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Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

431 points by ferros 5y ago

na85 5y ago
Text of TFA uses the term "infiltrating" in lieu of "cracking". Not that I necessarily expect Reuters to keep their infosec terminology straight but I wonder if this was a novel hack or if was a simple matter of a judicial gag order, seizing the developer's account and then pushing out a malicious update that enabled MITM or something.
- senectus1 5y ago
  from what I understand they developed the app themselves... marketed and pushed the app to certain "dark markets" and let them use the apps and devices as if they were secure. they were in fact real time monitoring every transaction. amazing really. and pretty funny if you asked me :-P
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    Sounds like they busted down an established provider of secure comm devices and then took over it's distribution network to push their own devices.
  - iJohnDoe 5y ago
    Not funny. Pretty much worse fucking case scenario. Imagine Signal, Telegram, or any other app that touts themselves as a secure app is really just the creation of the FBI, NSA, CIA, and NRO. Remember, yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s reality.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      And that is why open source is important (and Signal's server and open source integration should be viewed very skeptically).
    - marlor 5y ago
      They covered themselves by ensuring that the devices could only be ordered after private referral from another user. All of whom were underworld figures (the devices were initially “seeded” to “underworld influencers”). I’m sure that added to the credibility of the device among criminal groups, but it also ensured that the platform wasn’t adopted by your average privacy-conscious user.
    - fouc 5y ago
      Yeah, sometimes I wonder if Tor is already co-opted like this.
    - dt3ft 5y ago
      Food for thought: Telegram estimated costs for 2021 based on 675 million monthly active users (MAU) are $220 Million. Yet, the app is somehow free to use. Where does the money to cover the costs come from?
      - jakub_g 5y ago
        $220M is not pocket money, but Durov's net worth is apparently $17.2B, so he could afford it for a few more years https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/
        yawaworht1978 5y ago
        Thanks for this, what about Moxie? Who covers those costs?
        kenneth 5y ago
        Signal is funded by a $50M donation from Brian Acton, who made billions selling WhatsApp to Facebook.
        stef25 5y ago
        He was listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2021, with a net worth of $17.2 billion. His fortune is largely driven by his ownership of Telegram - Wikipedia. So billions from Telegram, a free app. What am I missing?
        jakub_g 5y ago
        That's a valid point. It's free now but they do have some plans for monetization (ads in channels with huge numbers of subscribers etc.)
      - fragileone 5y ago
        Telegram isn't end-to-end encypted except for some 1:1 chats. The unencrypted chat data is likely being sold, as their privacy policy allows.
    - scoopertrooper 5y ago
      I'd say it's just a good argument for using a popular app (like one you mentioned) because it is likely to be subject to the critical eyes of security researchers.
    - nexuist 5y ago
      If you're not already operating under the assumption that TLAs have full access to your entire online history, there's really no point in trying to start now. Use secure apps like Signal to hide your information from hackers, thieves, and generic script kiddies, not to hide from national security agencies. Especially when said agency can send a van to your house to take all your digital equipment (fully legally if backed by a warrant) until you comply and give up all your passwords and encryption keys. You cannot defeat the legal system through technical means, your only hope is having some kind of escape submarine or private jet to get yourself extracted to a non-extradition country like Russia (or, if you're Snowden, trolling journalists with your flight so all the goons get on the wrong plane). https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
      - nucleardog 5y ago
        For a slightly humorous take on this, James Mickens' paper _This World of Ours_[0] is enjoyable: > In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https:// https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them. In summary, https:// https:// and two dollars will get you a bus ticket to nowhere. [0] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
        ganzuul 5y ago
        This is pretty much my understanding too. We have not progressed one iota in civilization and everything comes down to torture and murder when the going gets tough. My only hope for a future for humankind lies with this socialist software ideal I have been musing about...
    - walrus01 5y ago
      If moxie marlinespike is a deep cover agent he's been cultivating a whole character and persona for a very long time. I'd lean towards the "not a NSA plant" view myself.
    - Thorentis 5y ago
      Except that we can see exactly what is being sent from our devices since Signal is open source. Even if the servers are run by the FBI, at best they have a whole bunch of encrypted messages (which they could get by wire tapping anyway).
  - stef25 5y ago
    If I present some device to my local street dealer and tell him to "use this it's secure I swear" he'll probably punch me cause he suspects a trap. Amazing that these "world class" criminals fall for this stuff.
    - lazyasciiart 5y ago
      Not if you're his supplier. This whole thing works on pre-existing connections.
ferros 5y ago
Looks like the app’s domain was also seized. https://www.anom.io/ https://www.anom.io/
- olalonde 5y ago
  Funny how that form is essentially asking users to dox themselves. I wonder how many will take the bait.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    My mother-in-law better watch out Overall, a very clean website source. No trackers in the source at all. Countries list is interesting. Lists Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Virgin Islands (US). Didn't know PR seceded, thank you FBI for confirming. Lists various French territories. Missing South Sudan. Missing Kosovo. Includes Taiwan. Includes Palestine.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    "To determine if your account is associated with an ongoing investigation, please enter any device details below:" Seems like they're flexing.
    - Vespasian 5y ago
      It probably directs to a static page saying "YES" because after entering all that information your account will be under investigation for sure ;)
- marlor 5y ago
  It’s bizarre, because news reports state that the entire app and monitoring system was created by the FBI and Australian Federal Police. If it’s their system, why would they need to seize its domain?
premium-komodo 5y ago
As is often the case with the FBI, they were apparently facilitating the crimes. It's easy to argue that the crimes might not have taken place without the FBI's help. Somehow this is never entrapment when the FBI is doing it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Taniwha 5y ago
not just Australia, it's world wide and likely led by the FBI (but possibly data being collected outside the US to avoid the need of having actual warrants) The following thread looks at some of the opened court documents today: https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123 https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123 (and points out that the Trump organisation might be in trouble ....)
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  Being outside the US doesn't avoid the need for actual warrants. That thread mentions several, both in the US and out of it.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Unless they found a pushover country and structured as much data to be sent there in the app. Have them get the warrant and review the data and inform you of anything good. Arbitrage isn’t just for bankers.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  The tweet says: "... remember that Dipshit McSonInLaw used these exact "technologies" to communicate with the Saudis and stuff. ... ". But, I don't see how he the tweeter could be sure or know that Trumps used this app?
  - marlor 5y ago
    I’m sure he has no idea. This is far from the only encrypted messaging system out there.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    Eric Garland is a massive blowhard/self-promoter (and I say this despite sharing his dislike of Trump). Even when his claims are accurate he's so obnoxious and annoying that I can't be bothered to evaluate his other claims. I save a lot of time and mental agitation by ignoring e-personalities and assuming that if something is important I'll hear about it from a quality source before very long.
Santosh83 5y ago
The lesson here is complete trust in modern computing platforms is misplaced and impossible. Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients. In addition, popular apps, especially in the US, can always be commandeered by 3-letter agencies. You're only anonymous as long as you're not actively targetted, despite using "secure" apps and stuff like Tor, which media makes it seem are unbreakable.
- cylde_frog 5y ago
  Not quite. They were using an app developed by the police as a honeypot. Someone else had even discovered this and blogged about it[0]. If they had used email and PGP they likely wouldn't have been caught in this way. 3-letter agencies are not going to use their trump card of backdoored OS or hardware to catch drug runners. [0]https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PwQXt6Sn_YwJ:https://anomexposed.wordpress.com/+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PwQXt6...
  - CTDOCodebases 5y ago
    True.. however the three letter agencies are going to pass along any relevant information that they stumble across while filtering for money laundering in relation to terrorism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction?wprov=sf...
  - vkou 5y ago
    If they used email and PGP, they wouldn't have been caught this way... That is because the usability of PGP is so bad, they wouldn't have any time to actually operate their criminal enterprise. Also - email, PGP or not, leaks metadata, and the police will happily end your whole criminal career based on metadata.
- nexuist 5y ago
  > Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients None of these were exploited to retrieve this data, and the third party app that was installed was not intended to encrypt conversations given that it was a honeypot. > popular apps This was a small app unknown by anyone outside of criminal orgs. It had no "legitimate" non-criminal users. > especially in the US The app was deployed in Australia. > can always be commandeered Why distribute a random app when they could have gotten the criminals to use Signal or Telegram and bust them there? > as long as you're not actively targeted How long did it take to find Bin Laden? > despite using "secure" apps This was not a secure app and any audit would have revealed this (audits such as the ones that Signal and friends have undergone). > and stuff like Tor, Tor was not involved. > media makes it seem are unbreakable. None of the apps hyped as "unbreakable" were broken here, so...point still stands, I guess? Honestly, if anything, the recommended approach from this incident would be to use the walled garden - an FBI-backed honeypot would have a lot harder time getting from the App/Play Store onto a user's phone if it was obviously a scam to collect user conversations, asked for a bunch of permissions, had no reviews, and no apparent update history. Who would download some random chat app that nobody uses?
