The drug-dealing, weapon-selling former South African crypto king

I wish him well. A hardworking guy. And Truecrypt is based on his good work and bright ideas.
 
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I can only assume it was via some BBS at the time... must have cost his parents an absolute fortune in phone bills.
 
Interesting how everyone involved with cryptography and leaking secrets get accused of committing crimes. :whistling:

ToxicBunny said:
I can only assume it was via some BBS at the time... must have cost his parents an absolute fortune in phone bills.
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Nope.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I can only assume it was via some BBS at the time... must have cost his parents an absolute fortune in phone bills.
Click to expand...

Really early 80s we were still using telexes and actual mail. The fax machine was a technological marvel back then... Cell phones started in the 90s as did the Internet.
If anything he was selling bootleg VHS or Beta cassettes.
 
greg0205 said:
Really early 80s we were still using telexes and actual mail. The fax machine was a technological marvel back then... Cell phones started in the 90s as did the Internet.
If anything he was selling bootleg VHS or Beta cassettes.
Click to expand...


You do realise of course that the Fax machine was invented and used in the 1800's, before we even had telephone lines?
Not much of a technological marvel, even in the 1980's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax
 
The "selling pornography online" statement in the original article was corrected:

This sentence originally stated that Le Roux had sold "online pornography." Lulu had told me that he didn't recall for sure whether the porn was distributed online, but I had assumed that Le Roux was operating in early bulletin board systems, or BBSs, precursors to the modern web. There was certainly porn being shared and sold on those networks at the time Le Roux would have been doing so. Given that I don't know for sure, however, I've taken out the specific reference until it such time as we can clarify it.
Click to expand...

I have updated our article as well.
 
The final instalment of The Mastermind is out, and it is the only episode after "He Always Had a Dark Side" that mentions TrueCrypt. There was no confirmation that Le Roux was involved in TrueCrypt other then developing it precursor, and no confirmation on whether he was helping the US Government crack TrueCrypt.

The Mastermind episode 7: The Next Big Deal

The Mastermind: Next Big Deal said:
But his testimony also provided confirmation of the facts—or, in some cases, Le Roux’s versions of the facts—that I’d been chasing for years. Le Roux admitted that he had created the encryption software E4M but denied that he had developed TrueCrypt, its famous progeny.
Click to expand...
 
Jan said:
The "selling pornography online" statement in the original article was corrected:
[...]
I have updated our article as well.
Click to expand...
.
Lulu had told me that he didn't recall for sure whether the porn was distributed online, but I had assumed that Le Roux was operating in early bulletin board systems, or BBSs, precursors to the modern web. There was certainly porn being shared and sold on those networks at the time Le Roux would have been doing so.
Click to expand...
Knowing how BBS is operating, you cannot blame Le Roux for distributing porn (even he was the owner). BBS users could create groups with restricted access and share files. Preventing distributing porn by restricting file sharing (like it is currently configured on MyBB) is only a partial solution, as users were clever these days, they did embed binary files in text messages by UUEcoding.

Now if my memory serve correctly, I think I can associate Le Roux with LeClub BBS in Midrand, one of the most popular BBS in SA. All I can say about LeClub for sure, they were not playing fair when distributing network feed with other BBS's, trying to get advantage and perhaps acquire more users by filtering messages from other BBS's, so they could look better than others.
 
Le Roux / Le Club

sajunky said:
.
as users were clever these days, they did embed binary files in text messages by UUEcoding.
Now if my memory serve correctly, I think I can associate Le Roux with LeClub BBS in Midrand
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Aahhh
Now those were the days
Of
INCREDIBLE phone bills
 
MidnightWizard said:
Aahhh
Now those were the days
Of
INCREDIBLE phone bills
Click to expand...
Remember Telkom all day online offer (or during a weekend - I don't remember) for few extra bucks?
Many people did use it and porn started to spread widely in SA. ;)
 
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