‘Every message was copied to the police’ • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#61

Post by dylan604 » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

jimt1234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading a while back that judges were signing off on surveillance warrants based on messages using any sort of encryption (like https), because obviously anyone encrypting a message is up to no-good. /s ;)

> based on messages using any sort of encryption (like https) I hope you're strongly /s, because if HTTPS being used as transport is enough to rubber-stamp a warrant, then this is in practice a blanket agreement to surveil all communications on the Internet.

you state that like it's not the intended end goal. everything is a step towards this.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#62

Post by athenot » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

shoto_io wrote: post #58

dredmorbius wrote: post #25

There've been a number of earlier HN discusions of this story: 5 days ago, 31 points, 5 comments: The story of An0m Chat, Run by the Police https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490871 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/11/insid... 3 months ago, 130 points, 62 comments: Why no-one in America was arrested as part of Operation Ironside https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509550 https://www.abc.net.…

This is an interesting feature idea for HN! Can someone please build this? Restrictions: You may only use Rust and sparkle some AI on it.

The "past" link at the top right under the article title provides this already.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#63

Post by dang » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #62

shoto_io wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting feature idea for HN! Can someone please build this? Restrictions: You may only use Rust and sparkle some AI on it.

The "past" link at the top right under the article title provides this already.

It provides the rudiments of it. I think the sweet spot will be adding support for community curation, the way dredmorbius did above. We were just talking about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28613646.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#64

Post by notyourday » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #21

bowmessage wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Use one time pads

If you have a way to security distribute one time pads you don't actually need one time pads as you have a way to security distribute the messages as the one time pads are higher than the size of the messages you are distributing.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#65

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

shoto_io wrote: post #58

dredmorbius wrote: post #25

There've been a number of earlier HN discusions of this story: 5 days ago, 31 points, 5 comments: The story of An0m Chat, Run by the Police https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490871 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/11/insid... 3 months ago, 130 points, 62 comments: Why no-one in America was arrested as part of Operation Ironside https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509550 https://www.abc.net.…

This is an interesting feature idea for HN! Can someone please build this? Restrictions: You may only use Rust and sparkle some AI on it.

Boolean syntax doesn't work (e.g., terms grouped with parentheses), but the individual searches do:

an0m: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

operation ironside: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

operation trojan shield: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

You can also search comments; many of the headlines, as in this case, don't mention any of the keywords used here, and I turned up most of the articles based on comment search.

I'd recalled the investigation sufficiently to know that it had been mentioned, and what search terms were likely to turn it up.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#66

Post by notyourday » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

yholio wrote: post #22

dankent wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like it would be a big win for law enforcement. If you can force your opponent to avoid some modern ways to communicate, you can put a big dent in their efficiency. It's possible that paranoia might lead to criminals avoiding even technology that they could be using safely, further slowing them down. An old fashioned system also seems like it would require more people, opening up more opportunities for hu…

Or they could learn to use Signal. Properly installed (F-Droid) on off-the-shelf phones with fresh prepaid sims and OS updates disabled, it can be considered secure software against all but the most sophisticated adversaries. Then, simply verify the handshake key for your contacts, and you can be sure there is no man in the middle attack. Rotate phone+sim every 2 months, while keeping the same "outside" number, say,…

> Properly installed (F-Droid) on off-the-shelf phones with fresh prepaid sims and OS updates disabled, it can be considered secure software against all but the most sophisticated adversaries.

IMEI will identify the phone.

Signal does not work well without GCM.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#67

Post by rkk3 » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

> the FBI, had conceived, built, marketed and sold the devices.

> $1,700 for the handset, with a $1,250 annual subscription

> Almost 10,000 users around the world had agreed to pay

So the FBI built a 8 figure ARR hardware business...

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#68

Post by 28619242 » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

The sad thing about this technology is that it's routinely used, as enumerated in this article, to a completely worthless end. Cocaine should not be illegal anywhere, nor should surveillance stings be set up to entrap people.

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#69

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

earnesti wrote: post #52

chongli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s one case. It doesn’t apply to all criminal organizations. The cartels in Mexico are sophisticated enough to build their own cell networks [1] to evade wiretapping. Why couldn’t they also recruit engineers to build their own crypto and secure protocols? [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143442365/mexico-busts-drug-c...

Also, there are lot of open source software in the space - no need to develop your own, just scan the code for backdoors.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Every message was copied to the police’

#70

Post by tyingq » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

ARandomerDude wrote: post #30

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #26

Interesting thing about intercepting messages which are encrypted using modern encryption protocols like OTR is deniability. If a police installs MitM on a server, it can't cryptographically prove that messages were originating from criminals, not written themselves.

True but it can be shown to be plausibly written by the defendant if there's no reasonable way the police could have known details without the message being intercepted. For example: "Hey Bill, I'm going to steal the car at 123 Anywhere Street on Thursday at 2 am." Police then put a camera at 123 Anywhere St., and a reasonable juror would likely conclude there are two lines of legitimate evidence.

And there's parallel construction to avoid mentioning the wiretap at all. Cop calls the station from a burner phone and pretends to be an anonymous tipster..."Hey someone is stealing a car at 123 Anywhere..."