cylde_frog 5y ago
From what I understand they targeted a high ranking member of the gang and he promoted the app, which was developed by the police to others. Since a high level member endorsed it, it become widely used.
- postingawayonhn 5y ago
  You're broadly correct though they are saying this app ended up being used by criminal organisations all over the world. Arrests took place across 18 countries including NZ, Australia, the UK, Germany, and the US.
michaelmrose 5y ago
Does anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily.
- cylde_frog 5y ago
  I wonder about this too. What sort of people do international criminal organisations hire to manage their info-sec? A criminal that became a computer expert or a computer expert that became a criminal?
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    You hire people you can burn is what you do. Shipping coordinators got busted? How sad. Over my life Ive met people who while they seem competent and can tie their shoe laces appear to make bad decisions because they have trouble with judging likely outcomes. Those are the people getting hired to do this sort of work.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Codefellas https://www.wired.com/2003/12/mafia/ https://www.wired.com/2003/12/mafia/
    - cheschire 5y ago
      Kids born after that article are nearly finished with high school. I’m pretty sure the dynamic has changed a little since then. Interesting to at least see how it used to be though.
    - imhoguy 5y ago
      Nice! Is there some follow up story after years?
  - sumedh 5y ago
    I would imagine its more of a computer expert who then becomes a criminal because of the money.
31tor 5y ago
So the big question is if would have been better to strike fast, silently gain more intel och strike in some kind of statistical analysis maner to not blow their cover á la Alan Turing and the enigma
- marlor 5y ago
  It’s been running for three years. I suspect something changed recently (perhaps some imminent threat) that meant they needed to act now.
  - goatsi 5y ago
    One of the warrants they were using to legally collect the information ran out today.
- PinkPigeon 5y ago
  Random nitpick, but I think it's à la. Do correct me if I'm wrong though.
  - ternaryoperator 5y ago
    it is indeed a grave accent, just as you say
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Well, in hindsight, this is not a big question any more, they are all in jail now and will drag most of the supply and micro distribution chain with them. More careful actors are still out there and conducting business as usual. I have read a book on one of the main Italian groups, they have very efficient micro storage procedures to avoid big losses and at least the higher ups will not use phones or computers, they will meet in person. They have or used to have rules of conduct which are very strict, like, stay home with family and don't be seen in bars etc. The opposite of the green horns flaunting the cars and watches, or the Turkish guys wife documenting their lifestyle on Instagram up until yesterday. Sure, mass arrests happen in Italy as well, and some other countries the whole network works different. But using phones is too dangerous and it is avoidable to run efficient logistics. Not only for traceability, but a compromised or confiscated phone will have a lot of let's say problematic evidence on it. Even the Mexican and Colombian groups operate from remote areas, even if affiliated with some parts of governments. I think the usage of digital devices is just lazyness, another attribute like the flaunting of the illicit gains.
flashman 5y ago
As to how the FBI got access to the messages, Vice says[1] after Vincent Ramos of Phantom Secure was arrested in 2018, a confidential human source offered Anom, which the source was developing, to the FBI (probably in exchange for immunity or a reduced sentence, in my opinion). The source then seeded Anom phones to his existing distributors as a replacement for Phantom Secure phones, and from their they made their way into criminal organisations. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...
- RachelF 5y ago
  Makes you wonder how many commercial VPN services are just FBI honeypots?
  - killingtime74 5y ago
    Or even foreign state actors
    - andruby 5y ago
      The FBI, from the viewpoint of 95% of the world, is “a foreign state actor”.
      - Thorentis 5y ago
        Not country-wise. The US has many first world allies that cooporerate with the FBI on a second party basis.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    1, but this is exactly the point. Use them for netflix not to coordinate heroin sales.
  - deadalus 5y ago
    This is exactly why I tend to use VPNs from country's with which the US is not in good terms with : Russia, Iran, Belarus, China
femto 5y ago
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/fbi-afp-underworld-crime-bust-an0m-cash-drugs-murder/100197246 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/fbi-afp-underworld-cr... Apparently it revolved around duping Hakan Ayik, one of Australia's most wanted drug dealers now operating as an international kingpin from Turkey, to trust the app and recommend it to his associates. It's a double whammy, in that the network has been blown wide open and the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates. No doubt there will be a movie about this one.
- FatalLogic 5y ago
  >the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.pdf https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"
  - cromka 5y ago
    > "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]" This is based on assumption that a regular "free" person has not made thousands of criminals at the same time.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    That study computes that you're 7x more likely to get murdered in prison than in the "comparable non-prison community", but "comparable" here seems to be only for age/gender. I imagine the homicide rate is a wee bit higher than average for drug kingpins, particularly those seen to have ratted out 100+ people, even unintentionally.
    - duxup 5y ago
      Yeah this guy presumably had a wide ranging network of people who he knows, who haven't been caught, but may be exposed ... by him. This dude now poses a risk to a lot of very worried people right now and presumably the people he relies on are running for cover / maybe less likely to protect him.
rohanstake 5y ago
Good that they arrested the culprits. But infiltrating the encrypted messaging app isn't the best thing I guess. The argument, it is used by criminals is flawed. Because everything is - water pipelines, cash, facebook, and so on.
- fvold 5y ago
  This was specifically seeded into the criminal world. It's not like they cracked Signal, or whatever. It's not an infiltration of the app, it's an infiltration of the criminal organizations, using an app they made.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    Makes me wonder if "invite only" could eventually be read as a red flag indicating possible honeypot? Guess no secret tool is forever.
- tcbasche 5y ago
  maybe read the article ;)
nneonneo 5y ago
There are more details in a recently unsealed search warrant against a GMail user: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.707623/gov.uscourts.casd.707623.1.0_2.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.70... An informant (confidential human source, or "CHS") helped the FBI and AFP (Australian Federal Police) develop and distribute Anom to criminal gangs (transnational criminal organizations, or "TCOs"): > The CHS offered this next generation device, named “Anom,” to the FBI to use in ongoing and new investigations. The CHS also agreed to offer to distribute Anom devices to some of the CHS’s existing network of distributors of encrypted communications devices, all of whom have direct links to TCOs. Anom was specifically designed from the ground up with an encryption backdoor: > Before the device could be put to use, however, the FBI, AFP, and the CHS built a master key into the existing encryption system which surreptitiously attaches to each message and enables law enforcement to decrypt and store the message as it is transmitted. A user of Anom is unaware of this capability. By design, as part of the Trojan Shield investigation, for devices located outside of the United States, an encrypted “BCC” of the message is routed to an “iBot” server located outside of the United States, where it is decrypted from the CHS’s encryption code and then immediately re-encrypted with FBI encryption code. The newly encrypted message then passes to a second FBI-owned iBot server, where it is decrypted and its content available for viewing in the first instance. Naturally, the FBI can't spy on domestic communications without a warrant, so they got the AFP to do it for them: > FBI geo-fenced the U.S., meaning that any outgoing messages from a device with a U.S. MCC would not have any communications on the FBI iBot server. But if any devices landed in the United States, the AFP agreed to monitor these devices for any threats to life based on their normal policies and procedures. Closing Sky Global and Encrochat drove criminals to Anom: > Since March 12, 2021, as a direct result of the Sky Global charges, there are now close to 9000 active Anom users. The criminals who use hardened encrypted devices are constantly searching for the next secure device, and the distributors of these devices have enabled criminals’ impenetrable communications on these devices for years. Finally, the FBI quite directly admits their goal is to shake confidence in encrypted messaging: > A goal of the Trojan Shield investigation is to shake the confidence in this entire industry because the FBI is willing and able to enter this space and monitor messages. There's also a number of sample conversations in the warrant application showing criminals openly talking about moving drugs and other illegal activities with absolutely no code. Definitely worth a read.
spicyramen 5y ago
Can't find the article but Mexican drug cartels hired Cisco certified experts to setup their encrypted communications. Not just your average CCNA guy from test king, but industry experts working for Service Providers and Government.
- te_chris 5y ago
  Reminds me of the character from Narcos who was working to secure the Cali cartel's communications. No doubt lots of work for people who know how to harden networks for criminal orgs.
- xtracto 5y ago
  If by "hired" you mean kidnapped and made them decide between killing their families and them or paying them to secure their networks then you are correct. Drug cartels over here are terrible.
cromka 5y ago
What we've learned is only what was in Austrlia's piece of the cake, given they started their day already. New Zeland had theirs already, too. I imagine thousands of arrests are still happening worldwide and several press conferences are going to be held today. Looking at the seal of the operation (https://www.anom.io/trojan_shield_seal.jpg https://www.anom.io/trojan_shield_seal.jpg), following countries participated in the operation: Canada, Australia, US, Sweden, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Austria, UK, New Zeland, Estonia, Scotland, Germany, Denmark. I expect this to be bigger than Panama Papers. Way bigger. I expect a few prominent politicians to be soon either arrested or "convinced" to step down. I expect the US to have gained a lot of intel and leverage over those from the countries who did not participate in this. We will absolutely not learn about everything they discovered. CIA will and the respective intelligence agencies will. EDIT: Europol will hold their conference live on YouTube at 10 AM CST: https://twitter.com/janoorth/status/1402164252266409987 https://twitter.com/janoorth/status/1402164252266409987 EDIT 2: given how Serbia was in the top 4 of messages sent, I really hope that the info gathered will help Interpol fight child trafficking and exploitation in the EU. From the VICE article (https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...) quoted elsewhere here: "Additionally, the review of Anom messages has initiated numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries. The most prominent distributors are currently being investigated by the FBI for participating in an enterprise which promotes international drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice." "Late Monday, the FBI said that it would be holding "a news conference announcing a massive worldwide takedown based on the San Diego FBI’s unprecedented investigation involving the interception of encrypted communications" on Tuesday."
