Daniel in the Lion’s Den: Deciphering the Dantas Drives

PRETTY DAMN GOOD PRIVACY. PGP on a BlackBerry gizmo. Source: Sorry, I forgot to note it down.

FBI ajudará Brasil a abrir arquivos de Dantas: The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation will help the Brazilian federal police decrypt five hard drives apprehended at the Rio de Janeiro apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, recently convicted of bribery of a federal police agent here.

So Último Segundo reports (at second hand.)

The banker is free pending appeal. He also faces charges of money laundering, tax evasion, and financial (accounting) fraud. Or the local equivalents. I am not a lawyer.

Dantas also faces a separate case, dating back to 2004, of industrial espionage. He and a former Kroll executive, and I think some crazy ex-Israeli military guy, too, allegedly bugged government officials, Dantas’ business partners in Brasil Telecom, and journalists who covered him negatively.

Prosecution of that case was set back recently, however, with a ruling by a federal court that it does not have jurisdiction over the spying case.

The Brazilian federal tax authority is nicknamed “the lion.” Nobody anywhere likes the tax man much, do they?

BRASÍLIA – O Instituto Nacional de Criminalística, em Brasília, jogou a toalha. Cinco meses depois de a Polícia Federal ter apreendido cinco discos rígidos de computador no apartamento do banqueiro Daniel Dantas, o órgão concluiu que não tem condições de quebrar a senha que protege os arquivos ali guardados. Vai pedir ajuda ao FBI, a polícia federal dos EUA. As informações são do jornal “Folha de S. Paulo”.

The Brazilian National Criminalistics Lab (INC) in Brasilia has thrown in the towel. Five months after the federal police apprehended five computer hard drives from the apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, the agency has concluded it does not have the capability to crack the password that protects the files stored thereon. It will ask help from the American federal police. The report is from the Folha de S. Paulo.