/04). (BeritaSatu Photo).

Jakarta. A group of teenagers and one 27-year-old hacked into Tiket.com — one of the largest online travel agents in Indonesia — and siphoned Rp 4.1 billion ($308,000) worth of airline tickets from the website, the National Police said in Jakarta on Tuesday (04/04).

The alleged perpetrators were identified only by their initials. SH, who is 19-years-old and identified by the police as the mastermind of the crime, admitted that he made around Rp 600 million in proceeds from the act.

His partner, MKU, also 19-years-old, admitted to making Rp 600 million. Two other alleged perpetrators have also been identified: AI, 19 and NTM, 27.

SH admitted to using the loot to buy expensive motorcycles.

"I bought a Ducati motorcycle [...]. None of the money was used for investment [purposes]," SH said at the National Police headquarters on Tuesday.

The police said they may face up to 12 years in prison under Indonesia's Law on Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) revised in 2013.

Global Network, the company behind Tiket.com, reported the case to the police in November when it suspected someone hacked into Tiket.com and stole tickets allotted for the budget airline Citilink Indonesia.

Airlines usually set aside a ticket quota for each travel agent, and are usually paid for the tickets in advance. In this case, the teenagers hacked into the website and accessed Citilink's ticket pool.

"The perpetrators had illegal access to Citilink Indonesia's server, using an account owned by Global Network from Oct. 11 to 27, 2016," Brig. Gen. Fadil Imran, the director of cyber crime at National Police's Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim) said on Tuesday.

The perpetrators then sold the stolen tickets on Facebook, Fadil added.

MKU, AI and NTM were arrested on March, 28 in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. The police nabbed SH in Ciputat, Banten two days later.

The case shed light on security issues on Indonesia's booming online services industry.

"He [SH] is quite sophisticated and the website was also not that hard to hack," Adj. Comr. Idam Wasiadi of the cyber crime unit at Bareskrim said last week.

Idam said SH, who only finished middle school, taught himself using materials available online to hack into various websites.

He honed his skill by hacking into 4,237 foreign and local websites and defacing their homepage. Among his victims are the National Police's website and app-based ride-hailing service Go-Jek, Idam added.

Citilink Indonesia, a low-cost subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia, said that the integrity of its ticket security and customer's information was not compromised by the hackers and the breach was only limited to the online agent, Tiket.com, Ageng W. Leksono, corporate communication manager of Citilink told news outlet detik.com.

Dutch detectives unravel 3.6 million encrypted emails sent by criminals

DutchNews, March 9, 2017

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Dutch detectives have gained access to 3.6 million encrypted emails sent by criminal gangs which will be used in dozens of prosecutions, the public prosecution department said on Thursday. 

The information in the mails will provide evidence for criminal cases, including murder, armed robbery, drugs, money laundering and other forms of organised crime, the department said in a statement. 

The messages were found on servers in Canada belonging to a Dutch company called Ennetcom. Last year, the public prosecution department won the right to have the Ennetcom servers copied and the seven terabytes of information sent to the Netherlands for investigation. 

Ennetcom was the ‘biggest provider of encrypted communications in the Netherlands’, the department said. The company also has sales points in South America and other countries in western Europe. 

The owner of Ennetcom was arrested last April when the network was shut down as part of the investigation. He has since been released from jail but is facing prosecution.

Dutch police start using facial recognition techniques, database has 800,000 photos

DutchNews, December 16, 2016

Dutch police have started using facial recognition technology to identify suspects, broadcaster NOS said on Friday. 

The technology will be used to identify people whose photograph is included in the police database of 800,000 faces, the broadcaster said. 

The database is made up of photographs of people who have been jailed for at least a year or who are suspected of committing a crime carrying a sentence of at least a year. 

The photos of people who are innocent are supposed to be removed from the system but it is unclear how quickly that happens, NOS said. 

The system will be used to compare photographs of suspects taken by security cameras and bodycams with the database. 

Refugees

A second database, containing the photographs of refugees, people scheduled for deportation and people who have requested visas can only be accessed with the permission of the public prosecution department, NOS said.

‘This means it includes photographs of innocent people,’ said Daphne van der Kroft of internet privacy group Bits of Freedom. 

Information law professor Nico van Eijk told the broadcaster he is concerned about ‘feature creep’ – measures introduced for one purpose which are then used for another.

For example, cameras to recognise car number plates were introduced in an effort to spot suspects. But now talks are underway to keep the number plate information for four weeks, he said. 

Dutch hacker found guilty of 2013 cyber attack but won’t be jailed

DutchNews, November 14, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos

The Dutchman accused of launching a massive cyber attack on a spam blacklist publisher in 2013 has been sentenced to 240 days in jail, 185 suspended, in absentia.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis failed to attend his trial in Dordrecht and has repeatedly denied any involvement. Even if he had been in court, he would not be sent to jail because he already spent 55 days on remand after his extradition from Spain in 2013, broadcaster NOS reported. 

Kamphuis was accused of being behind a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on a company named Spamhaus in 2013. 

Spamhaus publishes spam blacklists and accused Dutch web-hosting service Cyberbunker of carrying out the attack after it was blocked as a rogue host. Kamphuis was said to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker at the time. 

Kamphuis told the AD via Skype earlier this month the charges against him are ‘nonsense, even if I support them’. A British teenager was in 2015 sentenced to 240 days community service for his role in the attack. 

Kamphuis was arrested in Spain in 2013 and extradited to the Netherlands where he spent two months in jail on remand. He is now thought to be abroad, possibly in Barcelona or Berlin.