- dagw 5y ago
  Sweden just announced 155 arrests: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/europol-berattar-om-det-omfattande-tillslaget https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/europol-berattar-om-det-o...
  - Ovah 5y ago
    Which amounts to almost 20% of those arrested. Maybe it's partly due to Sweden historically having strong computer literacy. Only time will tell.
pelasaco 5y ago
Nice one, but i guess if this whole operation was still a secret, we could pull this trick over and over again? Now will be hard to disguise an app like that. Probably the next season of the "StartUp" TV series
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  Presumably it would’ve come out during legal proceedings anyway.
- WJW 5y ago
  This is already the third or fourth such app that was either infiltrated by the police, taken over by the police or outright constructed by them. Criminals have a vested interest in getting access to encrypted communications and they know that all of the common phone OSes and chat apps are compromised, so they will be looking to join such secure networks. This need for security is what makes the continued use of these operations by law enforcement viable, since criminals have no choice but to seek out these encrypted apps.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    My impression is that in all those cases the root weakness was that those criminals liked to feel sophisticated, "in the know". So those special apps (special, from our perspective, as in euphemism for birth defect) could spread by fashion. The smalltimes like to imitate the big ones while the big ones try to stay ahead of the curve, eager to pick up anything new from upstarts before they become big. It might be my Hollywood education speaking, but criminal networks are supposed to lean strongly on status and respect (how could they not, given the absence of law enforcement which makes trust the only option) and this makes them vulnerable to fashion as a malware vector.
    - WJW 5y ago
      I think it is also just a natural "feature of the terrain". Criminals need to communicate with their customers and each other to coordinate, but they cannot use "normal" apps because those can be presumed to be compromised by the police. This creates a natural funnel where criminals are driven to these custom apps, similar to how old-time armies would fight over things like river crossings and mountain passes because the opponent had no choice but to go there if they wanted to invade at all.
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
How would this be any different to creating a global back door in signal, wikr or slack?
- fvold 5y ago
  The main difference is that by building their own honey pot, they did not have to rely on an external actor to maintain any secrecy. If they dug their claws into wikr, they'd have to worry about leaks from every single person involved with wikr on top of all potential leaks from law enforcement personnel. Also, I suspect it's easier to get the warrants needed to create a sting from the ground up than it is for several different law enforcement agencies around the world to each get separate warrants to access wikr/slack/discord/whatever's data. Once the data legally exists in a law enforcement database, it is relatively simple bureaucracy to share it with allied organizations.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
    What I mean is they’re effectively breaching the privacy of any perfectly legit users. They’ve done this in the past with stuff like mobile tower spoofing. Why is this ok, and mobile spoofing not, ethically?
  - caeril 5y ago
    Wickr is almost certainly compromised anyway. Never trust an app that neither charges for its use (like Threema), nor takes donations (like Signal Foundation). Wickr's funding is a huge mystery. Approach with caution.
grouphugs 5y ago
it's weird that the nazis have distributed almost as much heroin as they've taken in. the united states flooded afghanistan with heroin in the 70's and 80's, so much that it's still such a large regional issue. but why was the united states never prosecuted? hell, for fucking 50 years people called it a conspiracy
bloqs 5y ago
From the Vice Motherboard article: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-... "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," Any ideas as to why?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Maybe undercover agents? Diplomats?
  - ChrisKnott 5y ago
    They might have been IDed as non-criminal. You get the odd crime/drugs reporter who uses the devices, e.g. this interview was conducted on a SkyECC phone https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wj5d/prison-drug-dealer-crack-heroin https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wj5d/prison-drug-dealer-cr... (another CDSC platform that was recently hacked).
- WJW 5y ago
  The FBI can't inspect data about Americans without a warrant, which they presumably don't have. The other countries who were in on this have no such restrictions and will read the messages by American citizens just fine. They may or may not decide to tip off the FBI if there is evidence of crime in the messages, and the FBI at that point would have "reasonable suspicion" and could acquire a warrant based on that.
intricatedetail 5y ago
> and seized more than 3,000 kilograms of drugs and $45 million in cash and assets. Excuse me, but I can't stop laughing. Three years effort to catch a small fish and they sell it as if they got bust of the century. Why don't they investigate politicians that facilitate prohibition and enable these gangs to work in the first place? Police can't see they run fool's errands.
- fvold 5y ago
  The big blow isn't the amount of drugs or cash taken, it's the grabbing of relatively high ranking people in the organization, and the absolute shattering of their communication. I bet a bunch of them will go back to in-person communication only for a long while after this, slowing things down considerably.
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    Are they just catching nobodies though?
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  This was exactly my thought too. The numbers they quoted in the Europol press conference are a drop in the ocean.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
It seems like there is a bust of these "safe" devices every other month. And the groups trust them again, when will they learn, do not use a phone or computer. One of the last Italian capos would pass on messages on pieces of paper or verbally. And still got busted, but after a life time.
turbinerneiter 5y ago
I'm happy they are catching criminals, but now I wonder how many of my encryption and privacy software is actually an FBI front.
- upofadown 5y ago
  That is why effective end to end encryption is so important. It doesn't matter who is behind it. That is the whole point. No trust required.
  - brainwad 5y ago
    The app can just leak your keys to a central database? Using code other people wrote/compiled always requires trust.
    - tantalor 5y ago
      Could the OS lock down the app's permissions to prevent that? Like, this app can ONLY send/recv e2e encrypted messages, and not log anything or talk to other apps.
      - brainwad 5y ago
        The app could still send your keys _as_ an e2e message (to the app author). OS enforcement would need to be pretty intrusive to stop this (e.g. a pop-up for every message sent, displaying the actual destination of the message). I bet users would get pretty blind to such pop-ups, and it would be easy to trick them into accepting the leaking of their private keys.
        tantalor 5y ago
        Yeah good point, for that matter you need to trust the app isn't cc'ing the FBI on every message you send.
        corin_ 5y ago
        If you trust the OS, it could hypothetically be built into the OS such that the app only gives what needs to be encrypted to the OS and gets back an encrypted payload to send, then the app wouldn't need to access your keys? Of course at that point the OS has to either provide good key management itself, or a good API so that the apps can still make things seamless while still not accessing the keys directly.. and probably other problems I haven't thought of.
jliptzin 5y ago
I wonder how much crime would be left if the drug trade were legalized
- Zenst 5y ago
  Alcohol and tobacco are legal in many countries and yet you still get counterfeits and illegal production. Also drug use is often not down to that user having a fair happy reality and oh so often the product of bigger issues that go untackled and addressing those social injustices would do far more to address crime overall than just legalising drugs. Now if they legalised drugs and used that tax income to address those social issues, then we would see progress and more so, some fairness restored.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    We’ve legalized marijuana in Canada. While the illegal market is still pretty big (likely over 50% by volume), the illegal prices have cratered. So you don’t just have a big shift out of the black market, but what’s left of the black market has also been decimated, and spends more on marketing/quality/experience.
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  Depends if the legal version ends up really expensive, compare cigarettes which are still smuggled because of the sin taxes.
  - standardUser 5y ago
    The fact that a small black market will still exist does not negate the argument that legalizing drugs would end the gargantuan black market that currently exists, and most of the ills that come along with it.
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  Black markets exist and are extensive for products that are available through legal means.
rbobby 5y ago
I find this a bit concerning. Catching bad guys is all well and good but I wonder whether the various governments are overreaching. Selling a bugged phone to a known criminal is likely fine (cite: The Wire). But is it acceptable to sell a bugged phone to unknown/unidentified/random people and then use the phone's communications to determine if the owner is a crook and the owner's identity? The sole basis of suspicions seems to be "bought phone", or maybe "bought phone using bitcoin", or even "bought phone on TOR using bitcoin". It will be interesting to see how many of these cases hold up in court.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  Yes, and the court documents released include FBI reasoning based on previous sampling of users showing that the people who bought these phones were criminals. They're not ordinary phones, and distribution is intentionally limited. Drug smugglers don't want to let just anybody buy a phone for their encrypted network, you know
