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

#51

Post by ciarannolan » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 6:50 AM 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.

Well, presumably not the ones with "77 firearms, including an AK47 assault rifle, sub machine guns, handguns, four grenades, and over 1,800 rounds of ammunition" or "More than two tonnes of Class A and B drugs have also been seized by police, as well as 55 sports cars, 73 luxury watches and over 28 million street Valium pills – a drug that has caused a number of deaths in Scotland."

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

#52

Post by rusk » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #21

TomMarius wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted cause this is my understanding of the legality too ...

In my mind the key is that it’s the French that did it ...

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

#53

Post by rusk » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 8:02 AM UTC

black_puppydog wrote: post #29

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 ha…

My understanding is that the police intervened because multiple violent crimes were in the offing. Otherwise yeah I guess they would have gone on using it to spy on criminals

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

#54

Post by rusk » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 8:04 AM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #34

Got a 2-year heads up https://hn.algolia.com/?q=encrochat

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16229863

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

#55

Post by julienfr112 » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 8:13 AM UTC

ciarannolan wrote: post #50

speedgoose wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's explained in this French PDF : http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Documents/2020-07-02_Enc...

Can a French speaker please give us a tldr?

in 2017, French Gendarmerie ( a part of the french public order system, that work outside the big city - Police is working in the big city. It's a join branch of army and interior ministry. It has a good reputation with computer, like using linux) detected phones in criminal affairs. In 2019, a project called Cerberus was create with 60 gendarmes full time working on the case. They investigated servers located in france and tapped communications of theses servers. In 2020, EncroChat issue a warning that their servers where compromised by the police. avril 2020, joint operation with the nederland police mai 2020 : all your base are belong to us Every investigation was legal and within the control of judges from the french legal system.

post scripton

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

#56

Post by vianneychevalie » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

ciarannolan wrote: post #50

speedgoose wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's explained in this French PDF : http://www.eurojust.europa.eu/press/Documents/2020-07-02_Enc...

Can a French speaker please give us a tldr?

A judge was heading the investigation and provided the legal go-ahead for the actions. The legal justification is twofold: evidence of organized crime uncovered in a preliminary investigation and (!) lack of declaration of cryptographic solution deployment , which is apparently a thing [0] when it’a not used for authentication or data integrity control!

I’m extremely surprised by the latter, it seems that one has to declare any operational use of cryptography when it’s not for those two uses.

[0] https://www.ssi.gouv.fr/uploads/2015/03/ANNEXE-I.pdf

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

#57

Post by speedgoose » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

vianneychevalie wrote: post #56

ciarannolan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a French speaker please give us a tldr?

A judge was heading the investigation and provided the legal go-ahead for the actions. The legal justification is twofold: evidence of organized crime uncovered in a preliminary investigation and (!) lack of declaration of cryptographic solution deployment , which is apparently a thing [0] when it’a not used for authentication or data integrity control! I’m extremely surprised by the latter, it seems that one has to…

The latter is indeed very surprising. I'm considering to submit a few for fun.

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

#58

Post by ciarannolan » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

julienfr112 wrote: post #55

ciarannolan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a French speaker please give us a tldr?

in 2017, French Gendarmerie ( a part of the french public order system, that work outside the big city - Police is working in the big city. It's a join branch of army and interior ministry. It has a good reputation with computer, like using linux) detected phones in criminal affairs. In 2019, a project called Cerberus was create with 60 gendarmes full time working on the case. They investigated servers located in fra…

Thanks!

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

#59

Post by mbrodersen » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 5:54 AM 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.

Yeah. It might even be 0% who is framed!

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

#60

Post by johnmarcus » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #26

johnmarcus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

> "You can succeed with a crew of violent, drug addicted idiots whose only reliable characteristic is short term thinking, and who spend half their time in prison if you have product market fit"

My comment stands. And further, drugs don't sell themselves, a lot of good hard work and smarts goes into it. It's unfortunately the only easy avenue for those without an education and steady home life.