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Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

abc.net.au

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

#121

Post by rhaps0dy »

ta135135135 wrote: post #112
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 .

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.

But that’s the point of lawyers. When they defend a guilty party, most of the time they know that the party is indeed guilty. They need to, to prepare a good defence.

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

#122

Post by srmarm »

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…

Never mind people who struggle to get a job in IT because of a previous criminal record. Those people may also have been in prison and made connections while inside.

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

#123

Post by ChrisKnott »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #105
bloqs wrote: post #103

From the Vice Motherboard article: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-... "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," Any ideas as to why?

Maybe undercover agents? Diplomats?

They might have been IDed as non-criminal. You get the odd crime/drugs reporter who uses the devices, e.g. this interview was conducted on a SkyECC phone https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wj5d/prison-drug-dealer-cr... (another CDSC platform that was recently hacked).

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

#124

Post by jay_kyburz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67
michaelmrose wrote: post #9

Does 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.

> 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…

This whole things makes me wonder why the criminals don't just put their communications in an envelope and wack a 50c stamp on it.

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

#125

Post by WJW »

bloqs wrote: post #103

From the Vice Motherboard article: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-... "This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI)," Any ideas as to why?

The FBI can't inspect data about Americans without a warrant, which they presumably don't have. The other countries who were in on this have no such restrictions and will read the messages by American citizens just fine. They may or may not decide to tip off the FBI if there is evidence of crime in the messages, and the FBI at that point would have "reasonable suspicion" and could acquire a warrant based on that.

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

#126

Post by jeltz »

wruza wrote: post #113
vbezhenar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can still buy SIM cards in Sweden in stores without presenting an ID.

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

#128

Post by fvold »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #92

How would this be any different to creating a global back door in signal, wikr or slack?

The main difference is that by building their own honey pot, they did not have to rely on an external actor to maintain any secrecy.

If they dug their claws into wikr, they'd have to worry about leaks from every single person involved with wikr on top of all potential leaks from law enforcement personnel.

Also, I suspect it's easier to get the warrants needed to create a sting from the ground up than it is for several different law enforcement agencies around the world to each get separate warrants to access wikr/slack/discord/whatever's data.

Once the data legally exists in a law enforcement database, it is relatively simple bureaucracy to share it with allied organizations.

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

#129

Post by WJW »

pelasaco wrote: post #82

Nice one, but i guess if this whole operation was still a secret, we could pull this trick over and over again? Now will be hard to disguise an app like that. Probably the next season of the "StartUp" TV series

This is already the third or fourth such app that was either infiltrated by the police, taken over by the police or outright constructed by them. Criminals have a vested interest in getting access to encrypted communications and they know that all of the common phone OSes and chat apps are compromised, so they will be looking to join such secure networks. This need for security is what makes the continued use of these operations by law enforcement viable, since criminals have no choice but to seek out these encrypted apps.

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

#130

Post by yawaworht1978 »

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 .

It is a thin line, most of these groups are in contact with lawyer teams before they start the operations and the lawyers are in the know. These groups do risk assessment before going ahead.
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