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    > Drug smugglers don't want to let just anybody buy a phone for their encrypted network, you know I mean, if it’s well encrypted, it should be strong enough to not worry about any random being on the network too, no? I guess that’s too counterintuitive for those sweating right now.
- 542354234235 5y ago
  I suspect it was likely a multi-step process to actually get authorization to track a new phone and decrypt messages. For example: >Step 1: Confirm known bad guy has phone through some other means. >Step 2: Decrypt phone messages of known bad guy. Confirm they are criminal activities. >Step 3: Note all previously unknown phones that exchanged criminal messages with known criminal. >Step 4: Those phones are now considered belonging to known criminals. Return to Step 2. Now, its totally possible they were just saying “someone bought a phone through TOR, they are probably bad so we can decrypt their messages” but that doesn’t have to be true for them to have worked their way through this criminal network.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
One day we will realise the war on drugs was mostly destructive to ordinary people. It's important to realise the US has historically played a huge role in the global drug trade, and that really stopping the drug trade means going after banking executives, politicians and chemical corporations. However that is never done.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
This seems to be just a messaging app, but is there a market for more full-featured ERP, CRM and project management software for criminal enterprises? I'm sure they would benefit from those just the same way legitimate enterprises do. The only difference is that they do more illegal stuff and use more violence, but the fundamental business dynamics should be the same.
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  Maybe some IBM consultants can help them sort out their tech business strategy.
- arthur_sav 5y ago
  Trello? The only aspect that would stand out to use a "criminal specific" CRM would be hosting & security.
- caf 5y ago
  I'm sure the FBI is keen to come up with a suitable product offering.
- i386 5y ago
  What the fuck is wrong with you.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    I think this comment is unnecessarily hostile. OP is not offering to build services; he's just asking. It's a valid question. Did you know ISIS had what amounts to an "HR department" ? https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/23994/ https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/23994/
    - i386 5y ago
      Oh boohoo. Calling out a completely immoral business idea isn’t hostile. It’s moral.
janmo 5y ago
I've been reading a lot about these "encrypted phones recently". What really shocks me is how in the last years police has been going after operators of such services under the premise that they would help criminals. - Sky ECC (Shutdown, owner is facing criminal charges) - Phantom Secure (Shutdown and owner got 9 years in prison) - Encrochat ("Hacked" by french police) So it seems like those "Encrypted phones" were very effective for Law Enforcement to put such an effort to go after them. I think that criminal organizations will now rely on a do it yourself technique. Not buying phones online which is a very bad idea as law enforcement could just trap the phones at the postal facility, something they already do. Going to an old fashion phone retailer, then removing the camera and GPS module yourself and installing some encrypted open source software. Probably they are also going to fake messages. For 2 purposes: - Talk about a fake huge drug deliveries or an imminent mass shooting to verify if the network has been compromised, I am pretty sure police has no choice other than to act in such a situation. - This could be used as a strategy defense, if some messages turn out to be fake, then they can use plausible deniability on the others. And perhaps even claim police has faked them.
- Thorentis 5y ago
  > Talk about a fake huge drug deliveries or an imminent mass shooting to verify if the network has been compromised Surprised this wasn't done more. It's the classic tactic you see in the movies: give false intel to the suspected mole and see if they snitch on you.
- chii 5y ago
  > I am pretty sure police has no choice other than to act in such a situation. if the crying wolf method worked, terrorists would have a much easier time executing their plots.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  It s not that they were so effective that police forces got scared of them, it's that the ratio criminals vs normal users is so high that it's a no brainer to spend a few millions on hacking/infiltrating them to collect a huge reward. Whatsapp or Telegram which your grandma uses would be very low reward compared to amount of conversations to parse.
graderjs 5y ago
The takings are just insane. In EU they seized 8 tonnes (!) of cocaine and 22 tonnes of marijuana.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  8t, but global production is 1000-2000t per annum.
  - graderjs 5y ago
    Wow. Had no idea. That's incredible.
janmo 5y ago
I think this is very problematic. Let's say police claims you did something with only the chat log as an evidence and they run the chat software. Then they could very well have just faked it, because they have a high incentive to do so. If the messages were on a third party platform you would at least have a neutral third party involved.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  I wonder how the police linked the devices to real world identities, the exact procedures would be interesting to know.
  - janmo 5y ago
    Perhaps if the WLAN module was not disabled they could have used the mac addresses of the WLAN router. But that's a good question.
    - yawaworht1978 5y ago
      Indeed, sure some might have shared personal info etc, and this case shows that the English guy recently arrested because of a cheese image was a lie, but finding the real user behind the device must have taken a lot of work, the authorities seem hesitant to share this info. Each one had also to pay a subscription and make a payment, perhaps this helped a great deal.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      Jokes on you, my WLAN MAC is B00B1E55:B00B1E55:B00B1E55:B00B1E55 and yours should be too.
      - janmo 5y ago
        This doesn't help a lot if you have a neighbor WLAN in reach. They would just used that one to locate you.
- bagacrap 5y ago
mdeck_ 5y ago
Further details on the background/history of the operation here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation-trojan-horse-anom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation...
yawaworht1978 5y ago
So they seized 130 million, arrested 1800 people. Assuming even wealth distribution, that is 72k Eur. The distribution is of course not even, as some of the confiscation images show cars worth way more than that, also watched and many bags filled to the brink with money. Some of the arrest images show the bedrooms and they do not look better than a prison cell. This means many of the involved do this for very bad ROI ratio, considering that most will face 20plus years sentences.
dboreham 5y ago
They forgot to review the app's source code.
ComodoHacker 5y ago
> legal authorities prevented the app from being covertly used for a longer time frame. I can see how strong was the temptation to continue and see how far it could go.
woeirua 5y ago
Odds that this is how the US nabbed the key to the Bitcoin from the Colonial Pipeline ransom? That’d be pretty wild, but makes sense...
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Well, both the warrant looking for an an0m user’s gmail account and the judge’s warrant for seizing the Bitcoin were from Northern California.
raldi 5y ago
Next: "We've secretly been torturing people for the last three years — look at all the cases it helped us crack!”
hemloc_io 5y ago
Seems like duplication and infiltration is becoming a more common tactic amoung LE. There's some pretty convincing speculation Dream market was setup as a similar operation to this. [0] If this proves anything it's that the fear mongering by LE about encryption was overblown and they're just lazy lol. 0: https://youtu.be/1VZkiQUzITU https://youtu.be/1VZkiQUzITU
AlexCoventry 5y ago
I'm curious how this works constitutionally, in the US. Presumably the FBI did not have warrants for all the conversations they were listening in on, so it at least superficially seems like a fourth amendment violation.
- emc3 5y ago
  Depends where they are prosecuted. In the US, we'll use the EU's copy of the data, vice versa (wish this was \s)
- LeFever 5y ago
  They’re claiming not to have analyzed comms in the US: > "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," the document reads. From From https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...
  - AlexCoventry 5y ago
    Thanks.
reedjosh 5y ago
Why is the burner on high heat in like the fourth photo?
lfmunoz4 5y ago
Anyone know how these applications work the architecture of them? To me it seems that encryption apps are trivial. Yet they keep getting compromised. You have a public key and private key you give public key away. You keep private key safe, what is so difficult?
asimpletune 5y ago
This is how police should get around the problems presented with encryption. This is real policing. The PR barrage and faux posturing by the FBI to weaken encryption has always seemed like just lazy policing to me. If anything, the hacking attacks on industrial centers has better illustrated than anything why encryption is necessary, and this new triumph has demonstrated that police can continue to function, even thrive in a world that permits encryption.
- junon 5y ago
  Agreed entirely. This sort of thing is how it should be done, and clearly quite effective to boot. Hopefully this sends a loud message.
- sorbits 5y ago
  > This is how police should get around the problems presented with encryption. By adding a backdoor to E2E encryption? That is pretty much what they have been asking for :) Amazing that criminals still pick some unknown device over an existing solution with a proven track record. This is not the first time something like this has happened: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncroChat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncroChat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Global
  - asimpletune 5y ago
    tl;dr hacking is allowed, abusing gov't authority to compel is cheating. I don't think it's really the same as "what they were asking for" at all. a.) they didn't compel a company to secretly do it for them b.) the back door is targeted, I.e. not mass surveillance As far as I understand, they did the work themselves (modified android OS), and their methods were targeted. A "bad guy" could only get this special, hacked phone, from other "bad guys". This wasn't the same thing as, sending a mole to get work at Cisco and install an undetectable zero-day in all communication infrastructure switches world-wide. And it's definitely a far cry from forcing apple to make a modified iOS on their behalf. No, they pretty much did what hackers do, and as far as I'm concerned, that's fair game.
  - 5y ago
motorocool 5y ago
Never never use a mobile phone if you're a dirty criminal
emsign 5y ago
People were onto Anom already figuring out it wasn't what it pretended to be. Site got deleted shortly after the raid. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3APwQXt6Sn_YwJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fanomexposed.wordpress.com%2F+ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3APwQX...
chriselles 5y ago
ANOM seems like a shorter/sharper law enforcement version of the CIA's Cold War era intelligence operation when they purchased Swiss encrypted communication company Crypto AG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
mickotron 5y ago
Should've used signal

