Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

abc.net.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 361 posts

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#111

Post by walrus01 »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #26
senectus1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from what I understand they developed the app themselves... marketed and pushed the app to certain "dark markets" and let them use the apps and devices as if they were secure. they were in fact real time monitoring every transaction. amazing really. and pretty funny if you asked me :-P

Not funny. Pretty much worse fucking case scenario. Imagine Signal, Telegram, or any other app that touts themselves as a secure app is really just the creation of the FBI, NSA, CIA, and NRO. Remember, yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s reality.

If moxie marlinespike is a deep cover agent he's been cultivating a whole character and persona for a very long time. I'd lean towards the "not a NSA plant" view myself.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#112

Post by ta135135135 »

WalterBright wrote: post #87
spoonjim wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t get to declare what is unethical by adding the sentence “Period.” after your claim. Ethics is a matter of opinion; I believe that knowingly aiding violent criminals is wrong; if you feel otherwise, that’s just like, your, opinion, man.

Everyone is entitled (in the US) to due process and a lawyer to defend them. There is nothing unethical or immoral about it. It's a fundamental right .

Which is good and fair. I think the example was Tony Soprano though and the (imaginary) lawyer in question knew full well the kind of shennanigans he was up to, these lawyers know they're defending murderers and people that ruin lives.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#113

Post by wruza »

vbezhenar wrote: post #84
mardifoufs wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and for some reason wickr is Imo even more popular than signal in those circles. It's curious since I've basically never heard of wickr here or in any cybersec community & signal seems to be the daily messaging app for tons of people. I guess it's something to do with the phone verification required by Signal... and I'd guess both apps are pretty similar when it comes to security?

I've heard that in Russia and Kazakhstan drug dealers use Telegram. It just might be a local fashion, when few people started using it and spread it around. I don't think that it's difficult to find phone number tied to unrelated person. Just ask some homeless guy to buy one.

Western naivety. Unbound / fake data SIM cards are sold in boxes by carrier’s employees.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#114

Post by Clewza313 »

FatalLogic wrote: post #83
femto wrote: post #43

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: 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. I…

>the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"

That study computes that you're 7x more likely to get murdered in prison than in the "comparable non-prison community", but "comparable" here seems to be only for age/gender.

I imagine the homicide rate is a wee bit higher than average for drug kingpins, particularly those seen to have ratted out 100+ people, even unintentionally.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#115

Post by gonzo41 »

FatalLogic wrote: post #83
femto wrote: post #43

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: 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. I…

>the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"

He would be going to Golbourn Gaol, very very high security.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#116

Post by adolph »

flukus wrote: post #66
cylde_frog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder about this too. What sort of people do international criminal organisations hire to manage their info-sec? A criminal that became a computer expert or a computer expert that became a criminal?

Well the criminal organizations can offer a whole range of addictive non-monetary incentives that a computer expert may desire, so I'd guess that's the main path in. There's more unemployed tech people out there than many here realize though. People that don't present well in interviews, people that didn't stay employ-ably current in tech, hardware guys replaced by the cloud, people in less hot locations for tech, et…

> People that don't present well in interviews

Those are the worst. There was this one candidate who gave all the interviewers mousepads with his picture and aol email address on it. Who even wants that kind of stuff? The best ones give some candy, like there was someone who gave us gum with a custom printed wrapper “Hope I ‘stick’ in your mind!”

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#117

Post by gonzo41 »

simondotau wrote: post #71
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily Tradeoffs. Traditional tradecraft would inhibit such discovery methods. But it's slow and expensive. Your competitors would outmaneuv…

Nothing wrong with inhibiting growth in return for long term stability. Does it matter if your competition is more daring—if they aren't going to last very long? If anything, they might serve as a useful distraction.

Your thinking like a lifestyle business criminal enterprise when you should be thinking like a hungry startup. If you go slow and steady someone will try and eat your lunch. Big criminal enterprises have all the same scaling issues that regular companies do.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#118

Post by fvold »

spoonjim wrote: post #89
WalterBright wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is entitled (in the US) to due process and a lawyer to defend them. There is nothing unethical or immoral about it. It's a fundamental right .

Again, ethics are a matter of opinion, laws are a matter of fact. Yes, in the US you have the legal right to an attorney. Whether that attorney is behaving ethically depends on the attorney’s behavior and the person making the judgment on the ethics. You and I don’t have to have the same opinion on what’s ethical. We can each advocate for our own ideas of ethics to be codified into policy.

Lawyers, even in the United States, are bound by rules of conduct, and will stop being lawyers very quickly if the overstep the rules of ethical conduct.

The standards of ethics they are checked against are not yours or mine, they are the rules they agreed to. To pretend like ethics aren't a thing for lawyers is surprisingly uninformed for HN.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#119

Post by yawaworht1978 »

It seems like there is a bust of these "safe" devices every other month. And the groups trust them again, when will they learn, do not use a phone or computer. One of the last Italian capos would pass on messages on pieces of paper or verbally. And still got busted, but after a life time.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#120

Post by skhr0680 »

FatalLogic wrote: post #83
femto wrote: post #43

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: 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. I…

>the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"

Prison sure kept Carl Williams safe. Safe from dying of old age!
Post reply on HN