by ferros on 6/8/21, 3:56 AM with 348 comments
by femto on 6/8/21, 6:18 AM
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.
by flashman on 6/8/21, 6:03 AM
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...
by cromka on 6/8/21, 7:12 AM
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
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-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."
by michaelmrose on 6/8/21, 5:25 AM
by asimpletune on 6/8/21, 5:40 PM
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.
by Santosh83 on 6/8/21, 5:24 AM
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.
by janmo on 6/8/21, 11:11 AM
- 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.
by rbobby on 6/8/21, 10:19 AM
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.
by turbinerneiter on 6/8/21, 9:26 AM
by na85 on 6/8/21, 5:03 AM
by spicyramen on 6/8/21, 6:59 AM
by hemloc_io on 6/8/21, 1:34 PM
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.
by 31tor on 6/8/21, 5:26 AM
by janmo on 6/8/21, 11:19 AM
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.
by yawaworht1978 on 6/8/21, 8:54 AM
by jliptzin on 6/8/21, 10:03 AM
by ferros on 6/8/21, 5:06 AM
by cylde_frog on 6/8/21, 5:24 AM
by bloqs on 6/8/21, 8:05 AM
"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?
by nneonneo on 6/8/21, 6:52 AM
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.
by Tabular-Iceberg on 6/8/21, 11:08 AM
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.
by chriselles on 6/8/21, 11:39 PM
by yawaworht1978 on 6/8/21, 12:18 PM
by reedjosh on 6/8/21, 4:34 PM
by woeirua on 6/8/21, 1:28 PM
by emsign on 6/8/21, 7:15 PM
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3APwQX...
by mdeck_ on 6/8/21, 12:07 PM
by AlexCoventry on 6/8/21, 2:39 PM
by pelasaco on 6/8/21, 7:33 AM
Probably the next season of the "StartUp" TV series
by ComodoHacker on 6/8/21, 1:25 PM
I can see how strong was the temptation to continue and see how far it could go.
by graderjs on 6/8/21, 11:15 AM
by Synaesthesia on 6/8/21, 10:35 AM
by hsbauauvhabzb on 6/8/21, 7:46 AM
by motorocool on 6/8/21, 6:23 PM
by dboreham on 6/8/21, 12:21 PM
by raldi on 6/8/21, 1:30 PM
by mickotron on 6/9/21, 2:08 AM
by premium-komodo on 6/8/21, 5:09 AM
by Taniwha on 6/8/21, 5:12 AM
The following thread looks at some of the opened court documents today:
https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123
(and points out that the Trump organisation might be in trouble ....)
by intricatedetail on 6/8/21, 8:19 AM
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.
by rohanstake on 6/8/21, 6:50 AM
The argument, it is used by criminals is flawed. Because everything is - water pipelines, cash, facebook, and so on.