431 points by ferros 5y ago

na85 5y ago

Text of TFA uses the term "infiltrating" in lieu of "cracking". Not that I necessarily expect Reuters to keep their infosec terminology straight but I wonder if this was a novel hack or if was a simple matter of a judicial gag order, seizing the developer's account and then pushing out a malicious update that enabled MITM or something.

senectus1 5y ago
from what I understand they developed the app themselves... marketed and pushed the app to certain "dark markets" and let them use the apps and devices as if they were secure. they were in fact real time monitoring every transaction. amazing really. and pretty funny if you asked me :-P
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  Sounds like they busted down an established provider of secure comm devices and then took over it's distribution network to push their own devices.
- iJohnDoe 5y ago
  Not funny. Pretty much worse fucking case scenario. Imagine Signal, Telegram, or any other app that touts themselves as a secure app is really just the creation of the FBI, NSA, CIA, and NRO. Remember, yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s reality.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    And that is why open source is important (and Signal's server and open source integration should be viewed very skeptically).
  - marlor 5y ago
    They covered themselves by ensuring that the devices could only be ordered after private referral from another user. All of whom were underworld figures (the devices were initially “seeded” to “underworld influencers”). I’m sure that added to the credibility of the device among criminal groups, but it also ensured that the platform wasn’t adopted by your average privacy-conscious user.
  - fouc 5y ago
    Yeah, sometimes I wonder if Tor is already co-opted like this.
  - dt3ft 5y ago
    Food for thought: Telegram estimated costs for 2021 based on 675 million monthly active users (MAU) are $220 Million. Yet, the app is somehow free to use. Where does the money to cover the costs come from?
    - jakub_g 5y ago
      $220M is not pocket money, but Durov's net worth is apparently $17.2B, so he could afford it for a few more years https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/
      - yawaworht1978 5y ago
        Thanks for this, what about Moxie? Who covers those costs?
        kenneth 5y ago
        Signal is funded by a $50M donation from Brian Acton, who made billions selling WhatsApp to Facebook.
      - stef25 5y ago
        He was listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2021, with a net worth of $17.2 billion. His fortune is largely driven by his ownership of Telegram - Wikipedia. So billions from Telegram, a free app. What am I missing?
        jakub_g 5y ago
        That's a valid point. It's free now but they do have some plans for monetization (ads in channels with huge numbers of subscribers etc.)
    - fragileone 5y ago
      Telegram isn't end-to-end encypted except for some 1:1 chats. The unencrypted chat data is likely being sold, as their privacy policy allows.
  - scoopertrooper 5y ago
    I'd say it's just a good argument for using a popular app (like one you mentioned) because it is likely to be subject to the critical eyes of security researchers.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    If you're not already operating under the assumption that TLAs have full access to your entire online history, there's really no point in trying to start now. Use secure apps like Signal to hide your information from hackers, thieves, and generic script kiddies, not to hide from national security agencies. Especially when said agency can send a van to your house to take all your digital equipment (fully legally if backed by a warrant) until you comply and give up all your passwords and encryption keys. You cannot defeat the legal system through technical means, your only hope is having some kind of escape submarine or private jet to get yourself extracted to a non-extradition country like Russia (or, if you're Snowden, trolling journalists with your flight so all the goons get on the wrong plane). https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
    - nucleardog 5y ago
      For a slightly humorous take on this, James Mickens' paper _This World of Ours_[0] is enjoyable: > In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https:// https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them. In summary, https:// https:// and two dollars will get you a bus ticket to nowhere. [0] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
      - ganzuul 5y ago
        This is pretty much my understanding too. We have not progressed one iota in civilization and everything comes down to torture and murder when the going gets tough. My only hope for a future for humankind lies with this socialist software ideal I have been musing about...
  - walrus01 5y ago
    If moxie marlinespike is a deep cover agent he's been cultivating a whole character and persona for a very long time. I'd lean towards the "not a NSA plant" view myself.
  - Thorentis 5y ago
    Except that we can see exactly what is being sent from our devices since Signal is open source. Even if the servers are run by the FBI, at best they have a whole bunch of encrypted messages (which they could get by wire tapping anyway).
- stef25 5y ago
  If I present some device to my local street dealer and tell him to "use this it's secure I swear" he'll probably punch me cause he suspects a trap. Amazing that these "world class" criminals fall for this stuff.
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    Not if you're his supplier. This whole thing works on pre-existing connections.

ferros 5y ago

Looks like the app’s domain was also seized. https://www.anom.io/ https://www.anom.io/

olalonde 5y ago
Funny how that form is essentially asking users to dox themselves. I wonder how many will take the bait.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  My mother-in-law better watch out Overall, a very clean website source. No trackers in the source at all. Countries list is interesting. Lists Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Virgin Islands (US). Didn't know PR seceded, thank you FBI for confirming. Lists various French territories. Missing South Sudan. Missing Kosovo. Includes Taiwan. Includes Palestine.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dalbasal 5y ago
  "To determine if your account is associated with an ongoing investigation, please enter any device details below:" Seems like they're flexing.
  - Vespasian 5y ago
    It probably directs to a static page saying "YES" because after entering all that information your account will be under investigation for sure ;)
marlor 5y ago
It’s bizarre, because news reports state that the entire app and monitoring system was created by the FBI and Australian Federal Police. If it’s their system, why would they need to seize its domain?

premium-komodo 5y ago

As is often the case with the FBI, they were apparently facilitating the crimes. It's easy to argue that the crimes might not have taken place without the FBI's help. Somehow this is never entrapment when the FBI is doing it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Taniwha 5y ago

not just Australia, it's world wide and likely led by the FBI (but possibly data being collected outside the US to avoid the need of having actual warrants) The following thread looks at some of the opened court documents today: https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123 https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123 (and points out that the Trump organisation might be in trouble ....)

lazyasciiart 5y ago
Being outside the US doesn't avoid the need for actual warrants. That thread mentions several, both in the US and out of it.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Unless they found a pushover country and structured as much data to be sent there in the app. Have them get the warrant and review the data and inform you of anything good. Arbitrage isn’t just for bankers.
galaxyLogic 5y ago
The tweet says: "... remember that Dipshit McSonInLaw used these exact "technologies" to communicate with the Saudis and stuff. ... ". But, I don't see how he the tweeter could be sure or know that Trumps used this app?
- marlor 5y ago
  I’m sure he has no idea. This is far from the only encrypted messaging system out there.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  Eric Garland is a massive blowhard/self-promoter (and I say this despite sharing his dislike of Trump). Even when his claims are accurate he's so obnoxious and annoying that I can't be bothered to evaluate his other claims. I save a lot of time and mental agitation by ignoring e-personalities and assuming that if something is important I'll hear about it from a quality source before very long.

Santosh83 5y ago

The lesson here is complete trust in modern computing platforms is misplaced and impossible. Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients. In addition, popular apps, especially in the US, can always be commandeered by 3-letter agencies. You're only anonymous as long as you're not actively targetted, despite using "secure" apps and stuff like Tor, which media makes it seem are unbreakable.

cylde_frog 5y ago
Not quite. They were using an app developed by the police as a honeypot. Someone else had even discovered this and blogged about it[0]. If they had used email and PGP they likely wouldn't have been caught in this way. 3-letter agencies are not going to use their trump card of backdoored OS or hardware to catch drug runners. [0]https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PwQXt6Sn_YwJ:https://anomexposed.wordpress.com/+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PwQXt6...
- CTDOCodebases 5y ago
  True.. however the three letter agencies are going to pass along any relevant information that they stumble across while filtering for money laundering in relation to terrorism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction?wprov=sf...
- vkou 5y ago
  If they used email and PGP, they wouldn't have been caught this way... That is because the usability of PGP is so bad, they wouldn't have any time to actually operate their criminal enterprise. Also - email, PGP or not, leaks metadata, and the police will happily end your whole criminal career based on metadata.
nexuist 5y ago
> Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients None of these were exploited to retrieve this data, and the third party app that was installed was not intended to encrypt conversations given that it was a honeypot. > popular apps This was a small app unknown by anyone outside of criminal orgs. It had no "legitimate" non-criminal users. > especially in the US The app was deployed in Australia. > can always be commandeered Why distribute a random app when they could have gotten the criminals to use Signal or Telegram and bust them there? > as long as you're not actively targeted How long did it take to find Bin Laden? > despite using "secure" apps This was not a secure app and any audit would have revealed this (audits such as the ones that Signal and friends have undergone). > and stuff like Tor, Tor was not involved. > media makes it seem are unbreakable. None of the apps hyped as "unbreakable" were broken here, so...point still stands, I guess? Honestly, if anything, the recommended approach from this incident would be to use the walled garden - an FBI-backed honeypot would have a lot harder time getting from the App/Play Store onto a user's phone if it was obviously a scam to collect user conversations, asked for a bunch of permissions, had no reviews, and no apparent update history. Who would download some random chat app that nobody uses?

cylde_frog 5y ago

From what I understand they targeted a high ranking member of the gang and he promoted the app, which was developed by the police to others. Since a high level member endorsed it, it become widely used.

postingawayonhn 5y ago
You're broadly correct though they are saying this app ended up being used by criminal organisations all over the world. Arrests took place across 18 countries including NZ, Australia, the UK, Germany, and the US.

michaelmrose 5y ago

Does anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily.

cylde_frog 5y ago
I wonder about this too. What sort of people do international criminal organisations hire to manage their info-sec? A criminal that became a computer expert or a computer expert that became a criminal?
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  You hire people you can burn is what you do. Shipping coordinators got busted? How sad. Over my life Ive met people who while they seem competent and can tie their shoe laces appear to make bad decisions because they have trouble with judging likely outcomes. Those are the people getting hired to do this sort of work.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Codefellas https://www.wired.com/2003/12/mafia/ https://www.wired.com/2003/12/mafia/
  - cheschire 5y ago
    Kids born after that article are nearly finished with high school. I’m pretty sure the dynamic has changed a little since then. Interesting to at least see how it used to be though.
  - imhoguy 5y ago
    Nice! Is there some follow up story after years?
- sumedh 5y ago
  I would imagine its more of a computer expert who then becomes a criminal because of the money.

