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‘Every message was copied to the police’

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#11

Post by oh_sigh »

badRNG wrote: post #6

> There, since 2018, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Tola) has allowed government agencies to compel telecommunications providers to allow authorities to intercept criminal messages – powers that are not yet available to police elsewhere in the world. That "yet" is terrifying. If you thought the PATRIOT Act was an overstep, you need to read TOLA. This is the revival of the crypto wars. Good wr…

How does one even know they are criminal messages if they haven't already been intercepted?

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#12

Post by sumnole »

bitwize wrote: post #2

> Now that the workings have been revealed, An0m is a trick that could surely never be repeated in the world of organised crime. The revelations will push criminals away from technology, even if it makes their work more laborious and slow-moving. I can imagine future organized crime information flows more closely resembling what was depicted in John Wick: a lot of secretaries and file clerks pushing paper around, usi…

Besides criminals, even legitimate businesses might start to prefer offline methods. With the decline of privacy comes corporate espionage and that's no good for business.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#13

Post by dankent »

bowmessage wrote: post #8
sharklazer wrote: post #5

Never outsource security if you actually want security...

Never roll your own security if you actually want security, either. What are we supposed to do :).

It's definitely a dilemma. I guess the sweet spot would be security systems that are well understood in house but built on existing, well understood and studied standards and theory.

A starting point might be to use battle-tested open source systems but subject them to detailed in-house analysis and audit.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#14

Post by sharklazer »

bowmessage wrote: post #8
sharklazer wrote: post #5

Never outsource security if you actually want security...

Never roll your own security if you actually want security, either. What are we supposed to do :).

Oh, indeed, unless you're DJB, never roll your own. I mean you should understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, not leave it up to someone else to make decisions for you. Not that you should re-invent the wheel. :-)

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#15

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

> Every single message sent on the app since its launch in 2018 – 19.37m of them – had been collected, and many of them read by the Australian federal police (AFP) who, together with the FBI, had conceived, built, marketed and sold the devices.

I wonder how many crypto currency tumblers are actually run by law enforcement?

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#16

Post by icu »

The striking thing is that criminal enterprise relies on software as much as any other legitimate business. The adage "software is eating the world" comes to mind. It's probably the case that more technically adept criminals will roll their own tech and out manoeuvre rival criminals and law enforcement. Considering the sums of money discussed in the article it's not inconceivable for criminal organisations to start creating their own dev teams.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#17

Post by dredmorbius »

anm89 wrote: post #4

This title is useless

The 2nd phrase is somewhat more informative: "the inside story of the most daring surveillance sting in history"

HN has an 80-character maximum length, submitters have to make choices. That said, I'd have gone with the 2nd phrase here.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#18

Post by kube-system »

sumnole wrote: post #12
bitwize wrote: post #2

> Now that the workings have been revealed, An0m is a trick that could surely never be repeated in the world of organised crime. The revelations will push criminals away from technology, even if it makes their work more laborious and slow-moving. I can imagine future organized crime information flows more closely resembling what was depicted in John Wick: a lot of secretaries and file clerks pushing paper around, usi…

Besides criminals, even legitimate businesses might start to prefer offline methods. With the decline of privacy comes corporate espionage and that's no good for business.

Legitimate businesses can much more easily avoid being scammed by vendors because their legitimate businesses are protected by the legal system. They also can openly discuss their experiences with vendors, because they're not hiding from anyone.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#19

Post by ttyprintk »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #15

> Every single message sent on the app since its launch in 2018 – 19.37m of them – had been collected, and many of them read by the Australian federal police (AFP) who, together with the FBI, had conceived, built, marketed and sold the devices. I wonder how many crypto currency tumblers are actually run by law enforcement?

I wonder that, too. Seems like a fruitful point to introduce logic waiting for a blacklisted address.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#20

Post by infogulch »

oh_sigh wrote: post #11
badRNG wrote: post #6

> There, since 2018, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Tola) has allowed government agencies to compel telecommunications providers to allow authorities to intercept criminal messages – powers that are not yet available to police elsewhere in the world. That "yet" is terrifying. If you thought the PATRIOT Act was an overstep, you need to read TOLA. This is the revival of the crypto wars. Good wr…

How does one even know they are criminal messages if they haven't already been intercepted?

Messages on their own are considered criminal until proven otherwise, just like your cash (see civil forfeiture). I wish I could add /s
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