How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime • Hacker News Board

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#21

Post by fulafel » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

TomMarius wrote: post #11

vianneychevalie wrote: post #2

I'm very curious as to which legal basis French authorities have had for this coordinated state-level hack. It's mentioned that they had one, but nothing more specific, even in French media I've looked up.

Police has legal rights (given they do it by protocol and with judicial oversight) for most kinds of interception and monitoring, whether they do it by force or by asking does not matter - in most or all of EU.

Not so - you need evidence backed suspicion of a serious crime in the eu jurisdictions I know of. And even then it needs to be narrowly targeted to individuals.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#22

Post by johnmarcus » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #15

When I read this I see a a niche, super premium hardware company that managed to acquire tens of thousands of customers by word of mouth. Not only that, their customers are all in-effect self employed or small businesses with huge average revenue per employee. They manage global supply chains, intense competition, all while taking on and managing huge legal/compliance risk. How is is that supposedly "dumb," criminals…

Your making a big assumption that criminal==stupid. Every single criminal has the exact human capacity of everyone else, the difference is in education. Check your privilege.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#23

Post by ponker » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #20

save_ferris wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t just an app, Encrochat sold a modified android phone that had its camera and GPS physically removed and its custom app pre-installed. Based on the article, Encrochat didn’t sound like a fully legitimate company and may have been run by criminals as well. The part I found interesting is how these vendors often block competitor apps and services from working on their phones, essentially requiring everyone to…

>It wasn’t just an app, Encrochat sold a modified android phone that had its camera and GPS physically removed I doubt that provides significant value. Cameras aren't too hard to disable yourself, just use black tape. They probably didn't disable to microphones, which arguably provide at least more valuable information than a camera. They removed the GPS module, but you can probably get the same info with better accu…

But it’s verifiable for your counterparty. If you’re on Encrochat you know that your counterparty has no GPS in their phone.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#24

Post by the137 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #15

When I read this I see a a niche, super premium hardware company that managed to acquire tens of thousands of customers by word of mouth. Not only that, their customers are all in-effect self employed or small businesses with huge average revenue per employee. They manage global supply chains, intense competition, all while taking on and managing huge legal/compliance risk. How is is that supposedly "dumb," criminals…

Theres a saying in business 'sales cure all' meaning that no matter what else is going on, having enough/more sales is an answer to the problem

Sales is also all about creating emotion in the buyer. For drugs, that emotion is present without a salesman having to do anything.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#25

Post by eitland » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

wyck wrote: post #14

sweeneyrod wrote: post #5

Why would criminals use these kinds of apps rather than e.g. Signal?

Also signal complies with all police and government request, even if it's just meta data "supposedly".

> and government request, even if it's just meta data "supposedly".

If you have evidence that unencrypted data might be leaked from Signal (except by a rootkit on the phone, tampered update or by someone having physical access to the phone) you might have a real scoop on your hands and you should contact project zero or someone for a bounty and then a journalist so you can bask in the glory.

If you don't have anything I suggest abstaining from writing in a way that suggests that until you find something.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#26

Post by motohagiography » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

johnmarcus wrote: post #22

motohagiography wrote: post #15

When I read this I see a a niche, super premium hardware company that managed to acquire tens of thousands of customers by word of mouth. Not only that, their customers are all in-effect self employed or small businesses with huge average revenue per employee. They manage global supply chains, intense competition, all while taking on and managing huge legal/compliance risk. How is is that supposedly "dumb," criminals…

Your making a big assumption that criminal==stupid. Every single criminal has the exact human capacity of everyone else, the difference is in education. Check your privilege.

Point of order to mods on this, is "check your privilege," within the realm of civil discourse? It seems unnecessarily provocative. However, if it is fair game, my response would be "check your reading comprehension," as the further implication of my comment is that societies are locking up their most entrepreneurial and productive members for creating too much value. Using the privilege dog whistle is just cheap intimidation. I'm upvoting this because sweeping it away with downvotes doesn't do it justice.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#27

Post by the-dude » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

Shikiju wrote: post #19

twic wrote: post #12

> The messages "have given insight in an unprecedented large number of serious crimes, including [...] murders, thrashing robberies, extortions, robberies [...]" Dutch law enforcement said. What are "thrashing robberies"? Is this an odd translation of some Dutch term?

Translates to "vernieling' which probably means vandalism is this context. but most likely its just aggravated robbery. its a bad translation for sure

"Kapot maken" (breaking something) is what the Dutch police calls this.

If they get a hunch of a crime in preparation ( killing/liquiditation or robberies ), they might contact future victim and suspect to tell them they are aware.

This usually is enough to stop the crime.

edit: my explanation does not seem to fit the context, will look into it.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#28

Post by gruez » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

ponker wrote: post #23

gruez wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It wasn’t just an app, Encrochat sold a modified android phone that had its camera and GPS physically removed I doubt that provides significant value. Cameras aren't too hard to disable yourself, just use black tape. They probably didn't disable to microphones, which arguably provide at least more valuable information than a camera. They removed the GPS module, but you can probably get the same info with better accu…

But it’s verifiable for your counterparty. If you’re on Encrochat you know that your counterparty has no GPS in their phone.

But what's the threat model here? That your counterparty's phone has been compromised? In that case they can be leaking location through wifi/cell signals as mentioned earlier. There's also nothing preventing the counterparty from carrying a gps-enabled phone with him, which would be trivially linked to his Encrochat phone if he takes them both to the same locations.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#29

Post by black_puppydog » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

So did I miss anything here, or is this a story of how law enforcement took over an entire fleet of devices, put a rootkit on all of them, and the only reason we know about it is that the company seems to have had a solid reason (wouldn't call it backbone in this specific case) to publish the whole thing?

It reads to me like, had Encrophone not opted to inform all their customers, this would have simply gone on?

I have a hard time condemning the specific case here, but if you substitute any other phone manufacturer here, this becomes quite obviously scary.

Re: How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime

#30

Post by bathtub365 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #17

If the police can plant malware on a device, then they can also plant evidence on a device. What percentage of these people are being framed? 10%? 50%? No way of knowing.

Yes or even 0%.