31tor 5y ago

So the big question is if would have been better to strike fast, silently gain more intel och strike in some kind of statistical analysis maner to not blow their cover á la Alan Turing and the enigma

marlor 5y ago
It’s been running for three years. I suspect something changed recently (perhaps some imminent threat) that meant they needed to act now.
- goatsi 5y ago
  One of the warrants they were using to legally collect the information ran out today.
PinkPigeon 5y ago
Random nitpick, but I think it's à la. Do correct me if I'm wrong though.
- ternaryoperator 5y ago
  it is indeed a grave accent, just as you say
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Well, in hindsight, this is not a big question any more, they are all in jail now and will drag most of the supply and micro distribution chain with them. More careful actors are still out there and conducting business as usual. I have read a book on one of the main Italian groups, they have very efficient micro storage procedures to avoid big losses and at least the higher ups will not use phones or computers, they will meet in person. They have or used to have rules of conduct which are very strict, like, stay home with family and don't be seen in bars etc. The opposite of the green horns flaunting the cars and watches, or the Turkish guys wife documenting their lifestyle on Instagram up until yesterday. Sure, mass arrests happen in Italy as well, and some other countries the whole network works different. But using phones is too dangerous and it is avoidable to run efficient logistics. Not only for traceability, but a compromised or confiscated phone will have a lot of let's say problematic evidence on it. Even the Mexican and Colombian groups operate from remote areas, even if affiliated with some parts of governments. I think the usage of digital devices is just lazyness, another attribute like the flaunting of the illicit gains.

flashman 5y ago

As to how the FBI got access to the messages, Vice says[1] after Vincent Ramos of Phantom Secure was arrested in 2018, a confidential human source offered Anom, which the source was developing, to the FBI (probably in exchange for immunity or a reduced sentence, in my opinion). The source then seeded Anom phones to his existing distributors as a replacement for Phantom Secure phones, and from their they made their way into criminal organisations. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...

RachelF 5y ago
Makes you wonder how many commercial VPN services are just FBI honeypots?
- killingtime74 5y ago
  Or even foreign state actors
  - andruby 5y ago
    The FBI, from the viewpoint of 95% of the world, is “a foreign state actor”.
    - Thorentis 5y ago
      Not country-wise. The US has many first world allies that cooporerate with the FBI on a second party basis.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  1, but this is exactly the point. Use them for netflix not to coordinate heroin sales.
- deadalus 5y ago
  This is exactly why I tend to use VPNs from country's with which the US is not in good terms with : Russia, Iran, Belarus, China

femto 5y ago

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/fbi-afp-underworld-crime-bust-an0m-cash-drugs-murder/100197246 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/fbi-afp-underworld-cr... Apparently it revolved around duping Hakan Ayik, one of Australia's most wanted drug dealers now operating as an international kingpin from Turkey, to trust the app and recommend it to his associates. It's a double whammy, in that the network has been blown wide open and the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates. No doubt there will be a movie about this one.

FatalLogic 5y ago
>the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.pdf https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"
- cromka 5y ago
  > "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]" This is based on assumption that a regular "free" person has not made thousands of criminals at the same time.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  That study computes that you're 7x more likely to get murdered in prison than in the "comparable non-prison community", but "comparable" here seems to be only for age/gender. I imagine the homicide rate is a wee bit higher than average for drug kingpins, particularly those seen to have ratted out 100+ people, even unintentionally.
  - duxup 5y ago
    Yeah this guy presumably had a wide ranging network of people who he knows, who haven't been caught, but may be exposed ... by him. This dude now poses a risk to a lot of very worried people right now and presumably the people he relies on are running for cover / maybe less likely to protect him.

rohanstake 5y ago

Good that they arrested the culprits. But infiltrating the encrypted messaging app isn't the best thing I guess. The argument, it is used by criminals is flawed. Because everything is - water pipelines, cash, facebook, and so on.

fvold 5y ago
This was specifically seeded into the criminal world. It's not like they cracked Signal, or whatever. It's not an infiltration of the app, it's an infiltration of the criminal organizations, using an app they made.
- usrusr 5y ago
  Makes me wonder if "invite only" could eventually be read as a red flag indicating possible honeypot? Guess no secret tool is forever.
tcbasche 5y ago
maybe read the article ;)

nneonneo 5y ago

There are more details in a recently unsealed search warrant against a GMail user: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.707623/gov.uscourts.casd.707623.1.0_2.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.70... An informant (confidential human source, or "CHS") helped the FBI and AFP (Australian Federal Police) develop and distribute Anom to criminal gangs (transnational criminal organizations, or "TCOs"): > The CHS offered this next generation device, named “Anom,” to the FBI to use in ongoing and new investigations. The CHS also agreed to offer to distribute Anom devices to some of the CHS’s existing network of distributors of encrypted communications devices, all of whom have direct links to TCOs. Anom was specifically designed from the ground up with an encryption backdoor: > Before the device could be put to use, however, the FBI, AFP, and the CHS built a master key into the existing encryption system which surreptitiously attaches to each message and enables law enforcement to decrypt and store the message as it is transmitted. A user of Anom is unaware of this capability. By design, as part of the Trojan Shield investigation, for devices located outside of the United States, an encrypted “BCC” of the message is routed to an “iBot” server located outside of the United States, where it is decrypted from the CHS’s encryption code and then immediately re-encrypted with FBI encryption code. The newly encrypted message then passes to a second FBI-owned iBot server, where it is decrypted and its content available for viewing in the first instance. Naturally, the FBI can't spy on domestic communications without a warrant, so they got the AFP to do it for them: > FBI geo-fenced the U.S., meaning that any outgoing messages from a device with a U.S. MCC would not have any communications on the FBI iBot server. But if any devices landed in the United States, the AFP agreed to monitor these devices for any threats to life based on their normal policies and procedures. Closing Sky Global and Encrochat drove criminals to Anom: > Since March 12, 2021, as a direct result of the Sky Global charges, there are now close to 9000 active Anom users. The criminals who use hardened encrypted devices are constantly searching for the next secure device, and the distributors of these devices have enabled criminals’ impenetrable communications on these devices for years. Finally, the FBI quite directly admits their goal is to shake confidence in encrypted messaging: > A goal of the Trojan Shield investigation is to shake the confidence in this entire industry because the FBI is willing and able to enter this space and monitor messages. There's also a number of sample conversations in the warrant application showing criminals openly talking about moving drugs and other illegal activities with absolutely no code. Definitely worth a read.

spicyramen 5y ago

Can't find the article but Mexican drug cartels hired Cisco certified experts to setup their encrypted communications. Not just your average CCNA guy from test king, but industry experts working for Service Providers and Government.

te_chris 5y ago
Reminds me of the character from Narcos who was working to secure the Cali cartel's communications. No doubt lots of work for people who know how to harden networks for criminal orgs.
xtracto 5y ago
If by "hired" you mean kidnapped and made them decide between killing their families and them or paying them to secure their networks then you are correct. Drug cartels over here are terrible.

cromka 5y ago

What we've learned is only what was in Austrlia's piece of the cake, given they started their day already. New Zeland had theirs already, too. I imagine thousands of arrests are still happening worldwide and several press conferences are going to be held today. Looking at the seal of the operation (https://www.anom.io/trojan_shield_seal.jpg https://www.anom.io/trojan_shield_seal.jpg), following countries participated in the operation: Canada, Australia, US, Sweden, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Austria, UK, New Zeland, Estonia, Scotland, Germany, Denmark. I expect this to be bigger than Panama Papers. Way bigger. I expect a few prominent politicians to be soon either arrested or "convinced" to step down. I expect the US to have gained a lot of intel and leverage over those from the countries who did not participate in this. We will absolutely not learn about everything they discovered. CIA will and the respective intelligence agencies will. EDIT: Europol will hold their conference live on YouTube at 10 AM CST: https://twitter.com/janoorth/status/1402164252266409987 https://twitter.com/janoorth/status/1402164252266409987 EDIT 2: given how Serbia was in the top 4 of messages sent, I really hope that the info gathered will help Interpol fight child trafficking and exploitation in the EU. From the VICE article (https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...) quoted elsewhere here: "Additionally, the review of Anom messages has initiated numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries. The most prominent distributors are currently being investigated by the FBI for participating in an enterprise which promotes international drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice." "Late Monday, the FBI said that it would be holding "a news conference announcing a massive worldwide takedown based on the San Diego FBI’s unprecedented investigation involving the interception of encrypted communications" on Tuesday."

dagw 5y ago
Sweden just announced 155 arrests: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/europol-berattar-om-det-omfattande-tillslaget https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/europol-berattar-om-det-o...
- Ovah 5y ago
  Which amounts to almost 20% of those arrested. Maybe it's partly due to Sweden historically having strong computer literacy. Only time will tell.

pelasaco 5y ago

Nice one, but i guess if this whole operation was still a secret, we could pull this trick over and over again? Now will be hard to disguise an app like that. Probably the next season of the "StartUp" TV series

Cederfjard 5y ago
Presumably it would’ve come out during legal proceedings anyway.
WJW 5y ago
This is already the third or fourth such app that was either infiltrated by the police, taken over by the police or outright constructed by them. Criminals have a vested interest in getting access to encrypted communications and they know that all of the common phone OSes and chat apps are compromised, so they will be looking to join such secure networks. This need for security is what makes the continued use of these operations by law enforcement viable, since criminals have no choice but to seek out these encrypted apps.
- usrusr 5y ago
  My impression is that in all those cases the root weakness was that those criminals liked to feel sophisticated, "in the know". So those special apps (special, from our perspective, as in euphemism for birth defect) could spread by fashion. The smalltimes like to imitate the big ones while the big ones try to stay ahead of the curve, eager to pick up anything new from upstarts before they become big. It might be my Hollywood education speaking, but criminal networks are supposed to lean strongly on status and respect (how could they not, given the absence of law enforcement which makes trust the only option) and this makes them vulnerable to fashion as a malware vector.
  - WJW 5y ago
    I think it is also just a natural "feature of the terrain". Criminals need to communicate with their customers and each other to coordinate, but they cannot use "normal" apps because those can be presumed to be compromised by the police. This creates a natural funnel where criminals are driven to these custom apps, similar to how old-time armies would fight over things like river crossings and mountain passes because the opponent had no choice but to go there if they wanted to invade at all.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

How would this be any different to creating a global back door in signal, wikr or slack?

fvold 5y ago
The main difference is that by building their own honey pot, they did not have to rely on an external actor to maintain any secrecy. If they dug their claws into wikr, they'd have to worry about leaks from every single person involved with wikr on top of all potential leaks from law enforcement personnel. Also, I suspect it's easier to get the warrants needed to create a sting from the ground up than it is for several different law enforcement agencies around the world to each get separate warrants to access wikr/slack/discord/whatever's data. Once the data legally exists in a law enforcement database, it is relatively simple bureaucracy to share it with allied organizations.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  What I mean is they’re effectively breaching the privacy of any perfectly legit users. They’ve done this in the past with stuff like mobile tower spoofing. Why is this ok, and mobile spoofing not, ethically?
- caeril 5y ago
  Wickr is almost certainly compromised anyway. Never trust an app that neither charges for its use (like Threema), nor takes donations (like Signal Foundation). Wickr's funding is a huge mystery. Approach with caution.

grouphugs 5y ago

it's weird that the nazis have distributed almost as much heroin as they've taken in. the united states flooded afghanistan with heroin in the 70's and 80's, so much that it's still such a large regional issue. but why was the united states never prosecuted? hell, for fucking 50 years people called it a conspiracy

bloqs 5y ago

From the Vice Motherboard article: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-... "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," Any ideas as to why?

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Maybe undercover agents? Diplomats?
- ChrisKnott 5y ago
  They might have been IDed as non-criminal. You get the odd crime/drugs reporter who uses the devices, e.g. this interview was conducted on a SkyECC phone https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wj5d/prison-drug-dealer-crack-heroin https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wj5d/prison-drug-dealer-cr... (another CDSC platform that was recently hacked).
WJW 5y ago
The FBI can't inspect data about Americans without a warrant, which they presumably don't have. The other countries who were in on this have no such restrictions and will read the messages by American citizens just fine. They may or may not decide to tip off the FBI if there is evidence of crime in the messages, and the FBI at that point would have "reasonable suspicion" and could acquire a warrant based on that.

intricatedetail 5y ago

> and seized more than 3,000 kilograms of drugs and $45 million in cash and assets. Excuse me, but I can't stop laughing. Three years effort to catch a small fish and they sell it as if they got bust of the century. Why don't they investigate politicians that facilitate prohibition and enable these gangs to work in the first place? Police can't see they run fool's errands.

fvold 5y ago
The big blow isn't the amount of drugs or cash taken, it's the grabbing of relatively high ranking people in the organization, and the absolute shattering of their communication. I bet a bunch of them will go back to in-person communication only for a long while after this, slowing things down considerably.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  Are they just catching nobodies though?
rorykoehler 5y ago
This was exactly my thought too. The numbers they quoted in the Europol press conference are a drop in the ocean.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

It seems like there is a bust of these "safe" devices every other month. And the groups trust them again, when will they learn, do not use a phone or computer. One of the last Italian capos would pass on messages on pieces of paper or verbally. And still got busted, but after a life time.

turbinerneiter 5y ago

I'm happy they are catching criminals, but now I wonder how many of my encryption and privacy software is actually an FBI front.

upofadown 5y ago
That is why effective end to end encryption is so important. It doesn't matter who is behind it. That is the whole point. No trust required.
- brainwad 5y ago
  The app can just leak your keys to a central database? Using code other people wrote/compiled always requires trust.
  - tantalor 5y ago
    Could the OS lock down the app's permissions to prevent that? Like, this app can ONLY send/recv e2e encrypted messages, and not log anything or talk to other apps.
    - brainwad 5y ago
      The app could still send your keys _as_ an e2e message (to the app author). OS enforcement would need to be pretty intrusive to stop this (e.g. a pop-up for every message sent, displaying the actual destination of the message). I bet users would get pretty blind to such pop-ups, and it would be easy to trick them into accepting the leaking of their private keys.
      - tantalor 5y ago
        Yeah good point, for that matter you need to trust the app isn't cc'ing the FBI on every message you send.
      - corin_ 5y ago
        If you trust the OS, it could hypothetically be built into the OS such that the app only gives what needs to be encrypted to the OS and gets back an encrypted payload to send, then the app wouldn't need to access your keys? Of course at that point the OS has to either provide good key management itself, or a good API so that the apps can still make things seamless while still not accessing the keys directly.. and probably other problems I haven't thought of.

jliptzin 5y ago

I wonder how much crime would be left if the drug trade were legalized

Zenst 5y ago
Alcohol and tobacco are legal in many countries and yet you still get counterfeits and illegal production. Also drug use is often not down to that user having a fair happy reality and oh so often the product of bigger issues that go untackled and addressing those social injustices would do far more to address crime overall than just legalising drugs. Now if they legalised drugs and used that tax income to address those social issues, then we would see progress and more so, some fairness restored.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  We’ve legalized marijuana in Canada. While the illegal market is still pretty big (likely over 50% by volume), the illegal prices have cratered. So you don’t just have a big shift out of the black market, but what’s left of the black market has also been decimated, and spends more on marketing/quality/experience.
JulianMorrison 5y ago
Depends if the legal version ends up really expensive, compare cigarettes which are still smuggled because of the sin taxes.
- standardUser 5y ago
  The fact that a small black market will still exist does not negate the argument that legalizing drugs would end the gargantuan black market that currently exists, and most of the ills that come along with it.
bart_spoon 5y ago
Black markets exist and are extensive for products that are available through legal means.

rbobby 5y ago

I find this a bit concerning. Catching bad guys is all well and good but I wonder whether the various governments are overreaching. Selling a bugged phone to a known criminal is likely fine (cite: The Wire). But is it acceptable to sell a bugged phone to unknown/unidentified/random people and then use the phone's communications to determine if the owner is a crook and the owner's identity? The sole basis of suspicions seems to be "bought phone", or maybe "bought phone using bitcoin", or even "bought phone on TOR using bitcoin". It will be interesting to see how many of these cases hold up in court.

lazyasciiart 5y ago
Yes, and the court documents released include FBI reasoning based on previous sampling of users showing that the people who bought these phones were criminals. They're not ordinary phones, and distribution is intentionally limited. Drug smugglers don't want to let just anybody buy a phone for their encrypted network, you know
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  > Drug smugglers don't want to let just anybody buy a phone for their encrypted network, you know I mean, if it’s well encrypted, it should be strong enough to not worry about any random being on the network too, no? I guess that’s too counterintuitive for those sweating right now.
542354234235 5y ago
I suspect it was likely a multi-step process to actually get authorization to track a new phone and decrypt messages. For example: >Step 1: Confirm known bad guy has phone through some other means. >Step 2: Decrypt phone messages of known bad guy. Confirm they are criminal activities. >Step 3: Note all previously unknown phones that exchanged criminal messages with known criminal. >Step 4: Those phones are now considered belonging to known criminals. Return to Step 2. Now, its totally possible they were just saying “someone bought a phone through TOR, they are probably bad so we can decrypt their messages” but that doesn’t have to be true for them to have worked their way through this criminal network.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

One day we will realise the war on drugs was mostly destructive to ordinary people. It's important to realise the US has historically played a huge role in the global drug trade, and that really stopping the drug trade means going after banking executives, politicians and chemical corporations. However that is never done.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago

This seems to be just a messaging app, but is there a market for more full-featured ERP, CRM and project management software for criminal enterprises? I'm sure they would benefit from those just the same way legitimate enterprises do. The only difference is that they do more illegal stuff and use more violence, but the fundamental business dynamics should be the same.

Synaesthesia 5y ago
Maybe some IBM consultants can help them sort out their tech business strategy.
arthur_sav 5y ago
Trello? The only aspect that would stand out to use a "criminal specific" CRM would be hosting & security.
caf 5y ago
I'm sure the FBI is keen to come up with a suitable product offering.
i386 5y ago
What the fuck is wrong with you.
- neither_color 5y ago
  I think this comment is unnecessarily hostile. OP is not offering to build services; he's just asking. It's a valid question. Did you know ISIS had what amounts to an "HR department" ? https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/23994/ https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/23994/
  - i386 5y ago
    Oh boohoo. Calling out a completely immoral business idea isn’t hostile. It’s moral.

janmo 5y ago

I've been reading a lot about these "encrypted phones recently". What really shocks me is how in the last years police has been going after operators of such services under the premise that they would help criminals. - Sky ECC (Shutdown, owner is facing criminal charges) - Phantom Secure (Shutdown and owner got 9 years in prison) - Encrochat ("Hacked" by french police) So it seems like those "Encrypted phones" were very effective for Law Enforcement to put such an effort to go after them. I think that criminal organizations will now rely on a do it yourself technique. Not buying phones online which is a very bad idea as law enforcement could just trap the phones at the postal facility, something they already do. Going to an old fashion phone retailer, then removing the camera and GPS module yourself and installing some encrypted open source software. Probably they are also going to fake messages. For 2 purposes: - Talk about a fake huge drug deliveries or an imminent mass shooting to verify if the network has been compromised, I am pretty sure police has no choice other than to act in such a situation. - This could be used as a strategy defense, if some messages turn out to be fake, then they can use plausible deniability on the others. And perhaps even claim police has faked them.

Thorentis 5y ago
> Talk about a fake huge drug deliveries or an imminent mass shooting to verify if the network has been compromised Surprised this wasn't done more. It's the classic tactic you see in the movies: give false intel to the suspected mole and see if they snitch on you.
chii 5y ago
> I am pretty sure police has no choice other than to act in such a situation. if the crying wolf method worked, terrorists would have a much easier time executing their plots.
xwolfi 5y ago
It s not that they were so effective that police forces got scared of them, it's that the ratio criminals vs normal users is so high that it's a no brainer to spend a few millions on hacking/infiltrating them to collect a huge reward. Whatsapp or Telegram which your grandma uses would be very low reward compared to amount of conversations to parse.

graderjs 5y ago

The takings are just insane. In EU they seized 8 tonnes (!) of cocaine and 22 tonnes of marijuana.

Scoundreller 5y ago
8t, but global production is 1000-2000t per annum.
- graderjs 5y ago
  Wow. Had no idea. That's incredible.

janmo 5y ago

I think this is very problematic. Let's say police claims you did something with only the chat log as an evidence and they run the chat software. Then they could very well have just faked it, because they have a high incentive to do so. If the messages were on a third party platform you would at least have a neutral third party involved.

yawaworht1978 5y ago
I wonder how the police linked the devices to real world identities, the exact procedures would be interesting to know.
- janmo 5y ago
  Perhaps if the WLAN module was not disabled they could have used the mac addresses of the WLAN router. But that's a good question.
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    Indeed, sure some might have shared personal info etc, and this case shows that the English guy recently arrested because of a cheese image was a lie, but finding the real user behind the device must have taken a lot of work, the authorities seem hesitant to share this info. Each one had also to pay a subscription and make a payment, perhaps this helped a great deal.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Jokes on you, my WLAN MAC is B00B1E55:B00B1E55:B00B1E55:B00B1E55 and yours should be too.
    - janmo 5y ago
      This doesn't help a lot if you have a neighbor WLAN in reach. They would just used that one to locate you.
bagacrap 5y ago

mdeck_ 5y ago

Further details on the background/history of the operation here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation-trojan-horse-anom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation...

yawaworht1978 5y ago

So they seized 130 million, arrested 1800 people. Assuming even wealth distribution, that is 72k Eur. The distribution is of course not even, as some of the confiscation images show cars worth way more than that, also watched and many bags filled to the brink with money. Some of the arrest images show the bedrooms and they do not look better than a prison cell. This means many of the involved do this for very bad ROI ratio, considering that most will face 20plus years sentences.

dboreham 5y ago

They forgot to review the app's source code.

ComodoHacker 5y ago

> legal authorities prevented the app from being covertly used for a longer time frame. I can see how strong was the temptation to continue and see how far it could go.

woeirua 5y ago

Odds that this is how the US nabbed the key to the Bitcoin from the Colonial Pipeline ransom? That’d be pretty wild, but makes sense...

Scoundreller 5y ago
Well, both the warrant looking for an an0m user’s gmail account and the judge’s warrant for seizing the Bitcoin were from Northern California.

raldi 5y ago

Next: "We've secretly been torturing people for the last three years — look at all the cases it helped us crack!”

hemloc_io 5y ago

Seems like duplication and infiltration is becoming a more common tactic amoung LE. There's some pretty convincing speculation Dream market was setup as a similar operation to this. [0] If this proves anything it's that the fear mongering by LE about encryption was overblown and they're just lazy lol. 0: https://youtu.be/1VZkiQUzITU https://youtu.be/1VZkiQUzITU

AlexCoventry 5y ago

I'm curious how this works constitutionally, in the US. Presumably the FBI did not have warrants for all the conversations they were listening in on, so it at least superficially seems like a fourth amendment violation.

emc3 5y ago
Depends where they are prosecuted. In the US, we'll use the EU's copy of the data, vice versa (wish this was \s)
LeFever 5y ago
They’re claiming not to have analyzed comms in the US: > "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," the document reads. From From https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...
- AlexCoventry 5y ago
  Thanks.

reedjosh 5y ago

Why is the burner on high heat in like the fourth photo?

lfmunoz4 5y ago

Anyone know how these applications work the architecture of them? To me it seems that encryption apps are trivial. Yet they keep getting compromised. You have a public key and private key you give public key away. You keep private key safe, what is so difficult?

asimpletune 5y ago

This is how police should get around the problems presented with encryption. This is real policing. The PR barrage and faux posturing by the FBI to weaken encryption has always seemed like just lazy policing to me. If anything, the hacking attacks on industrial centers has better illustrated than anything why encryption is necessary, and this new triumph has demonstrated that police can continue to function, even thrive in a world that permits encryption.

junon 5y ago
Agreed entirely. This sort of thing is how it should be done, and clearly quite effective to boot. Hopefully this sends a loud message.
sorbits 5y ago
> This is how police should get around the problems presented with encryption. By adding a backdoor to E2E encryption? That is pretty much what they have been asking for :) Amazing that criminals still pick some unknown device over an existing solution with a proven track record. This is not the first time something like this has happened: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncroChat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncroChat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Global
- asimpletune 5y ago
  tl;dr hacking is allowed, abusing gov't authority to compel is cheating. I don't think it's really the same as "what they were asking for" at all. a.) they didn't compel a company to secretly do it for them b.) the back door is targeted, I.e. not mass surveillance As far as I understand, they did the work themselves (modified android OS), and their methods were targeted. A "bad guy" could only get this special, hacked phone, from other "bad guys". This wasn't the same thing as, sending a mole to get work at Cisco and install an undetectable zero-day in all communication infrastructure switches world-wide. And it's definitely a far cry from forcing apple to make a modified iOS on their behalf. No, they pretty much did what hackers do, and as far as I'm concerned, that's fair game.
- 5y ago

motorocool 5y ago

Never never use a mobile phone if you're a dirty criminal

emsign 5y ago

People were onto Anom already figuring out it wasn't what it pretended to be. Site got deleted shortly after the raid. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3APwQXt6Sn_YwJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fanomexposed.wordpress.com%2F+ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3APwQX...

chriselles 5y ago

ANOM seems like a shorter/sharper law enforcement version of the CIA's Cold War era intelligence operation when they purchased Swiss encrypted communication company Crypto AG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

mickotron 5y ago

Should've used signal